Parochial Parallels

Accession Number P75-54-0816g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,

Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

The exponential growth in student populations in Baltimore during the 1920s was not confined solely to the public schools.  The city's Catholic schools experienced similar population explosions.  During his 18-year tenure as the leader of the city’s parochial schools, starting in 1921, Archbishop Michael Curley raised 30 million dollars and led the parochial school system on a similar program of expansion to accommodate Baltimore’s schoolchildren.

Plans Realized

Accession Number P75-54-1300g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,

Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

The caption associated with this glass plate negative of Clifton Park Junior High in the collection at UMBC includes the phrase "for school board."  I imagine the Hughes Company being given this assignment to provide proof of work completed and plans realized.  The architectural drawings featured earlier in Growing Baltimore look like they have come to life in photos like these.

Campus Concept

The Montebello School, which opened in 1923, overlooks Lake Montebello.  It was designed to include outdoor "play pavilions" and a separate building to house its auditorium/gymnasium.  Today, this site is known as Montebello Elementary Junior Academy, located at 2040 East 32nd Street.  

In the two views below, you can compare the remarkably unchanged facade of the building at the time of its construction and now.  The "street view" from Google Maps will allow you to click, zoom, and pan in order to interact with the environment around the building.  Can you find the outdoor play pavilions?

Image Number PP30.162 [now part of PP8] Hughes Studio Photograph Collection, 

Maryland Historical Society

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Celebrating Clifton Park High

Image Number PP30.152 [now part of PP8] Hughes Studio Photograph Collection, 

Maryland Historical Society

This image of the cornerstone laying at Clifton High School in 1924 is more interesting when one considers the events preceding this ceremony, including a scandal about the substitution of sub-standard construction materials and public outcry over the school's location close to a busy traffic corridor on Harford Road at 25th Street.

Architect's Rendering

Accession Number P75-54-1481g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,

Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

An architect's wash drawing shows plans for Forest Park School #69 in the West Arlington area of the city.  On January 18, 1922, the Baltimore Sun reported that 14.5 acres had been purchased between West Forest Park and Arlington for the new school, designed to accommodate 2,000 pupils and to relieve overcrowding at nearby school #64.  This  location actually straddled the boundary between the old city and newly annexed areas.  The building's cornerstone was laid by Mayor Broening at a ceremony on May 7, 1923.

Education by Design

Accession Number P75-54-0005g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,

Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

This architect's drawing of a school building designed by Clyde S. Adams in 1923 illustrates some of the distinctive changes that took place in new school construction in the 1920s and 1930s.  The buildings themselves were larger and more spacious than previous structures.  Elementary schools were designed to hold 850 students; junior and senior high schools were made for up to 2,500 students.  In her book, Baltimore: The Building of an American City, Sherry Olson describes some of the new features added to schools: park-like campuses, playgrounds, lawns, landscaping, and flagpoles.  Inside, the buildings were equipped with modernized electricity, natural light, central steam heating, and multiple staircases for emergency exit.

Multi-Purpose Schools

Accession Number P75-54-0249g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,

Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Public schools in poor and working class areas of the city performed multiple functions in the lives of the students.  As historical geographer Sherry Olson points out, these schools were designed with "the strategy of processing the great unwashed and Americanizing the foreign-born worker." (Baltimore, 306)

Accession Number P75-54-1513g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,

Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

The boys in the image above were photographed by the Hughes Company on July 12, 1922 in showers at School #108, located on Caroline Street near Bank Street in Southeast Baltimore.  An excerpt from the Strayer Report describes #108 in the following way:

The playground is totally inadequate for the children housed in this building, since only 7.6 square   feet are available per child. The complete lack of corridors, the unsatisfactory nature of the fire-escapes and the poor toilet provisions are such as to require that this building be given immediate attention. There are structural faults in this building which should be remedied at once if this building is to remain in use. (Strayer, 182)

Light Industrial

Accession Number P75-54-0244g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,

Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Another view of a portable classroom at Warren and Williams Streets, 1923.  This space clearly focuses on vocational training, which helped prepare children from the working classes for future factory work.

Role of Education

Accession Number P75-54-N574g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,

Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

I am drawn to this photo, perhaps because it shows students in the context of their physical environment.  Taken in May of 1923, this class photo shows students at the Curtis Bay School on a concrete retaining wall in front of a building that appears to be made of cinder block.  To my eye, this building could as easily be a factory as a school house.  The Strayer Report describes this school in the following terms: "Inadequate site--Playground 17 square feet--Inadequate fire protection--Impossible fire escape--Inadequate artificial light." (Strayer 368)

Modular Spaces

Accession Number P75-54-0241g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,

Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

This interior view of the portable school house at Warren and Williams Streets shows several environmental features that progressive reformers sought to advance.  Although the desks are pushed close together, this classroom includes large windows for natural light and a source of heat, shown near the back of the room.

1920s Prefab

Accession Number P75-54-0242g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,

Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Modular classrooms are something I associate with relatively contemporary times, so the sight of portable classrooms in the 1920s was a surprise! This portable school house at Warren and Williams Streets in South Baltimore was photographed by the Hughes Company for the Winter Homes Corporation in May of 1923.  It may have been an extension of the old Southern High School, which was built at this intersection in 1910, expanded in 1926 and 1956, and replaced by a newer building on Covington Street in 1978.

Student Population Soars

Accession Number P75-54-N490g, Hughes Company Glass Negatives Collection,
Courtesy of the Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Changing laws about child labor and the age of mandatory school attendance led to a student population boom in Baltimore's schools in the 1920s.  Students were met with a severe shortage of classroom space, buildings in terrible physical condition, and a slow municipal response to remedy the situation.  This image shows Nathaniel Ramsey School #96 at Smallwood and Ashton Streets in the Carrollton Ridge neighborhood, where the total enrollment in June of 1920 was 554.

Researching Schools and Water

Some of the books and online resources used to research these themes are available here.  Or, to view the complete bibliography for these two topics...

Strayer Report

The Strayer School Survey, commissioned by the city in 1921, was an important planning document that led to significant improvements in the Baltimore's schools.  Public shock produced by the Strayer Survey led to three large loans, totaling 32 million dollars, for school construction in the 1930s. As a result of this funding, fifteen new schools were built and increases were seen in teacher salaries and schools' operating budgets.

Included below is an online version of the Strayer Report, which has been digitized by the Google Book project.  See for yourself the kinds of detailed information this survey provided about the physical conditions at the city's public schools.