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.

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)

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)

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.