Have We Underestimated the Extent of Antebellum High School Attendance?

Abstract

Public schools were relatively rare in antebellum America. The first public school in the United States opened in Boston in 1821, but was not until the late 1840s and 1850s, when there was a rapid expansion of public schools throughout the commonwealth, that they became more common in Massachusetts.' Most communities in other states, especially those outside of New England, did not provide public schools for their teenagers.2 Given the lack of public schools throughout the nation just before the Civil War, is not surprising that many scholars have concluded that only a small percentage of children ever attended them. Indeed, Edward Krug in his multivolume study of schools observed that even by the 1880s it was a rare thing to go to school.3 It is true that public schools did not exist in most antebellum communities. But in some regions, like New England, many cities and towns had established them. Did a significant proportion of adolescents in communities with public schools attend these institutions? Again, everyone seems to agree that even in those towns that had schools, only a tiny minority attended. Based on his detailed study of Massachusetts public schools, Michael Katz concluded that high schools were minority institutions probably attended mainly by middle-class chil-