History of Adult Education: 1930s (Keila Escobedo)

 

Adult Education in the 1930s: Education within Communities by Communities

 

Keila Escobedo

Ball State University

EDAC 631: Adult & Community Education

Dr. Bo Chang

February 13, 2021

 

Name	Commented on
Keila Escobedo	Micah S. Adkins-Estes Godwin Marcus Okyere

 

 

Introduction

                The 1930s in the United States is remembered in stark contrast to the previous 1920s. When one thinks of the 1920s, words such as “booming”, “roaring”, “golden”, “glamour”, and “party” may come to mind. In contrast, when one thinks of the 1930s, words such as “depression”, “dusty”, “dirty”, “poor”, and “crash” may be associated. However, when recognizing the country’s response to the events of the early 1930s, the words “transition”, “transformation”, and “new” are also valid words representative of the 1930s.

                The 1930s started with two historical events so pervasive and devastating, one could describe them as eras: the environmental phenomenon of 1930 that led to 6 years of regional rural economic hardship known as the Dust Bowl, and the industrialized world’s economic crash of 1929 that led to 10 years of severe economic distress known as the Great Depression (McLeman et al., 2013; Rauchway, 2008). Clearly, the aforementioned words “depression”, “dusty”, “dirty”, “poor”, and “crash” had relevance in this decade, but what about the mentioned “transition”, “transformation”, and “new”?

                In response to the challenges that economic downturns bring upon, Franklin D. Roosevelt passed The New Deal, a set of laws, policies, and programs aimed to reform the economic structure that allowed the Great Depression to occur. The New Deal started with the ambitious goals of “increasing public works, supporting agricultural prices, creating new mortgage markets, shortening the working day and week, regulating securities, restoring international trade, reforesting the countryside, and repealing prohibition”, and by the end of the 1930s, it had included “social insurance against old age, unemployment, and disability”, as well as “watershed management, support for unionization, deposit insurance”, and a stronger Federal Reserve System (Rauchway, 2008). These reforms re-shaped the United States not only in economic, but social ways, as well, as these effects are still present today.

Highlights

                A result of the economic distress and proposed reforms during this time led to increased civic education and engagement. People wanted to know more about the larger structures that affected their lives, and for some groups, this desire went past education and toward wanting to engage and take action. In the field of adult education, both of these intentions are represented in various adult learning spaces of the time.

                The decade of adult education in the 1930s began just after the establishment of the American Association for Adult Education (AAAE) in 1926. The AAAE, funded by Frederick Keppel of the Carnegie Corporation and led by Keppel’s former assistant, Morse Cartwright, piloted a number of adult education programs throughout the decade.  Keppel’s idea of adult education consisted of three elements: “1) a scientific approach to grant-making for adult education that emphasized independent experts, experimental programs, and presumed ideological neutrality of all those involved, 2) an emphasis on liberal arts and deliberative discussion throughout the curriculum, and 3) a belief in political moderation and gradual social change” (Nocera, 2018). These three values of adult education, according to Keppel, were reflected throughout the programs the AAAE funded.

Influential Factors

                “The American Way” was a five-year experimental civic education programs for adults. It was led by John. W. Studebaker first in his time as the superintendent of the Des Moines, Iowa school system and then as US Commissioner of Education. The Carnegie Corporation supplied Studebaker with a $125,000 grant to finance the programs, which started in Des Moines in 1933 (Kunzman et al., 2005). As the 1930s proved a tumultuous time for capitalist democracy, citizens who leaned politically left felt that The New Deal was a start, but that social reform was also necessary. Those who leaned right felt threatened by The New Deal, and thought of it as the beginning of the fall of capitalism and the rise of a “planned, collective economy” (Kunzman et al., 2005). The forums established by Studebaker offered a space for citizens with different views to come together and have discussions about these topics of national and/or international interest.

                The civic education forums were controlled by the local communities in which they resided. The local community widely controlled the format and topics discussed. Anyone with a view on the topic was welcome to speak and have their position critically examined by others in the group. The purpose of the forums was not to directly sway attendees one way or the other on a topic, but rather promote a practice of critical thinking and “open-minded inquiry” related to civic education that the school system lacked, but was necessary to have in adult life. It was emphasized that the forums were about civic education and deliberation, not civic engagement and action. Over the duration of the 5-year project, there were nearly 500 regular forum sites spanning over 43 states, and 2.5 million Americans participated (Kunzman et al., 2005).

                Another program funded by the Carnegie Corporation during the 1930s was the Harlem Experiment. The Harlem Experiment was an adult education program that took place at the Harlem branch of the New York Public Library. The Carnegie Corporation – white funders – promoted the ideology of “elite liberalism”, which valued liberal adult education for democratic citizenship. Alongside these funders, the program was led by several prominent black liberal reformers, including Eugene Kinckle Jones and Alain Locke. The Harlem Experiment could be seen as a “negotiation between these two groups over whether the black culture, politics, and protest that had developed in the 1902s Harlem could be deradicalized and incorporated within the funder’s…approach to philanthropy that emphasized ideological neutrality, scholarly professionalism, and political gradualism” (Nocera, 2018).

                The primary format of this program was the same as the “American Way” format – educational forums. However, the program also included art classes, community choruses, lectures in the park, and courses on black history. A notable aspect of this program and its contribution to the future of adult education was its focus on race. Alain Locke, the program evaluator, recognized a main focus of his reports couldn’t be on only evaluating the program, but also justifying the racial content. The Journal of Adult Education, published by the AAAE, had a massively white, academic readership, and Alain Locke, the evaluator of the Harlem Experiment, recognized a main focus of his reports couldn’t be on only evaluating the program, but also justifying the racial content. He supported the idea that black adult education should be based on “universal” values, but also noted that content that was race-specific functioned as a motivator for the black community to participate in the programs. Locke succinctly claimed that “if the funders wanted to reach the broadest audience possible in the black community, a focus on the black experience was the place to start” (Nocera, 2018).

                In the Appalachia Mountains, another discussion-based adult education program was forming. In 1932, the Highlander Folk School was opened by educator Myles Falls Horton. The goal of this program was to educate “rural and industrial leaders for a new social order” while honoring the “indigenous cultural values of the mountains” (Glen, 1988). Horton recognized that in order to have community buy-in, one had to demonstrate buy-in of a community, including its values and people. For the school’s first decade, they held workshops for potential union leaders and implemented programs for county residents related to cooperation, culture, and recreation. The school helped workers on strike, including coal miners, woodcutters, and textile mill hands. Toward the end of the decade in 1937, the Highlander Folk School staff had collaborated with the Committee for Industrial Organization, a southern labor organizer, to direct labor education programs in the south (Glen, 1988). The primary objective of the Highlander Folk School was to solve local issues with local people by hosting spaces for the community to discuss the issue, and take action to resolve it. In the sense that the learners of the workshops led the workshops, the Highlander Folk School method is similar to the “American Way” and Harlem Experiment community forums. The difference, at least between Studebaker’s and Horton’s ideologies, were the intention of the discussions. Studebaker valued education for one to be informed, but did not create the forums with any intention of promoting social action. Horton, on the other hand, values education as a direct means of promoting agency within communities to enact the social change they want to see.

Implications

                When looking at the common thread of notable adult education programs in the 1930s, two themes that have undoubtedly influenced the field today arise: 1) open discussion of social issues, and 2) emphasis on local control. The 1930s did not lack hot topics of national and international interest for discussion, from the global Great Depression, to the domestic Jim Crow Laws and New Deal, to the regional Dust Bowl. The emergence of local forums to discuss the issues that were important to that community is a format of civic engagement that only grew and still exists today in many forms.

                The emphasis on local control of adult education opportunities is also something still seen today through the use of needs assessments and critical questioning of power dynamics within a space. Furthermore, valuing the community and their learning interests is a reflection of the micro-level theory of learner-led adult education. Not only is the community the focus now, but the individual learners, as well.

                While one may think of words such as “dirty”, “poor”, or “crash” when it comes to the 1930s in the United States, it is clear that the emergency of such adult education programs were also a reflection of the decade’s illustrations of “transition”, “transformation”, and “new”. The field of adult education progresses as the world around adult learners changes, and the 1930s brought upon swift, foundational changes in every aspect of American life.

 

Area	Summary
Social Background	Great Depression, Dust Bowl, economic reform (FDR’s New Deal)
Highlights	Discussion-based community forums, open inquiry of issues related to national/international interest, “elite liberalism”
Influential Factors	American Association for Adult Education (AAAE), Carnegie Corporation, Highlander Folk School, “The American Way” public forums”, the Harlem Experiment
Implications	Emphasis on non-formal education settings, localized control of educational content, and open-inquiry discussions of community/national/international issues

                  

Sources

Glen, J. (1988). Highlander: No Ordinary School 1932-1962 (Vol. 4). Education in Appalachian Region. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_education_in_appalachian_region/4

Hilton, R. (1982). Humanizing Adult Education Research: Five Stories from the 1930s. Syracuse University Publications in Continuing Education. https://library.syr.edu/digital/guides_sua/pdf/blatt_042.pdf

Kunzman, R., & Tyack, D. (2005). Educational Forums of the 1930s: An Experiment in Adult        Civic Education. American Journal of Education, 111(3), 320-340. doi:10.1086/428884

McLeman, R. A., Dupre, J., Berrang Ford, L., Ford, J., Gajewski, K., & Marchildon, G. (2013). What we learned from the Dust Bowl: lessons in science, policy, and adaptation. Population and Environment, 35(4), 417–440. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-013-0190-z

Nocera, A. (2018). Negotiating the Aims of African American Adult Education: Race and Liberalism in the Harlem Experiment, 1931–1935. History of Education Quarterly, 58(1), 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1017/heq.2017.47

Rauchway, E. (2008). The Great Depression & the New Deal a very short introduction. Oxford University Press.

Scott, K. (2011). The History of Adult Education in Art in 1930s Delaware: An Examination of Participation and Accessibility. Visual Arts Research, 37(1), 54-66. doi:10.5406/visuartsrese.37.1.0054