Clara Barton Schoolhouse: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 22:55, 23 December 2024
The Clara Barton Schoolhouse is the historical site in Bordentown, New Jersey, where Clara Barton founded the first free public school in New Jersey.[1][2]
Background
At age 16 she was examined by noted phrenologists, the Fowler brothers,[3] who recommended she become a schoolteacher to alleviate her shyness.[4] At age 17 she started her career, teaching for 12 years in the Oxford area of Massachusetts,[5] where there was free public education. She spent a year doing study at the Clinton Liberal Institute in Clinton, New York. After a year teaching in Hightstown, New Jersey, and hearing about the "deplorable" level of education in neighboring Bordentown,[6] she moved with there with a friend in 1852 to teach.[7] In 1852 she established the first free New Jersey public school in Bordentown.[8] She started with six "notoriously bad boys of the town"[6] in a one room school, and within a year there were 600 students under her direction.[9] To accommodate the extra students, a new and larger schoolhouse was built in 1853.[10] When a man was hired as principal at twice her salary, she resigned. Barton later became famous for her humanitarian work with Civil War soldiers and founding the American Red Cross.[3]
Schoolhouse
The building predates its use by the school, as manifested by an 1839 stone.[2] In 1852 the schoolhouse was noted to be dilapidated and after the new school was built it fell in disuse. In 1919 it was sold at a sheriff's auction for $300 to a couple that believed it should be preserved. In 1920 it was sold to the New Jersey State Board of Education for $1 “in trust for and [o]n behalf of the Schoolchildren of the State of New Jersey and to be forever preserved as a memorial of Clara Barton, deceased.”[10] It was then turned over to the Bordentown Historical Society.[2] In 1921 there was a restoration of the school, largely funded by school children and teacher donations.[9] In 2021 another restoration was started, and will last through 2025. The goal of this restoration is to restore it to its 1921 appearance. There is not enough documentation of the 1852 structure to allow its appearance to recreate the original.[2]
Refences
- ^ "Bordentown Historic District (Clara Barton School)". www.nj.gov. Retrieved 2024-12-23.
- ^ a b c d "Clara Barton Schoolhouse | Bordentown Historical Society". bordentownhistory.org. Retrieved 2024-12-23.
- ^ a b "Biography: Clara Barton". National Women's History Museum. Retrieved 2024-12-22.
- ^ Mace, Emily. "Barton, Clara (1821-1912) | Harvard Square LibraryHarvard Square Library". Retrieved 2024-12-23.
- ^ "Clara's Life | Clara Barton Birthplace Museum". Retrieved 2024-12-22.
- ^ a b Bacon-Foster, Corra (1918). "Clara Barton, Humanitarian". Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C. 21: 278–356. ISSN 0897-9049.
- ^ "CLARA BARTON: THE REST OF HER STORY". www.redcross.org. Retrieved 2024-12-22.
- ^ "Clara Barton SchoolHouse". Visit South Jersey. Retrieved 2024-12-22.
- ^ a b "Clara Barton School". New Jersey Women's History. Retrieved 2024-12-22.
- ^ a b "Clara Barton Schoolhouse | Bordentown, New Jersey - New Jersey Memories". 2022-01-28. Retrieved 2024-12-22.