| MADE IN THE U.S.A. “Americanization class” brought the schoolroom to a factory floor on West 14th Street. Evening elementary schools taught many illiterate and foreign-born adults the skills they needed to work and pass citizenship exams. In 1941, half the 14,000 students in these classes were between 30 and 50 years old. (May 23, 1922) | |
| KEEPING PARENTS UP TO SPEED. Whether they came from rural communities or another country altogether, parents often needed a formal introduction to the many wonders Gotham had to offer. This “Mother’s Science Class” at Manhattan’s Public School 52 taught interested moms the inner workings of the modern telephone. (Nov. 25, 1935) | |
A version of this article appeared in the December 11, 1996 edition of Education Week as Windows to the Past, Pt. III
