My Caroline Le Count Problem
I have a confession to make. I had originally planned to make this a three-part series about Caroline Le Count, moving from her life and times during the Civil War and ending with an episode on her career in education. A Caroline Le Count trilogy. So perfect.
But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t pack everything I learned into one last episode. So… I’m going to drop four more episodes about Le Count, for a grand total of six. Two of these last four will focus on Le Count and public schools in Philly. Then there will be two more bonus episodes with extra content. My sons have told me that I should change the name to the “Caroline Le Count” podcast.
I understand. But I feel a mini-series on Caroline Le Count is not only justified, it is in fact my duty to tell her story. She was an amazing Philadelphian and too few of us know anything about her! My hope is that this series will spark other historians to discover even more about Le Count, and to tell her story far better than I can.
Public Schools and Caroline Le Count
This story started with a simple line about Caroline Le Count being a celebrated educator in Philadelphia. I imagined that this would be a pretty straightforward story, building on Le Count’s success at the Institute for Colored Youth. She seemed destined for greatness.
Instead, I discovered a challenging educational landscape in post-Civil War Philadelphia. It was a city with a high degree of illiteracy. It was a place where poor children were marched through their school day, with little room for their imagination. And it was still a segregated, pretty racist city where it was hard to get ahead if you were Black.
But there were also opportunities. Public funds were now available to educate the city’s youth. And if you had the strength and the stamina, and a few well-connected allies, you could have an impact. Caroline Le Count had all of these and she leveraged them all.
Education was always shown as one of the many benefits of the 15th Amendment. Scenes like this were incorporated into etchings that commemorated the event. 
The Mary Street School, later Watson Primary School, was the first public school built for African-American children in Philadelphia. It still stands in a heavily altered state at 141 League Street near Washington Avenue (Free Library of Philadelphia).. 
Cordelia Atwell Jennings, 1860 graduate from the Institute for Colored Youth, was the first Black principal in Philadelphia. She would give Caroline Le Count her first job. 
Sewing class in a turn of the century classroom (Library of Congress). 
Physics class at the Institute for Colored Youth early 20th century (Cheyney University)
In this Moment
I am writing this blog in October of 2020. All Philadelphia public school classes are currently virtual. I have two school-aged children at home, but they’re the lucky ones. They have access to laptops, good Wi-Fi, and a parent who can work from the kitchen table. These episodes were so hard to write because school, as we knew it, just doesn’t exist right now. We are living yet another public school experiment in Philadelphia, and we know that the impact is unequal.
I hope that this current moment reminds us how important good public schools are to our city. They are truly essential. And if you doubt that, this episode takes us back to a time in our history when publicly-funded schools did not exist. It wasn’t pretty.
Bibliography
Amedeo, Jonah. “O.V. Catto Secondary School.” Octavius V. Catto. The Independence Hall Association. No date. Website: https://catto.ushistory.org/catto_maps/o-v-catto-secondary-school/
“Amusements.” Evening Star. April 5, 1882: 8.
“Annual Report of the Managers of the Institute for Colored Youth, (Lombard St., Phila.)” Friends Review: A Religious, Literary and Miscellaneous Journal. Vol. 16 (1863): 730-732, 748-749.
Bacon, Benjamin C. Statistics of the Colored People of Philadelphia. Philadelphia, PA: Board of Education of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, 1859.
Bagley, W. School Discipline. New York: Macmillan, 1915.
Biddle, Daniel R. and Murray Dubin. Tasting Freedom. Website:http://tastingfreedombook.com/
Biddle, Daniel R. and Murray Dubin. Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2010.
Coppin, Fanny Jackson. Reminisces of School Life, and Hints on Teaching. Philadelphia: AME Book Concern, 1913.
Custis, John Trevor. The Public Schools of Philadelphia: Historical, Biographical, Statistical. Philadelphia: Burk & McFetridge Co. Publishers, 1897.
Douglas, Davison M., “The Limits of Law in Accomplishing Racial Change: School Segregation in the Pre-Brown North” (1997). Faculty Publications. 118. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs/118
Du Bois, W. E. B. The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press: 1899.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. Life Upon These Shores: Looking at African American History, 1513-2008. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.
Gershoff, Elizabeth T. “Corporal Punishment in U.S. Public Schools: Prevalence, Disparities in Use, and Status in State and Federal Policy.” Social Policy Report / Society for Research in Child Development. 2016; 30: 1.
Glenn, Myra C. “School Discipline and Punishment in Antebellum America.” Journal of the Early Republic, vol. 1, no. 4, 1981, pp. 395–408.
Hayashida-Knight, Christopher H. “Sacrifices and Sufferings of True Americans”: Black Women’s Nationalism and Activism in Philadelphia, 1863-1901. Dissertation. The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of Liberal Arts. 2017.
James, Milton M. “THE INSTITUTE FOR COLORED YOUTH.” Negro History Bulletin, vol. 21, no. 4, 1958, pp. 83–85.
Kendi, Ibram X. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. New York, NY: Bold Type Books, 2016.
Lapsansky, Emma Jones. “Friends, Wives, and Strivings: Networks and Community Values among Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia Afroamerican Elites.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 108, no. 1, 1984, pp. 3–24.
New National Era Newspaper:
“Color Prejudice.” New National Era, May 22, 1873.
“Interview with Caroline R. Le Count.” New National Era, May 33, 1873.
“Letter from Philadelphia.” New National Era, June 5, 1873
The North American, Philadelphia Newspaper:
“May the Teacher Whip the Child?” The North American, Philadelphia. July 1, 1899: 3.
“Pupil Sues Her Teacher.” The North American, Philadelphia. June 28, 1899: 3.
“Teachers Have No Right to Whip Their Pupils.” The North American, Philadelphia. June 29, 1899.
“Philadelphia Anniversary.” The New York Age. October 4, 1890: np.
The Philadelphia Community Education Plan: Excellent Schools For All Children. Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools, 2016. Website: https://wearepcaps.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/pcaps-lo.pdf
Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas No. 3, Vol. June 1899, Docket No. 268, pg. 133, Philadelphia City Archives.
Philadelphia Quarter Sessions Court, Vol July-Aug 1867, Docket No. 209, pg. 257, Philadelphia City Archives.
Philadelphia Inquirer:
“A Colored School Principal.” The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 25, 1891.
“Amicable Adjustment.” Philadelphia Inquirer. May 12, 1873.
“Another Branch.” Philadelphia Inquirer. April 5, 1873.
“Centennial.” Philadelphia Inquirer. April 14, 1873.
“Centennial.” Philadelphia Inquirer. May 23, 1873.
“Patriotic Women at Work.” Philadelphia Inquirer. April 21, 1873
“The Radical Club.” Philadelphia Inquirer. May 8, 1873.
“Radical Club.” Philadelphia Inquirer. June 5, 1873.
“Women in the Centennial.” Philadelphia Inquirer. April 1, 1873.
“Women’s Centennial.” Philadelphia Inquirer. May 13, 1873.
Pinguel, Fred. Our Statement on the Current Moment and Our Call for #PoliceFreeSchools and to #DefundThePolice. Philly Student Union website. June 6, 2020. Online at https://www.phillystudentunion.com/post/our-call-police-free-schools-black-lives-matter
“Quaker City Items.” The New York Globe. December 29, 1883
Rooks, Noliwe. Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation and the End of Public Education. New York: The New Press, 2017.
U.S. Department of Education. The State of Racial Diversity in the Education Workforce. July 2016. Available online at https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/highered/racial-diversity/state-racial-diversity-workforce.pdf
U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. Data Snapshot: School Discipline. March 2014. Available online at https://ocrdata.ed.gov/Downloads/CRDC-School-Discipline-Snapshot.pdf.
“The Ward: Race and Class in Du Bois’ Seventh Ward Walking Tour.” DuBois-The Ward. Website. http://www.dubois-theward.org/resources/walking-tour/
Wickersham, James Pyle. A History of Education in Pennsylvania. Lancaster, PA: Inquirer Publishing Company, 1886.
Woodson, Carter Goodwin. The Education of The Negro Prior To 1861: A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War. Washington, DC: The Associated Publishers, Inc., 1919.
Woodson, Carter Goodwin. The Mis-Education of the Negro. 1933, Reprint by ClearWords.org, 2017.
Wright, R.R. and Ernest Smith. The Philadelphia colored directory; a handbook of the religious, social, political, professional, business and other activities of the Negroes of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Colored Directory Co., 1908. Available online at https://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.32000009296965
Wright, Wittier H. “Life in Philadelphia.” The Statesman (Denver, Colorado). February 25, 1911: 2.