|
Humanities and Social Sciences Library > Collections & Reading Rooms > Print Collection > MOVING UPTOWN Section VII (Schools and libraries)Public Schools In 1792, George Clinton, the first governor of New York, proclaimed that education was the basis of republicanism: "diffusion of knowledge is essential to the promotion of virtue and the preservation of liberty." The volunteer organization entrusted with carrying out this mandate was the Free School Society (later named the Public School Society), which channeled private and public funds into schools for poor and working-class youth. These nondenominational schools (like that included in the Baroness Hyde de Neuville's watercolor of Chambers and Broadway multiplied, and became in effect the city's public schools, serving the majority of New York's children (more affluent families sent their children to private and denominational schools). However, in 1842 the state legislature established a new public school system, governed by elected ward trustees and a central board of education. Eventually the "ward school" system absorbed the Public School Society. Later in the 19th century, the New York school system responded to the
challenge of educating a large immigrant population. A compulsory school
law was passed in 1874, education for the poor was expanded to include
kindergarten, special classes were offered for those with physical and
mental disabilities, and intensive language classes were provided for non-English-speaking
children. For adults there were evening English classes and vocational
courses, including clerical and business subjects and industrial arts. Howland (William, James, and Joseph Howland; American wood engraving firm,
active 1840s and 1850s) Howland (William, James, and Joseph Howland; American wood engraving firm,
active 1840s and 1850s) Ward School No. 18, Fifty-First Street, Nineteenth Ward. 1855 Howland (William, James, and Joseph Howland; American wood engraving firm,
active 1840s and 1850s) School-House No. 11, Seventeenth St., Near Eighth Avenue. 1854 Howland (William, James, and Joseph Howland; American wood engraving firm,
active 1840s and 1850s) William Roberts (American, b. England, about 1809; active about 1839–60) The New York Free Academy, as the College of the City of New York was
called when it was established in 1847, was the first to offer public higher
education, particularly important since New York (unlike most cities in
the Northeast) still lacked a public high school system. Initially the
school was to be located on Madison Square, but property owners and real
estate interests joined forces to keep the poor students out of the neighborhood.
Instead, the school was built on Lexington Avenue. In 1866, City College
offered college-level courses. Fenner Sears & Co. (British engraving firm, active about 1825–46) Established as King's College in 1754 and rechartered as Columbia College
after the Revolution, this was the first institution of higher education
in New York. Situated west of City Hall, the two-block-square campus was
bounded by Murray, Barclay, Church, and Chapel (West Broadway); the original
portion of the building was constructed in 1756–60, with wings added
in 1818–20. By the 1850s, as warehouses were invading the calm of
Park Place, the Daily Tribune could note, "the encroachment of
business [has] rendered the present site of the institution far more valuable
for purposes of trade than of education." In 1856, Columbia bought the
building that housed the New York School for the Deaf near Madison between
49th and 50th streets, and moved to the new campus the following year.
Only in 1897 did Columbia settle at Morningside Heights. Anonymous The first college for women in New York, the Rutgers Female Institute
was located on the east side of Madison Street between Clinton and Montgomery
streets. Though the prescribed course of instruction included appropriately "female" studies –needlework,
embroidery, drawing, and painting –a list of faculty published in
the brochure suggests that students also studied mathematics, botany and
geology, German, Italian, and French, penmanship, calisthenics, and "Intellectual
Philosophy and Evidences of Christianity." In 1860, the school moved to
Fifth Avenue, opposite the reservoir at 42nd Street, and in 1883 to West
55th Street. The school later became affiliated with Rutgers University. Anonymous Though as early as 1698 there is mention of a library at Trinity Church,
the first institutional library in the city was the New-York Society Library,
founded in 1754 as a subscription or social library (that is, users were
charged a fee). Since most of the members were drawn from the upper classes,
the library moved uptown as its constituency moved north. In 1840 it was
on Broadway and Leonard; in 1856 on University Place; in 1937 it moved
to East 79th Street. Anonymous Formed by merchant clerks in 1820, the association opened a circulating
library in rented rooms, first on Fulton Street, and in 1830, as the Clinton
Hall Association, at the corner of Nassau and Beekman streets. In 1854
it moved once again, this time to the Opera House at Astor Place, where
lectures (Longfellow and Emerson were among those who spoke there) and
evening classes were offered. By 1870, the Mercantile Library was the leading
circulating library in the United States. Like the New-York Society Library,
this was a subscription library. Fenner Sears & Co. (British engraving firm, active about 1825–46) William Coleman was editor of the New-York Evening Post and of the semi-weekly edition of that paper, the New-York Herald, in the early years of the 19th century. In December 1828, he invited the common council of the city to the "Literary Emporium at Park Place" at "Park Place House," built in 1802–3 for the General Society of Mechanics & Tradesmen on the northwest corner of Broadway and Park Place. We have been unable to determine whether Colman's Literary Room housed
a library or, perhaps, simply sponsored literary programs. Anonymous The first privately endowed, independent, free, noncirculating public reference library in the United States, the Astor Library was established by a $400,000 bequest left by John Jacob Astor, and opened to the public in 1854 on Lafayette and Eighth streets, in the building currently occupied by the Joseph Papp Public Theater. The Astor Library, one of the foremost American libraries, joined with the Lenox Library, another free and endowed institution, and the Tilden Trust in 1895 to form The New York Public Library. |