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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from dot Com. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast Country Phoebe Wilson and I'm

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Speaker 1: Holly Frying. The other day we talked about Louisa May Alcott,

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Speaker 1: and thanks to Little Women and the other novels that

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Speaker 1: she wrote, she's probably the most famous person of her

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Speaker 1: immediate family today, but she was definitely not the only

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Speaker 1: notable figure among all the Alcotts. In particular, her father,

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Speaker 1: Bronson Alcott, made a name for himself as a philosopher

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Speaker 1: and a teacher and like an educational reformer, and her

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Speaker 1: youngest sister, May Alcott, was an artist who was really

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Speaker 1: starting to grow in prominence and do some really notable

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Speaker 1: work when she died at a sadly early age. Um,

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Speaker 1: we don't really quite know enough about May's life because

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Speaker 1: it was so short to be able to do a

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Speaker 1: whole episode just on her. So we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about her in the second half of this episode, and

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Speaker 1: for the first half we're gonna sort of hit the

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Speaker 1: highlights of Bronson Alcott's life, because he you could do

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Speaker 1: multiple episodes on him. He had kind of wandering, sometimes

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Speaker 1: strange existence. But we're gonna like do the most fun

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Speaker 1: parts of his stuff. These the two of them are

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Speaker 1: really overshadowed by Luisa May Alcott, but they both have

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Speaker 1: their own fascinating stories. And when we took our holiday

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Speaker 1: trip to Orchard House, which I talked about in the

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Speaker 1: previous episode, when we left, Patrick was like, I really

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Speaker 1: just want to learn more about May, so today we will,

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Speaker 1: which granted Patrick uh So. Bronson was born Amos Bronson

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Speaker 1: Alcott in Connecticut on November twenty nine. He was the

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Speaker 1: son of flax farmers, and he had no formal education

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Speaker 1: at all beyond the age of thirteen, and before that

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Speaker 1: even his schooling had happened, but it had been kind

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Speaker 1: of spotty because work always took higher priority. But just

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Speaker 1: the same he became an educational reformer and a philosopher

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Speaker 1: despite this sort of gap in his education process. He

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Speaker 1: was an extremely idealistic person with very strong opinions from

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Speaker 1: a very early age, and when he was seventeen he

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Speaker 1: left home, traveled south and became a peddler. His intent

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Speaker 1: had actually been to become a teacher, and at that

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Speaker 1: point anyone who could read and write could basically become

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Speaker 1: a teacher. It didn't matter that he had no real

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Speaker 1: formal education. But uh, he thought it would be a

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Speaker 1: good idea to hone his teaching skills in the South,

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Speaker 1: where he supposed people were going to be more ignorant

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Speaker 1: and therefore easier to learn and practice on than he

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Speaker 1: might find in the North. Oh Bronson, as you can imagine,

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Speaker 1: this attitude did not really go over terribly well. And

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Speaker 1: not only could he not find a teaching job, but

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Speaker 1: the people that he met considered him to be a

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Speaker 1: patronizing Yankee interlooper, so nobody wanted to provide him with

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Speaker 1: lodging either. So he turned to peddling, and he kept

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Speaker 1: hit this trade for five years, and he started to

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Speaker 1: think of it in terms of Pilgrim's progress, which had

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Speaker 1: always been extremely influential to him. He also bolstered this

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Speaker 1: reversal of fortune with the belief that any profession could

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Speaker 1: be noble if you approached it with the right attitude.

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Speaker 1: And not only did he not find that people in

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Speaker 1: the South were more ignorant than people in the north, uh,

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Speaker 1: he also because he was visiting these large Southern plantations,

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Speaker 1: remember this was before the Civil War, he was finding

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Speaker 1: that these people's homes were like really elegant and were

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Speaker 1: fined in a way that just did not exist in

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Speaker 1: his Connecticut hometown. Uh. It was also his first, like

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Speaker 1: in person exposure to slavery, which later he would become

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Speaker 1: a very staunch abolitionist, so it had sort of that

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Speaker 1: darker side. But uh yeah, he was sort of like,

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Speaker 1: I was wrong out the South in so many ways.

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Speaker 1: He did eventually go back to Connecticut and finally became

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Speaker 1: a teacher. In eighteen thirty, he married Abigail May, and

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Speaker 1: he was an educator and she was a reformer, and

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Speaker 1: their ideas generally complimented one another quite well. Where Bronson

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Speaker 1: wanted to reform the way children learned, Abigail wanted to

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Speaker 1: change the way people were treated. So they were both

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Speaker 1: very vocal and strident supporters of women's suffrage, of the

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Speaker 1: abolition of slavery, and other social causes. Along with a

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Speaker 1: son who died not long after he was born, they

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Speaker 1: had four daughters, Anna, Luisa, Elizabeth, and May, and Bronson

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Speaker 1: was really deeply involved in their upbringing. He was a

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Speaker 1: stern and authoritative figure at home, even to the point

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Speaker 1: of seeming just rigidly inflexible, but at the same time

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Speaker 1: he encouraged his daughters to be creative and self reliant

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Speaker 1: and independent. And in a way, he also saw his

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Speaker 1: children as projects. He believed that children were perfect beings,

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Speaker 1: having recently arrived on Earth from a celestial realm, but

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Speaker 1: by the time children were old enough to go to school,

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Speaker 1: they were already moving away from that most perfect state.

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Speaker 1: So he made detailed written observations of his daughters while

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Speaker 1: they were babies and as they grew, tested them as

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Speaker 1: people in an almost experimental way of trying to get

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Speaker 1: them to continually perfect themselves. And he also taught them

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Speaker 1: either at home or in the schools where he taught,

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Speaker 1: using his own educational methods. He would he would do

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Speaker 1: things like he would leave apples out around which the

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Speaker 1: girls weren't supposed to eat, to see whether they would

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Speaker 1: eat them, and then if ah, if if asked about it,

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Speaker 1: whether they would tell the truth. Um, there's a whole

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Speaker 1: story where it was it was Luisa's birthday and he

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Speaker 1: invited another child at the last minute, so there wasn't

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Speaker 1: enough cake. And there's some speculation about where this whether

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Speaker 1: this was a test to see whether Luisa would be

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Speaker 1: generous and give her guests the last piece of cake

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Speaker 1: or take it for herself because it was her birthday,

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Speaker 1: so yeah, it was. It's like a little social experiment

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Speaker 1: happening in the home. I think that were I Bronson's child,

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Speaker 1: I would be a grave disappointment. So we talked a

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Speaker 1: little about Bronson's educational philosophies in our episode about his

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Speaker 1: second daughter, and here's how Louisa herself described it. My

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Speaker 1: father taught in the wise way, which unfolds what lies

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Speaker 1: in the child's nature as a flower blooms, rather than

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Speaker 1: crammed it like a Strasbourg goose with more than it

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Speaker 1: could digest. And he asked his children questions rather than

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Speaker 1: just giving lectures. And he led them an exercise, took

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Speaker 1: them on field trips, and added music, art, and nature

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Speaker 1: study to their coursework. Students also voted on decisions, and

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Speaker 1: they elected class officers. A lot of this would be

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Speaker 1: taken for granted today. It sounds just like school right

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Speaker 1: like that this is sort of how education happens in

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Speaker 1: America for most, but at the time it was all

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Speaker 1: completely revolutionary, and in many of the schools where he

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Speaker 1: was trying to teach, parents strongly strongly objected to him

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Speaker 1: approaching classes this way. He lost teaching jobs over and over,

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Speaker 1: or the schools where he was trying to teach what

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Speaker 1: shut down, and so the Alcott family wound up moving

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Speaker 1: again and again and again, both in search of work

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Speaker 1: and to escape the failure at work that had just happened.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen thirty four, Bronson opened a school in the

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Speaker 1: Masonic Temple in Boston, which became known as the Temple School.

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Speaker 1: His entire purpose with the school was to put his

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Speaker 1: theories of education into practice, and he also transformed the

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Speaker 1: school into a place of beauty. It was full of artwork,

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Speaker 1: had comfortable furnishings, and it was loaded with books. Margaret

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Speaker 1: Fuller and Elizabeth Peabody both had teaching posts there, and

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Speaker 1: these women were both early in their careers, and they

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Speaker 1: would of course become quite well known as a journalist

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Speaker 1: and an educator. But unfortunately, the Temple School did not

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Speaker 1: last for very long. People didn't like how physically affectionate

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Speaker 1: Bronson was with the children. Boston as a city was

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Speaker 1: also extremely religiously conservative, and people did not like that.

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Speaker 1: Bronson's discussions included really progressive discussions of religion with the

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Speaker 1: children and also pretty frank discussions of sex. He published

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Speaker 1: a book called conversations with children, and which he related

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Speaker 1: these conversations that he had had with kids about the

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Speaker 1: Four Gospels, and some of these conversation conversations ran pretty

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Speaker 1: contrary to religious doctrine. People even thought that they were sacrilege.

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Speaker 1: So outraged, horrified parents started to withdraw their children from

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Speaker 1: his school. Elizabeth Peabody actually left the school after a

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Speaker 1: series of disagreements with Bronson, among them that he had

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Speaker 1: read her private letters the same as he and Abigail

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Speaker 1: did with all their children. And after she left, he

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Speaker 1: lost more students, and the last of them besides his

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Speaker 1: own children, left when he integrated the school in eighteen

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Speaker 1: thirty nine. Just let that years think in on the

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Speaker 1: integration situation. Even though slavery had already been abolished in

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Speaker 1: most of the North and Boston was home to a

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Speaker 1: huge abolitionist movement, that did not mean white people were

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Speaker 1: comfortable or wanted their children in an integrated school. So

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Speaker 1: when the Temple School failed, not only had his this

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Speaker 1: labor of love project that he was deeply attached to, failed,

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Speaker 1: he was really hugely in debt. That was a very

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Speaker 1: expensive endeavor, especially given all the expensive furnishing furnishings in

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Speaker 1: art and all of that that had gone into it.

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Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about what happened after the

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Speaker 1: school closed after a brief word from a sponsor stupendous

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Speaker 1: to return to Bronson Alcott. A lot of Bronson's theories

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Speaker 1: about education had roots in Transcendentalist philosophy, and the Transcendentalist

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Speaker 1: movement flourished in New England in the mid to late

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. It had literary, religious, and philosophical elements, and

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Speaker 1: they were all tied together by the idea that people

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Speaker 1: have an intuitive ability to seek out spiritual truths for themselves.

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Speaker 1: And I had a hard time working out like a

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Speaker 1: very straightforward basic definition of Transcendentalism, because at the heart

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Speaker 1: of the movement was a rejection of dogma, so it's

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Speaker 1: kind of hard to describe it as any one thing.

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Speaker 1: A lot of the most well known American writers and

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Speaker 1: thinkers of the nineteenth century were Transcendentalists, and the Alcots

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Speaker 1: were friends and colleagues with many of them, including Ralph

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Speaker 1: Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thurreau. And after the failure

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Speaker 1: of the Temple School, the Alcotts spent some time back

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Speaker 1: and conquered where Bronson tried to support the family through farming.

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Speaker 1: They had food, but little else because the farm was

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Speaker 1: enough to subsist but not enough to purchase things like

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Speaker 1: fuel to heat their cottage. When Ralph Waldo Emerson came

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Speaker 1: by to visit, he'd often accidentally air quotes leave money

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Speaker 1: squirreled somewhere around the house, like under a cushion or

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Speaker 1: a candlestick, to try to help out. After a while,

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Speaker 1: Bronson took a trip to Europe, which was also funded

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Speaker 1: by Emerson, to visit some friends, some of whom had

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Speaker 1: actually named a school after him, and when he came home,

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Speaker 1: English reformer Charles Lane returned to Massachusetts with him. Uh.

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Speaker 1: One of the pursuits that the two of them embarked

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Speaker 1: upon together was the attempt to create a transcendtionalist community

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Speaker 1: called fruit Lends in Harvard, Massachusetts. So if you've listened

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Speaker 1: to our episode on the Brook Farm community, which Bronson

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Speaker 1: actually wanted to join but he couldn't afford to, you

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Speaker 1: already have a sense of some of the pitfalls of

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Speaker 1: trying to start a utopian commune. Although Bronson didn't know

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Speaker 1: how to farm, there were a lot of other obstacles

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Speaker 1: to what they were planning for one thing, it was

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Speaker 1: going to be a strictly vegan commune. Nothing they wore

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Speaker 1: or used could have been produced through any association with

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Speaker 1: slavery as well, so they could not wear cotton clothes,

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Speaker 1: and they also couldn't well wear wool clothes because that

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Speaker 1: subjugated sheep. Animals also could not be used for labor,

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Speaker 1: so they could not use any kind plow animals or

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Speaker 1: beasts of burden. And they had timed this whole endeavor

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Speaker 1: kind of badly. They all moved out to fruitlands in

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Speaker 1: June of eighteen forty three, late in the season for

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Speaker 1: planting most crops, plus Bronson and Charles went out to

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Speaker 1: try to recruit more people in the autumn, which meant

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Speaker 1: there weren't enough hands to bring in what could be harvested.

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Speaker 1: Charles Lane also caused a pretty big rift within the

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Speaker 1: Alcott family. The Alcots valued family and their family unit

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Speaker 1: above their own individual selves, and Charles, on the other hand,

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Speaker 1: felt that while family and air quotes as in like

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Speaker 1: your community shows in a group of people that you

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Speaker 1: are living with was critical, uh that family ties through

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Speaker 1: blood and marriage were actually destructive. So Charles Lane thought

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Speaker 1: that Abigail and the children were weighing Bronson down, so

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Speaker 1: after he started advocating for the residents of Fruitlands to

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Speaker 1: separate men and women in the style of the Shakers, Abigail,

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Speaker 1: feeling that this was the last straw, threatened to take

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Speaker 1: the children and all of her furniture and leave. There

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Speaker 1: is also some debate, and you may have already had

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Speaker 1: this question work pop up over your head listening to this,

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Speaker 1: about whether Bronson and Charles actually had a physical relationship,

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Speaker 1: adding another element to this triad. Abigail definitely did not

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Speaker 1: like Charles at all and didn't like the way his

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Speaker 1: philosophies were meant to drive a wedge through the family,

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Speaker 1: and this was not the only time that his presence

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Speaker 1: drove her out of their home. So regardless of exactly

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Speaker 1: what was going on and in that situation, Fruitlan's did

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Speaker 1: not succeed in attracting new members, and everyone who had

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Speaker 1: originally joined left by January of eighteen forty four, so

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Speaker 1: this whole endeavor only lasted a few months. Bronson and

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Speaker 1: Charles each blamed the other for the failure, and the

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Speaker 1: Alcotts moved to Still River, Massachusetts for several months, and

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Speaker 1: this was basically a recovery period of the whole family. Finally,

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Speaker 1: the Alcots made their way back to Conquered and settled

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Speaker 1: in the now famous Orchard House. Bronson served as the

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Speaker 1: superintendent of Schools and Conquered from eighteen fifty nine through

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty four, and as Luis's writing became more well known,

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Speaker 1: he became a sought after speaker on religion, philosophy, and education.

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Speaker 1: He had a whole speaking tour, especially in the West,

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Speaker 1: which like the blanket region of the United States, which

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Speaker 1: is a lot of it wasn't States yet, but uh.

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Speaker 1: He became increasingly successful as a speaker, as as Luisa

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Speaker 1: May Alcott's books became more and more widely sold. He

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Speaker 1: also opened a school of philosophy in Conquered in eighteen

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Speaker 1: seventy nine at the age of eighty. It had been

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Speaker 1: a lifelong dream of his to open a school like this,

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Speaker 1: and a year later it moved into a building that

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Speaker 1: still sits adjacent to Orchard House. This is a school

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Speaker 1: that taught summer classes for adults for nine years. In

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Speaker 1: the fall of eighteen eighty two, Bronson had a stroke

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Speaker 1: and from that point he was unable to write or

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Speaker 1: to work, and he needed to be cared for. He

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Speaker 1: died on March fourth, eight. The School of Philosophy closed

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Speaker 1: the following July. So that's sort of the the highlights

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Speaker 1: of Bronson Alcott's life. We will move on to talking

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Speaker 1: about his daughter May after another brief word from a sponsor.

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Speaker 1: squarespace dot com slash History. Now we will turn our

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Speaker 1: focus to Abigail May Alcott. She was the youngest of

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Speaker 1: Bronson Alcott's daughters, born on in July, and she went

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Speaker 1: by a number of other nicknames before settling on going

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Speaker 1: by her middle name of May, and perhaps because was

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Speaker 1: the baby of the family, the rest of the Alcots

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Speaker 1: absolutely doated on her. The whole family had a huge

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Speaker 1: focus on not being materialistic, but they would forego their

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Speaker 1: own necessities to buy little presents for May, like pretty

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Speaker 1: ribbons for her hair. As she became more interested in art,

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Speaker 1: she was allowed to draw and paint anywhere she wanted

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Speaker 1: and as often as she wanted, and once the family

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Speaker 1: moved into Orchard house. One of those places was on

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Speaker 1: the walls of her room, so her wall drawings are

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Speaker 1: still there in the house and are preserved on the

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Speaker 1: walls of the house. And in addition to the walls

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Speaker 1: of her bedroom, she had an actual studio in the

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Speaker 1: front of the house and her work is still on

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Speaker 1: the walls there today as well. A lot of the

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Speaker 1: things that she view on the walls were sort of

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Speaker 1: like doodles and practice and that kind of stuff, but

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Speaker 1: she would also sometimes create a an intentional work of

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Speaker 1: art on a wall. There's an owl painted on the

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Speaker 1: mantle in Louise's room, which May painted there while her

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Speaker 1: sister was ill because she wanted to make her sister

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Speaker 1: feel better. And until Louise's writing career took off, the

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Speaker 1: Alcott family was extremely poor. However, thanks to the generosity

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Speaker 1: of friends and other family, May was able to study

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Speaker 1: art in Boston. She spent three winters studying at the

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Speaker 1: Boston School of Design, and she also studied with William

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Speaker 1: Morris Hunt and Dr William Rimmer, who were two of

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Speaker 1: the most respected art teachers in Boston at the time.

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Speaker 1: A number of Hunt's paintings are in the collection at

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Speaker 1: the Smithsonian, and Dr Rimmer was especially known for his sculpture.

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Speaker 1: Daniel Chester French, who became one of the most prominent

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Speaker 1: sculptors in the United States in the late nineteenth and

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Speaker 1: early twentieth century, also studied with Hunt and Rimmer, and

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Speaker 1: he became one of May's art students. Like the Alcots,

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Speaker 1: his own family was very poor and he was trying

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Speaker 1: to hone his craft as a sculptor by working on

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Speaker 1: things like scraps of wood and root vegetables. During the

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Speaker 1: winter of eighteen sixty eight to eighteen sixty nine, May

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Speaker 1: shared her sculpting tools and materials with him and he

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Speaker 1: undertook his formal study of sculpture. He later credited May

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Speaker 1: as his first teacher. French became famous for sculpting monuments,

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Speaker 1: the Minuteman Statue in Minuteman National Historic Park, the bronze

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Speaker 1: doors at the Boston Public Library, and the seated statue

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Speaker 1: of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial. What May really

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Speaker 1: wanted to do they was to go to Europe to

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Speaker 1: study art, but of course that was well well beyond

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Speaker 1: the family's means for a long time, so instead she

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Speaker 1: worked as an art teacher in the United States. This

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Speaker 1: included at an institution for disabled children in New York

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Speaker 1: and at other schools and conquered. In addition to her

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Speaker 1: original work, she also became a very skilled copyist of

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Speaker 1: other people's work. Finally, after the publication of Little Women

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Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty nine, May got to follow her dream

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Speaker 1: of studying in Europe. Thanks to her older sister Louisa.

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Speaker 1: She made three trips to Europe, where she studied in

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Speaker 1: England and France, and the third trip, which she made

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Speaker 1: in a six was for good. In eighteen seventy seven,

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Speaker 1: she submitted a still life of fruit, a bottle and

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Speaker 1: a jug to the Paris Salon. The Salon was the

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Speaker 1: official exhibition of the Academy de Beaux Art in Paris,

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Speaker 1: and it was the most prestigious art exhibition in the

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Speaker 1: Western world in the latter half of the eighteenth and

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Speaker 1: nearly all of the nineteenth centuries. That year, hers was

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Speaker 1: one of forty American works and two thousand total works

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Speaker 1: to be chosen out of eight thousand, five hundred entries.

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Speaker 1: Placements at the Paris Salon were hung by their perceived worth,

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Speaker 1: and may Still life was close to eye level. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Basically the entire walls of the whole salon space where

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Speaker 1: floor to ceiling, every inch covered up with artwork, and

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Speaker 1: so where your artwork was had to do with how

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Speaker 1: good they thought it was, and close to eye level

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Speaker 1: was pretty awesome. Later that year her work started to

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Speaker 1: go on display at other galleries and exhibitions and England

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Speaker 1: and France, and she also became friends with painter Mary Cassette,

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Speaker 1: who you might know her from the painting Breakfast in

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Speaker 1: Bed or the Voting Party. She did lots of paintings

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Speaker 1: of mothers and their children. In the spring of eighteen

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Speaker 1: seventy eight, May met and fell in love with a

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Speaker 1: Swiss businessman named Ernest Naker. In addition to his tobacco business,

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Speaker 1: he was also a violinist. She was thirty eight at

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Speaker 1: the time and he was twenty two when they married.

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Speaker 1: Another of her paintings, called Negress, was selected for the

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Speaker 1: Paris Salon in eighteen seventy nine. This one was a

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Speaker 1: portrait and we don't know exactly who the subject was.

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Speaker 1: It's a black woman wearing a one shouldered white top

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Speaker 1: and an orange hair scarf. The same year, she published

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Speaker 1: a book called Studying Art Abroad and How To do

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Speaker 1: it cheaply, which I find to be extremely charming, and

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Speaker 1: once I discovered it, I kind of just wanted to

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Speaker 1: throw this whole episode out the window and instead have

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Speaker 1: a dramatic reading of studying art abroad and how to

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Speaker 1: do it, she Lee. And the good news is that

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Speaker 1: you can read that book for free on the internet.

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Speaker 1: As Tracy said, she loves it. It is aimed at

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Speaker 1: lady artists who want to spend a year abroad studying

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Speaker 1: and it starts quote art is so overtalked and overwritten

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Speaker 1: at the present time, charmingly to be sure, but still

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00:22:17,119 --> 00:22:20,720
Speaker 1: overdone that even were a student's opinion on the subject

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Speaker 1: of any value, I have no intention of adding my

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Speaker 1: name to the list of those who, from critics like

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Speaker 1: Ruskin in Hambleton's down to the multitude of newspaper correspondence

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00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:35,320
Speaker 1: keep America on courn with European painters, pictures and gossip.

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00:22:36,600 --> 00:22:41,520
Speaker 1: Among her practical advice, pack plenty of old undergarments, because

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00:22:41,680 --> 00:22:44,879
Speaker 1: London grime and French laundry acids are going to just

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00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:49,280
Speaker 1: destroy anything that's quote delicate or nicely trend. Also, your

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00:22:49,320 --> 00:22:52,560
Speaker 1: old underwear is going to be useful for paint rags

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Speaker 1: once it becomes too thin to wear. That's just good

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00:22:56,280 --> 00:23:02,439
Speaker 1: sensible thinking recycling. It talks about which cities are the

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00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:06,280
Speaker 1: best for which media. The lady hopes to study, London

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00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:10,440
Speaker 1: being best for watercolor, Paris for oils, Roam for sculpture.

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00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:13,840
Speaker 1: It also discusses how to get around, what to expect

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00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:16,760
Speaker 1: in all of these different countries, how to address yourself nicely,

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00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:19,520
Speaker 1: but chiefly when it's part way through your tour and

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00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:23,040
Speaker 1: you realize your wardrobe is in need of attention. And

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00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:26,320
Speaker 1: she lists out the names and directions of teachers, boarding

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00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:29,880
Speaker 1: and lodging houses, shops and the like, and among other things,

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00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:33,000
Speaker 1: she advises ladies to shop at civil service stores or

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00:23:33,119 --> 00:23:35,639
Speaker 1: Army and Navy shops, which require a card from a

407
00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:41,320
Speaker 1: subscriber to shop there. Sadly, not long after the eighteen

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00:23:41,359 --> 00:23:44,520
Speaker 1: seventy nine salon or the publication of this book, May

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00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:47,080
Speaker 1: died just a few weeks after giving birth to her daughter,

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Speaker 1: Luisa May. It's not totally clear whether her death was

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00:23:51,440 --> 00:23:55,600
Speaker 1: related to having given birth or not. May had previously

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Speaker 1: said that she wanted her sister Luisa to look after

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Speaker 1: her child if something should happen to her, and that

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00:24:00,320 --> 00:24:03,120
Speaker 1: was in part because her husband's business involved a lot

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Speaker 1: of travel. So little Louisa May, who was also known

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Speaker 1: as Lulu, arrived in Conquered Massachusetts escorted by her father

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Speaker 1: and her aunt when she was ten months old, and

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Speaker 1: she went on to live with Luisa May Alcott until

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Speaker 1: Louisa was no longer physically able to care for her

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Speaker 1: because of her own health. After her deaths, she went

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Speaker 1: back to Europe with her father. Uh. Really, the based

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Speaker 1: on the sort of the strides that that May's work

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Speaker 1: was taking before her death, she probably would be somebody

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Speaker 1: that we would associate with like painters of that era,

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Speaker 1: had she had a longer life and been able to

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Speaker 1: do more work. Do you have a spot of listener

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00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 1: mail for us? Now? I do. Our listener mail is

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00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:54,160
Speaker 1: zipping back to our episode about special education in the

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00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:57,640
Speaker 1: United States and others from Sarah, who says, Hi, Holly

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Speaker 1: and Tracy, I love your show. It's one of the

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Speaker 1: podcasts I must listen to as soon as it comes out.

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00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:06,080
Speaker 1: I'm a special education teacher. I just sat down to

433
00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 1: suggest the history of special education and looked at my

434
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 1: phone to see it downloading. I had also suggested how

435
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:15,880
Speaker 1: an I E P works to Josh and Chuck, and

436
00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:18,439
Speaker 1: she now talks about a thing that we brought up

437
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:21,119
Speaker 1: an episode and mentioned that it was not really a

438
00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:25,360
Speaker 1: standard that's so much used anymore. So she continues, instead

439
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:28,639
Speaker 1: of mental age, we now have developmental ages, and it

440
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:32,399
Speaker 1: can be different for every domain, social, cognitive, motor, et cetera.

441
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:36,119
Speaker 1: They're in depth diagnostic assessments for each of these, and

442
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:39,879
Speaker 1: a significant developmental delay generally means they're eligible for special

443
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:43,000
Speaker 1: education services. There's a lot more that goes into it,

444
00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:45,600
Speaker 1: including collecting data on the work they do, but the

445
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 1: diagnostic assessment is a big part of it. The more

446
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:50,680
Speaker 1: I learned about the history of special education, the more

447
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:53,600
Speaker 1: I realize it really is a civil rights issue. Children

448
00:25:53,640 --> 00:25:56,880
Speaker 1: with special needs have been slowly gaining more access to education,

449
00:25:57,240 --> 00:26:00,240
Speaker 1: but the movement is by no means over Many will

450
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:03,880
Speaker 1: still think the least restrictive environment is optional. I've been

451
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:06,280
Speaker 1: asked why one of my students was in a classroom

452
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: by an administrator and told to collect data to prove

453
00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:12,840
Speaker 1: the student should be in self contained by a fellow teacher.

454
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 1: I'm a big advocate for students being included as much

455
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 1: as possible. The fact is being with other children as

456
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:21,640
Speaker 1: one of the best ways for many children to learn

457
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:25,760
Speaker 1: appropriate behaviors. Although least restrictive environment is the law, for

458
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:29,760
Speaker 1: students with moderate to severe disabilities, a self contained room

459
00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:32,440
Speaker 1: is often the default, even if they could be included

460
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 1: at least some of the day. It's easier for the

461
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:37,680
Speaker 1: teachers and teacher for the school system, but not necessarily

462
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 1: better for the student. I also believe that inclusion benefits

463
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:44,440
Speaker 1: the other students in the class. Students should be aware

464
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 1: that people learn in different ways and have diverse abilities

465
00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:50,480
Speaker 1: and strengths. Getting to know students with disabilities on a

466
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:54,679
Speaker 1: personal level creates more tolerant understanding adults. All students with

467
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:57,960
Speaker 1: and without I e p S learned differently. As differentiation

468
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:01,159
Speaker 1: becomes the Norman classrooms, there's no and most students with

469
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:05,640
Speaker 1: disabilities cannot be accommodated by the general education classroom with support.

470
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:08,639
Speaker 1: Sorry for the super long email. It's something by co

471
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 1: workers and I spent a lot of time thinking about U.

472
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:16,080
Speaker 1: And She also concludes with a note about the persistence

473
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:18,159
Speaker 1: of segregation that has come up a couple of times.

474
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:20,600
Speaker 1: She said she's worked in three different schools in Atlanta.

475
00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:24,040
Speaker 1: One was over eight percent white, one was black, and

476
00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 1: one was Hispanic, So thank you very much, Sarah. UM.

477
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:31,560
Speaker 1: A thing that I was thinking about when I was

478
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:33,720
Speaker 1: working on that episode that I don't think we actually

479
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:37,760
Speaker 1: said in the episode was uh, I did not realize

480
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:42,320
Speaker 1: that the law that all children, regardless of ability, were

481
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:47,080
Speaker 1: entitled education came around in I did say that part

482
00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:50,520
Speaker 1: in the episode. Um. I had not known that, but

483
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:53,800
Speaker 1: it made a sort of trend that I have witnessed

484
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:55,439
Speaker 1: make a lot of sense, which is that when I

485
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:59,359
Speaker 1: was in school, which was not long at all after

486
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 1: the passage of that law, the idea of quote mainstreaming

487
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:07,000
Speaker 1: children with disabilities was still extremely controversial. Most of the

488
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:09,439
Speaker 1: specialized classrooms and schools that I went to were like

489
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 1: really secluded from the rest of the school, and so

490
00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 1: the children who were in those special classrooms or who

491
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:19,639
Speaker 1: were quote mainstream for part of the day, we're just

492
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 1: met with all kinds of bullying and harassment constantly, and

493
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:26,639
Speaker 1: it was horrible, and I'm sure that still exists in

494
00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:29,200
Speaker 1: a lot of places today. But today we also see

495
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:33,680
Speaker 1: the news articles that go viral about UH, students really

496
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 1: coming together to support someone who goes to their school

497
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:41,680
Speaker 1: and has a disability, which in my experience would not

498
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 1: have happened when I was growing up. It was just

499
00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:49,479
Speaker 1: not how it worked exactly the same for me. I

500
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:51,960
Speaker 1: mean I remember in elementary school when I was very,

501
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:56,680
Speaker 1: very young, like the special education classroom was like in

502
00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: the basement of the school, and I mean we whispered

503
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:01,120
Speaker 1: about it like it was a freak dungeon, like we

504
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 1: just did not have the knowledge, especially as children, Like

505
00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:07,160
Speaker 1: it would be like, where are those kids going, Oh,

506
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: they're going to the special education room, and it's like

507
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 1: is that It was like almost whispered to us by

508
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 1: teachers as though it was a scary place. And now

509
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:18,320
Speaker 1: I think, thankfully we've progressed a little bit. It's still ongoing,

510
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 1: but I imagine there is not a freaky dungeon like

511
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 1: special education classroom in a lot of schools then, I

512
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 1: hope not. So. If you would like to write to

513
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 1: us about this or any other subject, we are at

514
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 1: History Podcast at how Stuffworks dot com. Our Facebook is

515
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:36,680
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash mist in history, and our Twitter

516
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 1: is missed in History. Our tumbler is missed in History

517
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:42,320
Speaker 1: at tumbler dot com. And we're on Pinterest at pinterest

518
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 1: dot com slash missed in History. We have a spreadshirt

519
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:50,680
Speaker 1: store full of t shorts and phonecases and things like that.

520
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:53,800
Speaker 1: It is at missin history dot spreadshirt dot com. If

521
00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:55,880
Speaker 1: you'd like to learn more about what we've talked about today,

522
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 1: you can come to our parent company's website that is

523
00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com, but the word education in

524
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: the search bar, and you will find all kinds of

525
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:06,960
Speaker 1: articles about education and how we learned and how we teach. Uh.

526
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 1: You can also come to our website, which is missed

527
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 1: in History dot com, where we have show notes for

528
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:15,360
Speaker 1: all the episodes that Holly and I have worked on.

529
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 1: We've had lots of questions from folks lately asking how

530
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:20,400
Speaker 1: they can find out what our sources are are Those

531
00:30:20,440 --> 00:30:23,080
Speaker 1: are all in those show notes. Uh. We also have

532
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 1: an archive of every single episode ever, lots of other

533
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:27,760
Speaker 1: cool stuff, so you can do all that and lots

534
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:30,120
Speaker 1: more at how stuff works dot com or missed in

535
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:36,720
Speaker 1: History dot com for more on this and thousands of

536
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 1: other topics. Because it has to work staff