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The myriad of social changes in the world since the 1830s are often best reflected in our schools. When Harris County was formed, support for public education was far from universal. Many of the earliest schools were organized by German immigrants, and it took carpetbaggers and Reconstruction to bring about public schools as we know them today. A Fire to Kindle sheds light on the realities of segregation, school property taxes, bilingual education, and the impact of wartime on our children. It examines broad themes such as the roles of teachers, women, religion, industrial and vocational training. the advent of the junior high school concept, and public health care.
In addition to the big topics, this volume is also filled with small stories that shed light on our past. There is the African American youth thought to be incorrigible by White school officials but who was later touted as a major success story. There is the specter of using silver nitrate to cure smoking among children, and there are toothbrush drills, 15-foot-tall jungle gyms, and public school children manufacturing Houston street signs in shop class and making rugs and pillows for newly-arrived immigrant families.
More than any other type of structure, a school is the true building block of any given community. To explore the history of Harris County schools is to discover largely forgotten towns like Brunner, Cross Timbers, Chaneyville, and Dunman's Prairie. It is reliving the days when places like Cypress, Webster, and Spring had two dozen students in a one-room schoolhouse, and it is perhaps the best yardstick to understand the unending growth of the City of Houston.
With well over a decade of research, this well-illustrated volume tells the tale of over 600 Harris County schools that existed prior to 1950. Primary source research combined with rich oral history goes far beyond architectural details to provide a complete human story of these structures and school districts that have been the launching pad for many generations of productive Houstonians.
No such comprehensive documentation has ever been done on these Houston and Harris County schools, both public and private, and the social issues for which they served as crucible. It is a history of Harris County unlike any other that has ever been written.
