First Schoolhouse West of the Alleghenies was for Everyone

The Schoenbrunn Schoolhouse

by Tamera Lynn Kraft

Schoenbrunn Schoolhouse

The first schoolhouse west of the Alleghenies was built by a band of Moravian missionaries that had come to Ohio to establish a community to minister to the Lenape (Delaware) Indians. The band was led by David Zeisberger who believed everyone had the right to an education. He translated the Bible in the Lenape language and opened the Christian school to teach white and native children alike. School was taught in German, the Moravian native language, and the Lenape languague.

In colonial times, most schools did not teach boys and girls together. Girls from prosperious families went to seperate schools that taught home-making skills. Public schools didn't allow girls to attend. Puritans believed in teaching girls how to read so they could learn Scripture, but that was as far as their formal education would get. Educated girls were considered to not be suitable wives. Schools where blacks and native Americans attended with white children were unheard of although there were some Quaker and missionary schools that taught black and native Americans.

The Schoenbrunn School bucked all of these colonial traditions. In Moravian schools, blacks, native Americans, and girls were taught together with white boys. The Moravians believed that all children should receive an education so they could study the Bible and minister to others. Schoenbrunn School was one of the first public schools in the United States to do this.

The school and village only lasted until 1777. At that time, British troops questioned Zeisberger's neutrality in the Revolutionary War. The Moravians were forced to move on to Sandusky County, but their legacy of equality in education of all races and both genders in the Christian faith lives on until today. The Moravians destroyed the school and church to keep British troops from using the buildings, but the village has been rebuilt as a historic site in it's original location in Tuscarawus County in Ohio.

Tamera Lynn Kraft has always loved adventures and writes Christian historical fiction set in America because there are so many adventures in American history. She is married to the love of her life, has two grown children, and lives in Akron, Ohio. Soldier’s Heart and A Christmas Promise are two of her historical novellas that have been published. She has received 2nd place in the NOCW contest, 3rd place TARA writer’s contest, and is a finalist in the Frasier Writing Contest. Her third novella, A Resurrection of Hope, will be released in March.

You can contact Tamera online at these sites.

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A Christmas Promise

by Tamera Lynn Kraft

A Moravian Holiday Story, Circa 1773

During colonial times, John and Anna settle in an Ohio village to become Moravian missionaries to the Lenape. When John is called away to help at another settlement two days before Christmas, he promises he’ll be back by Christmas Day.

When he doesn’t show up, Anna works hard to not fear the worst while she provides her children with a traditional Moravian Christmas.

Through it all, she discovers a Christmas promise that will give her the peace she craves.

“Revel in the spirit of a Colonial Christmas with this achingly tender love story that will warm both your heart and your faith. With rich historical detail and characters who live and breathe on the page, Tamera Lynn Kraft has penned a haunting tale of Moravian missionaries who selflessly bring the promise of Christ to the Lenape Indians. A beautiful way to set your season aglow, A Christmas Promise is truly a promise kept for a heartwarming holiday tale.” – Julie Lessman

You can purchase A Christmas Promise at Pelican Book Group.

Female Colleges of the Late 19th Century

Naomi Rawlings here today and I have with me a special friend who is near and dear to my heart. Melissa Jagears is the author of Love by the Letter, a free ebook novella, and A Bride for Keeps, a full length novel

releasing in October.

The heroine of Melissa's novella intends to go to an all girls college in the late 1850s, which then begs the question: Why did all girls schools exist? Weren't young women expected to get married and manage a household regardless of their education?

So Melissa is stopping by to answer that question. Here's what she has to say:

*****

The heroine in Love by the Letter, likes to do Algebra for fun. What about you? Was I the only secretary on break who wrote out algebraic equations to solve for fun?

Um, so nobody but me huh?

Well, whereas I could pretty easily get a math degree and put it to good use today, my heroine had very few choices in 1858. But, finishing schools weren’t the only places to go at that time, there were these new-fangled four year female colleges that awarded women degrees equivalent to men.

But why?

Wanting to make sure I had the attitudes of the time right for my novella, I searched out some contemporary editorials on why women were encouraged to get these degrees.

Oberlin Students of the late 1850's: Oberlin College Archives

It’s because …..they wanted women to get married. So how was that new?

Yes, even with a four year degree, the object for women was matrimony. But now, women had the opportunity not to marry just for “establishment, an occupation, or mere support,” but because “true freedom and equality are the essential requisites of genuine affection.”

Because there were more colleges available to men and therefore more “general intelligence,” the female colleges were there to help women become more educated so that marriage to these educated men could be on a more equal footing, and so they didn’t have to marry someone they didn’t care for out of desperation. Hopefully they could support themselves in a decent vocation if necessary, allowing them to wait until a man offering them genuine affection proposed.

Mary Sharp’s College and Elmira Female College are the schools my heroine debates over attending. But as Elmira’s literature of the time said, they didn’t want to “make or encourage radical changes in the social position or employments of women.”

How would you have fared in my heroines’ Protomathian year of an all-girl college? (“Elmira [Female] College, had to figure out what to call the first year students, i.e. freshmen. For its first ten years, Elmira referred to this class as the protomathians, before deciding to return to the established usage.”) Here’s her probable schedule if she’d chosen to attend Elmira Female College:

*Cicero’s Orations lectures

*Robinson’s Algebra

*Physical Geography “with frequent lectures”

*Sallust with the Germania and Agricola Tacitus Lectures (This is history, by the way, not mumbo-jumbo. I had to look it up!)

*Botany with Excursions

*Philosophy of History lectures

*Bible Lessons on the Sabbath

*Original English essays required every two weeks

*Weekly Recitations

*Drawing

*Rhetoric and Elocution

*Chorus  

**Theory and Practice of Music and Oil Painting classes are extra!

Sources:

The True Remedy for Wrongs of Woman with a History of an Enterprise Having that for its Object by Catharine E. Beecher in 1851

Annual Report of the Regents of the University of the State of New York

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Thanks for stopping by to explain things to us, Melissa. If you're interested in her novella, Love by the Letter, it's free on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and serves as a prequel to her novel A Bride for Keeps. Learn more about Melissa Jagears and her novels at www.melissajagears.com.

Now here's a little glimpse at Love by the Letter:

Dex Stanton has never had much time for book learning. He's been too busy helping to provide for his family. Now that he's heading west, Dex is hoping to start a family of his own. However, his attempt to acquire a mail-order bride fails miserably when the lady writes back ridiculing his terrible spelling. Rachel Oliver may be the last person he wants to know what a dunce he is, but she's also the smartest woman in town--and it's clear he needs her help.

Rachel Oliver has lingered in town for three years secretly mooning over Dex Stanton, but now she's done. If the fool wants to write to a mail-order bride company, so be it. Once she begins giving Dex lessons, however, Rachel realizes she may not be prepared to give up just yet.

As their time together runs short, can two of the most stubborn people in town set aside their pride long enough to find love?