Education 1800s: Timeline and Key Events
1801 – The blackboard is invented by James Pillans.
1817 – The Connecticut Asylum at Hartford for the Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons opens.
1821 – Bostons English High School, the first public high school opens.
1823 – The Hartford Female Seminary, a private school for girls, is opened in Hartford, Connecticut, by Catherine Beecher.
1827 – A law is passed in Massachusetts requiring that towns with more than 500 families must have a public high school open and available to all students.
1829 – The first school in the United States for children with visual disabilities opens as the New England Asylum for the Blind in Massachusetts. It is now called the Perkins School for the Blind.
1836 – The first of the readers by William Holmes McGuffey is published. With a secular tone, the books that are considered to be among the most influential textbooks of the 19th Century, are set apart from the more common Puritan texts that were available during that time period.
1837 – Eighty students arrive at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, the first college for women in the U.S.
1839 – The first state funded school specifically for teacher education opens in Lexington, Massachusetts.
1848 – The Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feebleminded Youth is established with the help of Hervey Wilbur.
1849 – The first woman to graduate from medical school, Elizabeth Blackwell, graduates from Geneva Medical College.
1851 – The New York State Asylum for Idiots opens.
1852 – Massachusetts enacts the first mandatory school attendance law. All states have them by 1918.
1853 – A private school for children with intellectual disabilities, the Pennsylvania Training School for Feeble-minded Children, is funded.
1854 – The first major free library supported by taxes, the Boston Public Library, is opened.
1856 – Founded by Margarethe Schurz, the first kindergarten in the United States opens.
1857 – The National Teachers Association is founded by forty-three educators in Philadelphia.
1859 – Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species is published on November 24, introducing the theories of evolution and natural selection.
1860 – Abraham Lincoln is elected president.
1861 – The Civil War begins in the United States when South Carolina secedes from the union.
1862 – The First Morrill Act, also known as the “Land Grant Act” becomes law.
1865 – Lee surrenders at Appomattox Courthouse, ending the Civil War. Most of the schools in the south are closed as a result of the destruction.
1867 – The Department of Education is created in order to help states establish effective school systems.
1867 – George Peabody funds the Peabody Education Fund to aid public education in the southern states. Schools in the south were left in a state of destruction after the war.
1867 – Howard University is established to provide education in the liberal arts and sciences for African-American youth. It is located in Washington, D.C., and receives early support from the Freedmen’s Bureau.
1867 – The “modern” typewriter is invented by Christopher Sholes. It is furst manufactured by E. Remington and Sons in 1873, and is known as the Sholes Glidden.
1869 – Boston creates the first public day school for the deaf.
1873 – Bank foreclosures and business failures are caused by the Panic of 1873. Later followed by economic depression, revenues for the educational system are reduced.
1873- Anna Eliot Ticknor, the daughter of Harvard professor George Ticknor, founds the Society to Encourage Studies at Home in Boston.
1874 – The Michigan State Supreme Court rules that the city of Kalamazoo may levy taxes to help support a public high school. This set an important precedent for similar rulings in other states.
1875 – Segregation in all public accommodations is banned through the Civil Rights Act. However, the Supreme Court ruled the Act unconstitutional in 1883.
1876 – Edouard Seguin becomes the first President of the Association of Medical Officers of American Institutions for Idiotic and Feebleminded Persons.
1876 – Meharry Medical College is founded in Nashville, Tennessee as the first medical school in the south for African-Americans.
1879 – The first Indian boarding school opens in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
1890 – The Second Morrill Act is enacted.
1891 – Former California Governor and railroad tycoon Leland Stanford found Stanform University in memory of his son, Leland, Jr.
1892 – The Committee on Secondary Social Studies, often called the Committee of Ten, recommends a college-oriented high school curriculum.
1896 – Homer Plessy, a 30-year-old African American, challenges the state of Louisiana’s “Separate Car Act,” arguing that requiring Blacks to ride in separate railroad cars violates the 13th and 14th Amendments. The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the Louisiana law.
Related Resources
More resources about the history of education broken out by time period:
Important Dates in Education timeline of the 1600s
Important Dates in Education timeline of the 1700s
Important Dates in Education Timeline of the 1900 – 2010
Annalise Kaylor is a freelance writer, editor, and consultant specializing in search engine optimized content for the web. As a writer, her work has appeared across the United States in print ads for Whirlpool, Maytag, Home Depot, and Lowe's, among others. As a consultant, she has worked primarily in the education sector, helping universities increase their web visibility and construct and implement social media strategy. Annalise is an avid reader, knitter, organic gardener and baker, as well as the author of the popular baking blog, Knead To Be Loaved. Annalise enjoys fly fishing, camping, and hiking.
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