Description
Book SynopsisAs common schooling emerged in the 1830s, providing white children of all classes and ethnicities with the opportunity to become full-fledged citizens, it redefined citizenship as synonymous with whiteness. This title shows why opposition erupted where it did across the United States in antebellum America.
Trade Review"Hilary J. Moss offers an important corrective to the literature of the common schools by identifying race as a factor in their development.... With her detailed case examinations, Moss brings into focus the localized debates that contributed to the patchwork nature of American educational policy and provides awareness of both white and black activism surrounding integration that preceded Brown v. Board of Education by more than a century." (Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth) "Schooling Citizens is a worthy contribution to the study of African-American struggles for access to education and schooling in the pre-Civil War era.... Hilary J. Moss asks us to ponder why Americans, both white and black, often believed in the democratic promise of schooling even though fair treatment and equal opportunity were so rarely realized." (Journal of Interdisciplinary History)"
