Chapter 3 Timeline

 

Early Common School Era

1808

Elizabeth Seton establishes a school for girls in Baltimore

1821

The first public high school in the United States is established

1826

The first public high schools for girls open in New York and Boston

1828

Work begins on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad

1828

The first western president, Andrew Jackson, is elected

1833

Oberlin College in Ohio is founded, the first coeducational college in the United States

1830s

1833

American Anti-Slavery Society is created

1836

American Temperance Union is created

1837

The State Board of Education is created in Massachusetts; Horace Mann is its first executive secretary

1838

The first state normal school in the United States opens in Massachusetts

1838

Mount Holyoke College, the first seminary for female teachers in the United States, is founded in South Hadley, MA by Mary Lyon; it opens the following year with 87 students

1840s

~1840

Blackboards are introduced, prompting educators to predict a revolution in education

1844

Horace Mann describes the Prussian school system in his Seventh Annual Report

1846

The "potato famine" begins in Ireland

1847

Production of McCormick reapers begins

1848

The first women's rights convention is held at Seneca Falls, New York

1850s

1852

Massachusetts is first U.S. state to mandate compulsory school attendance

1852

In North Carolina, the first state superintendent of schools is appointed in a southern state

1859

Horace Mann dies

1859

John Brown attempts to start slave insurrection at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia