Twice a month, we ask the experts at the Museum of History and Industry for a tidbit about Seattle’s history. Since thousands of children and college students returned to the classroom this month, we turned to MOHAI’s Helen Divjak to find out:
What were Seattle’s earliest schools like?
Seattle’s first public school didn’t officially open until 1870 (nearly two whole decades after the Denny Party arrived at Alki with twelve children in-toe). However, the young settlement was able to offer some educational opportunities to its young residents as early as 1854, when a woman named Catherine Paine Blaine opened Seattle’s first community school, charging a modest fee for her lessons. The curriculum was simple in those early years, focusing mainly on reading, writing and basic arithmetic. Students were required to use little more than a piece of slate and chalk to complete their assignments – a far cry from the over-burdened backpacks, laptops, and advanced internet know-how required of students today.
But as Seattle’s population grew, women like Catherine, who ran informal schools from their living room parlors, were unable to keep-up with the town’s demand for elementary education. By 1867 it was apparent that a formalized school system was needed to serve the town’s growing number of children, so the Seattle School Board was formed and tasked with acquiring the land and funding to establish a public school system. Three years later, Seattle’s first public school opened, located on Third Avenue between Madison and Spring Street. But with only one teacher, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Ordway, employed on its first day, the two-story school house was overwhelmed with 120 eager pupils.
Worth noting is that Lizzie Ordway was among the first group of “Mercer Girls” who arrived in 1864 to “civilize” Seattle’s rough, and primarily male, society. This group of eligible bachelorettes was brought to Seattle by Asa Mercer, who also happened to be the first president and instructor of the Territorial University (later the University of Washington). At the time of their arrival in Seattle, the Territorial University had been operating for just over two years, and offered little more that elementary-level courses to children. According to Mercer, what was holding Seattle back was a lack of refined, marriageable women who could transform the settlement from a back-water logging town, into a prosperous urban center.
It’s also worth mentioning here that that the story of Seattle’s early schools is inseparable from that of women’s political and social advancement in Washington State. The first graduate of the University of Washington, Clara McCarty, earned her Bachelor’s in Science in 1876, and went on to be one of the first women to hold public office in the region when she was elected as the Superintendant of Schools for Peirce County. Women also outnumbered men 7 to 5 in Seattle’s first graduating High School class of 1886. Moreover, Seattle’s first recognized teacher, Catherine Paine Blaine, was among Washington’s earliest and most determined suffragists. Having attended the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 – the first of its kind to demand women’s political rights and equality – Catherine arrived in Seattle with her husband in 1853, and continued to fight for women’s right to vote until she died in 1908, just two years before the state granted women the suffrage rights for good.
For more on Seattle’s Public School History, pick up a copy of Building for Learning, or visit: http://www.seattleschools.org.To find out more about Seattle’s path-breaking women, and a Centennial of women’s suffrage in Washington State, visit the exhibit, Women’s Votes, Women’s Voices, on display at MOHAI through October 3rd.
(Got a question for next time? Send it here.)
More Ask MOHAI:
Was Seattle ever a jazz city?
Eddie Bauer and Seattle as the birthplace of quilted down parkas
The tale of Seattle and bicycles – a love story
How did Capitol Hill get its name?
How did Washington women convince the electorate to give them the vote?
Where was Seattle’s gay culture born?
Bad dad? To the Lazy Husband Farm you go
Seattle was sexy long before the Lusty Lady, will it be after?
Beer and baseball: Why they go way back in Seattle
What is the oldest building in Seattle?
What did the census reveal the year Seattle became a small city?
Has Seattle ever had a female mayor?
A history of charity: How Seattle Children’s Home got its start
What was the Puget Sound area’s most famous kidnapping?
When did the UW win its first Olympic gold medal?
What was Seattle’s most disruptive construction project?
Who started Seattle’s Christmas Ship Festival — and why?
WTO: What other civil unrest has marked Seattle’s history?
What was the first legal drinking age in Washington?
What was the first book ever checked out of a Seattle public library?
Looking back: How Seattle handled another flu outbreak
What’s the oldest public art in Seattle?
Why is it called “grunge”?
Who was Seattle’s most popular mayor?
Why is a Seattle community garden called a ‘P-Patch?’
Why are there so many motels on Aurora Avenue?
What’s the weirdest thing that’s happened to the Space Needle?
How long has Seattle supported gay rights?
Why are cars allowed to drive on Pike Place?