Like its sister Southern states, Tennessee’s commitment to public education hovered on the periphery in the early twentieth century. By that time Progressivism and race had become central but conflicting factors in influencing the development of education mores. Progressive thought drove reform forward but the complications of race inhibited change. This TeVA unit examines those influences by exploring government involvement, school architecture, and curricula in a “separate but equal” education system.
Tennessee’s School for the Deaf, created by law in 1844, boasts a remarkably long and stable history of educating the state’s students with hearing disabilities. The school has operated since 1845 in Knoxville, closing only for the Civil War and relocating only once (from downtown to an inner suburb). This unit of the Tennessee Virtual Archive features images of this unique institution’s buildings, many of which were designed by noted architect and alumnus Thomas Scott Marr.