Little Red Schoolhouse
LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE
LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE. From the eighteenth century well into the twentieth, the country school stood as a symbol of American democracy and civilization founded upon the "three R's." The small, one-room school building, usually located on a small piece of wasteland that farmers could readily spare, was painted, if at all, with red or yellow ochre, the cheapest possible paint. Such schoolhouses were found along country roads throughout New England and states further west, serving several farm families in a central place. Pictures of such buildings became a sort of patriotic fetish with the American Protective Association, successor of the Know-Nothing party, at the close of the nineteenth century.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Daugherty, Mary Lee. "The Little Red Schoolhouse," in Ray B. Brown and Marshall Fishwick, eds., Icons of America. Bowling Green, Ohio: Popular Press, 1978.
Robert P. TristramCoffin/a. r.
See alsoAmerican Protective Association ; Education ; Old Field Schools ; School Lands .