Main content
Historical Society of Frankford collection on Northeast Philadelphia schools
Notifications
Held at: Historical Society of Frankford [Contact Us]1507 Orthodox St., Philadelphia, PA, 19124
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Historical Society of Frankford. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Public schools began in Philadelphia in 1818 with the establishment of the First School District of Pennsylvania by an act of the state legislature. Originally, Philadelphia public schools existed solely for the instruction of poor children, but in 1837 public education in the city became “universal”— freely available to all school-age children regardless of financial circumstances. With the Philadelphia City/County Consolidation of 1854, the city was divided into wards and a system was created in which each ward constituted a separate school district section, with its own local board of directors. The 23rd Ward, which included all of Northeast Philadelphia, constituted the 23rd school district section. Parts of the 23rd Ward were later broken off to form the 35th Ward (in 1890) and 41st Ward (in 1899), each with its own school district section. The Reorganization Act of 1905 took most of the administrative power away from the local section boards and gave it to the central Philadelphia Board of Education, which has managed the city’s public education system ever since.
Bibliography:
Custis, John Trevor. The Public Schools of Philadelphia : Historical, Biographical, Statistical. Philadelphia, PA: Burk & McFetridge Company, 1897.
Cutler III, William W. "Public Education: The School District of Philadelphia." In Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. New Jersey: Rutgers University, 2012. Accessed June 22, 2016. http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/public-educationthe-school-district-of-philadelphia/.
This collection consists of Board of Directors of Public School minutes for the 23rd section of Philadelphia and a small number of records of public schools in Northeast Philadelphia.
Volumes in the collection include: Board of Directors of the Public Schools 23rd Section minute book, 1854-1873 Board of Directors of the Public Schools 23rd Section minute book, 1873-1896 Board of Directors of the Public Schools 23rd Section minute book, 1897-1906 Board of Directors of the Public Schools 23rd Section minute book, 1904-1925 Fox Chase School roll book, 1825-1834 Fox Chase School roll book, 1828-1840 Frankford and Whitehall Public School minute book, 1879-1884 Godfrey School report and examination book, 1892-1899 Godfrey School report and examination book, 1899-1905 Godfrey School report and examination book, 1905-1906 Maple Grove School attendance book, 1908-1909 Maple Grove School attendance book, 1910-1911 Maple Grove School attendance book, 1912 Maple Grove School enrollment book, 1839-1880
In addition, there are report books and examination books from various grade levels at Fayette Consolidated School, 1894-1908. There is also a run of the John Marshall School News, a newsletter from the Marshall-Axe-Wilmot schools in Frankford.
Summary descriptive information on this collection was compiled in 2014-2016 as part of a project conducted by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to make better known and more accessible the largely hidden collections of small, primarily volunteer run repositories in the Philadelphia area. The Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories (HCI-PSAR) was funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This is a preliminary finding aid. No physical processing, rehousing, reorganizing, or folder listing was accomplished during the HCI-PSAR project.
In some cases, more detailed inventories or finding aids may be available on-site at the repository where this collection is held; please contact Historical Society of Frankford directly for more information.
Organization
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- Historical Society of Frankford
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Sarah Leu and Anastasia Matijkiw through the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories
- Sponsor
- This preliminary finding aid was created as part of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories. The HCI-PSAR project was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
- Access Restrictions
-
Contact Historical Society of Frankford for information about accessing this collection.