Endowments; Municipal government--Societies, etc.; Pressure groups; Pittsburgh (Pa.); Voters' League (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
Format
correspondence
Genre
Business correspondence
Date
[between 1886 and 1919?]
Physical Description
microfilm, 16 mm, b&w
Note (Reel no.)
Reel 84
Note
PDF may contain multiple grant documents.
During the 1907-08 school year, the Pittsburgh Voters' League undertook a study of the city's school system and its administration. The Voters' League, a middle-class reform organization, was shocked by the results of its inquiry into the city's ward school boards... Arguing that 'a man's occupation ought to give strong indication of his qualifications for membership on a school board,' the Voter's League proceeded to label as unfit not only saloon keepers, bartenders, and 'gamblers,' but also laborers and unskilled mill workers, government employees of all types, contractors and sales agents, 'small storekeepers, clerks, [and} workmen at many trades.' In 1910 these guidelines would have unseated all the members of the 15th- and 16th-ward boards, and all but one member (a physician) of the 17th-ward board." [SOURCE: DeVault, Ileen A. Sons and Daughters of Labor: Class and Clerical Work in Turn-of-the-century Pittsburgh. Cornell University Press, 1995, pp. 127-128. Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?id=e09Vse0EvKcC&.]