The Rosenwald Schools in Texas

In September 2023, a donation came to the Special Collections and Archives department about the Prairie View Training School that used to be an education program on campus during the 1918-1968 period. The collection is small but contains information about the history of the program, lists of past teachers, principles and graduates. The Prairie View Training School was created as a part of the Rosenwald School Fund that was founded to help build educational schools cross the South for African American to gain an education. The history of the Rosenwald School Fund is not presently known amongst modern day history classes and the buildings barely exist anymore or donated to museums. As a result, this post is a short overview of the history of Rosenwald Schools that existed in the South and the great influence of these schools being constructed in the State of Texas. 

Source: The Rosenwald Schools: Progressive Era Philanthropy in the Segregated South (Teaching with Historic Places). (n.d.). National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-rosenwald-schools-progressive-era-philanthropy-in-the-segregated-south-teaching-with-historic-places.htm

Who is Rosenwald?

Julius Rosenwald was born in 1862 to the clothier Samuel Rosenwald and his wife Augusta, a Jewish immigrant couple from Germany. Rosenwald dropped out of high school after two years to apprentice with his uncles, who were major clothing manufacturers in New York City. From 1908-1924, he was the president of Sears, Roebuck, and Company. He is credited with launching Sears into a powerhouse retailor. Rosenwald was concerned about justice for all, and wanted to help out different groups of people.

Overtime, he met with Booker T. Washington.

Though Rosenwald and Washington came from different backgrounds, the two men bonded over their common concerns about discrimination. Born into slavery in Virginia in about 1856, Washington seeked an opportunity for education and in 1881 helped found the Tuskegee Institute, a black university in Alabama. Rosenwald, born to Jewish-German immigrant parents in Illinois in 1862, dropped out of high school to work for his uncles’ clothing-manufacturing business in New York City—a career path that led him to become president of Sears.

When Washington had seen an opportunity to ask Rosenwald about creating a fund to help educate African Americans throughout the South after Reconstruction. Then, they began the process of having Rosenwald to partially finance the construction of schools for African Americans. Between 1913 and 1932, their partnership helped produce the construction of over 5,300 schools for African Americans in the segregated South. 

Philosophy of the Prairie View Rosenwald School

The philosophy of the Prairie View Training School (A Rosenwald School) during this period may be found in the following items: 

1. To improve student teachers and pupils through cooperative efforts or the supervisors.

2. To stimulate interest in the Department of Education so that the faculty will assist in promoting the Training School activities.

3. To teach subject matter in order to build up proper habits and attitudes which will enable pupil & to meet the standard need of the Training School.

4. To improve work of the Training School with standards set up by the State Department of Education am other leading training schools.

5. To work: the student teachers that they may derive wholesome information for their own development

6. To give teachers in training the best teaching methods in the light of the progressive movement in education

The building, known as the Prairie View Training School, was built in the year 1925. It consisted of a one story four -roomed structure, 50 feet by 78 feet built on the Rosenwald Plan. The Julius Rosenwald Foundation, Chicago, Illinois, has made a conditional gift of $l,500 toward enlarging the Library at Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College. The gift was made on condition that $1,500.00 be raised for that purpose by the college. This condition has been met by the college and $1,500.00 from the Rosenwald Foundation has been received by Principal W. R. Banks. 

Source: Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College. (1929). The Prairie View Standard - November 1929 - Vol. XVII No. 2., Vol. XVII No. 2 Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.pvamu.edu/pv-newspapers/79