Christine Woyshner’s research while affiliated with Temple University and other places

In early September 1956, Martha Rutledge—the president of the all-white Alabama State Parent-Teacher Association—released a statement to the press intended to clarify the organization's position on the Brown v. Board of Education decision and the desegregation of schools in her state: As president of the Alabama Congress, I am a firm believer in the Southern way of life. The entire organization of the Alabama congress is made up of people who believe in the Southern way of life. There is no organization anywhere that practices segregation more than the Alabama P-TA or an organization that will work toward maintaining segregation in our schools with any more force.

This book explores women’s organizations and their various educational contributions through local, state, and national networks from 1890 to 1960. Contributors investigate how women united to support and sustain education in both formal and informal settings, and examine various associations.

Founded in 1897 as the National Congress of Mothers, the National Parent Teacher Association (PTA) was open to African American members but excluded them in practice. In 1926, a separate black PTA was created to serve the segregated schools of the American South. After the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, black and white PTA leaders faced the difficult prospect of integrating all national, state, and local units, which resulted in a protracted unification process that lasted until 1970. In The National PTA, Race, and Civic Engagement, 1897-1970, Christine Woyshner examines the PTA in relation to its racial politics and as a venue for women’s civic participation in educational issues. Her argument is that the PTA allowed for discussions about race and desegregation when few other public spaces, even the schools, did so during this time. The PTA, the largest voluntary educational association in the twentieth century, has over the course of one hundred years lobbied for national legislation on behalf of children and families, played a role in shaping the school curriculum, and allowed for participation of diverse community members in dialogue about the goals of public schooling.

Although ubiquitous in America’s past, women’s organizations were virtually invisible for a long time in the scholarship. In recent years, however, the history of women’s associations has become a more commonly researched topic, including explorations of study clubs, social service organizations, and political and social advocacy groups.1 While many studies examine women’s organized efforts on the social and political landscape, few do so in the arena of education in the United States.2 This book seeks to fill that gap in terms of the educational work of women’s organizations by drawing on this vast topic of study and placing it in the context of the history of education. In particular, we recognize the need to theorize women’s organized efforts. Such theorizing necessarily rests on gender as a central part of the analytical framework as the contributors explore how women created, led, and interacted within voluntary membership organizations.3

This article examines the origins of the National Parent-Teacher Association and questions its current image as a white, middle-class women's association. Founded as the National Congress of Mothers in 1897, the association was wedded to late-nineteenth century maternalist ideology that held that all women were united across race, class, and religion in their particular obligation to ensure the proper rearing of all children. The author considers this maternalism and its role in the development of the organization. First, she argues that the emphasis on woman-as-mother allowed for the rapid expansion of a national organization, which by 1920 created considerable tension between women volunteers and male school administrators. By the 1920s, male administrators succeeded in containing the influence of the PTA by employing a rhetorical strategy that separated fundraising from volunteers' educational work. Then, the author investigates the NCM's racially inclusive policy, a central component of maternalist thinking unique for this era, and argues that it posed the greatest challenge to the organization. This historical study raises questions about the role of civic voluntary associations in public education in a democracy.

The secondary school history curriculum, with its emphasis on political history, tends to relegate women to the margins or to interpret their accomplishments according to a patriarchal framework. The author argues that by adapting theoretical developments in the field of women's history, women can be seen as political agents in history, thereby bringing about a more inclusive history in the schools that meets women on their own terms. Using the phase model designed by historians of women and educational researchers, the author shows how existing curriculum and educational research favors political history that either excludes women or overemphasizes the importance of the suffrage movement. Then, using the example of women's clubs and associations prior to the Nineteenth Amendment, she demonstrates how women's political activism influenced public education. Viewing women as political beings who were not merely limited to a private sphere, she argues, will advance the agenda of women's history in the school curriculum.