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Graduate School of Education. Educational Program Records UPB 4.9

Access to collections is granted in accordance with the Protocols for the University Archives and Records Center.

Summary Information

Prepared by
Kaiyi Chen
Date [inclusive]
1904-1967
Extent
15.0 Cubic feet

HISTORICAL NOTE

The Illman-Carter Training School for Kindergarten and Primary Teachers was founded in October 1904 by Miss Alice Carter of Philadelphia as the “Training School for Kindergarten Teachers.” Earlier, Miss Carter had established two mission kindergartens in poorer districts of the city. One kindergarten was located on Lombard and Seventh Streets, with Miss Adelaide T. Illman, a graduate of the Philadelphia Normal School, as Director. Aware of the intense need for adequately trained kindergarten teachers, Miss Carter initiated a series of lectures at the then Drexel Institute of Technology (the present Drexel University) for women working at kindergartens in 1904. This was the beginning of the Training School. Later the School secured accommodations at Twelveth and Walnut Streets and enrolled four and five year old children in a kindergarten where students could observe teaching methods demonstrated by an adequately trained teacher.

Miss Caroline M. C. Hart of Baltimore, a noted specialist in the kindergarten field of eduation, was the first Director of the School. After the School moved to the southwest corner of Thirty-sixth and Walnut Streets, Miss Illman became assistant to Miss Hart. After Miss Hart died in 1918, the training program was enlarged to include the training for primary teachers and the School renamed “Miss Illman’s Training School for Kindergarten-Primary Teachers.” In 1921, owing to the rapid growth of the damand, the School purchased a fine old house at 4000 Pine Street with the financial assistance of Miss Carter. In 1928, the Pennsylvania Department of Public Instruction granted the School a charter, and since then graduates of the School were awarded certificates for teaching in public school upon the completion of the two to three year program.

The School of Education of the University of Pennsylvania entered a special relationship with the Illman School in 1932. The School of Education sent its own faculty to teach at the Illman School such courses as English, Psychology, and General Education Philosophy and Methods and in the meantime granted credits toward a Bachelor of Science Degree in Education for certain method courses students took at the Illman School. In 1936, the Illman School, including its Children’s School, formally became an integral part of the University of Pennsylvania under the name of the Illman-Carter Unit for Kindergarten-Primary Teachers. Miss Illman continued as director of the Unit with the rank of Professor of Education until she retired in 1947. In 1959, the University of Pennsylvania decided to close the Illman School for Children because of the heavy expense to run the school properly and also because of the new trend of using public and private schools for practice teaching instead of confining such training to a demonstration school. In recognition of the contribution of Miss Illman, the University named the Division of Elementary Education of the Graduate School of Education the Illman Division of Elementary Education.

The University of Pennsylvania initiated the Schoolmen’s Week program in 1914, with its first annual meeting held on the University campus. The mission of the program was to have all administrators and teachers engaged in school education get together and update their expertise by attending lectures or exchanging views and ideas on a wide range of topics related to school work. The participants included superintendents and principals of the state, representatives of boards of education, and principals and teachers of normal schools and colleges. The program, which offered in the first year twenty-four meetings attended by two hundred people, grew to be a teachers’ institute offering over a hundred sessions with an attendance of over two thousand in the fifties and an attendance of thirty thousand in 1960. In addition to the University of Pennsylvania, the program was also supported in the sixties by the Drexel Institute of Technology, the Junior High School Vice Principals Association, the Philadelphia Principals Association, the Philadelphia Suburban Elementary Principals Association, the Philadelphia Teachers Association, the Private School Teachers Association of Philadelphia and Vicinity, and various school districts in the area.

SCOPE AND CONTENT

This series consists mainly of records of two educational programs–the records of the Illman Training School for Kindergarten and Primary Teachers and the records of the Schoolmen’s Week program.

The subseries of the Illman School includes two major files–the Administrative Files and the Children’s Class Records. The Administrative Files document the development of the School from 1904, the year when its precursor, the Training School for Kindergartners, was opened, to 1959 when the School ceased to be part of the University of Pennsylvania. The Files feature address books of the School’s graduates in early years; an agreement between the School and the University of Pennsylvania for the integration of the School as a unit of the Graduate School of Education of Penn; by-laws and Board of Managers minutes, 1928-1936; brochures of the School from 1904-1946; and financial records in ledger books. The Children’s Class Records are records of children who attended the Illman School for Children (an institution attached to the Training School for the practice of its trainees) from 1939 to 1959. The Children’s Class Records document the development of each child’s behavior and performance in class as well as the care the child received at home.

The subseries of the Schoolmen’s Week program includes correspondence of the activities sponsored by the Graduate School of Education for the program from 1952 to 1967, meeting brochures, and files of meetings at two locations–Lancaster and York–in the late 1950s.

Inventory

 

Illman-Carter School 

Box

Folder

Administrative Files 

Address Book 1904-1917 

1

1

Address book 1928-1943 

1

2

Address book 1938-1943 

1

3

Addresses and miscellaneous accounts 1904-1920 

1

4

Agreement between the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania and Illman Training School for Kindergarten and Primary Teachers 1936 June 30th 

1

5

Banking account books and statements 1925-1935 

1

6

Brochures 1904-1905 

1

7

Brochures 1914-1916 

1

8

Brochures 1918-1920 

1

9

Brochures 1920-1921 

1

10

Brochures 1921-1923 

1

11

Brochures 1923-1925 

1

12

Brochures 1925-1927 

1

13

Brochures 1927-1929 

1

14

Brochures 1929-1930 

1

15

Brochures 1931-1933 

1

16

Brochures 1933-1935 

1

17

Brochures 1935-1937 

1

18

Brochures 1937-1939 

1

19

Brochures 1939-1942 

1

20

Brochures 1942-1946 

1

21

Bulletin 1936-1940 

1

22

Bulletin 1941-1945 

1

23

By-laws and Board of Managers minutes 1928-1936 

1

24

Charter 1928 

2

1

Class attendance record 1916 

1

25

Deed, title insurance, and lease agreement 1921-1933 

2

2

Graduates of Miss Hart’s Training School for Kindergartners 1904-1923 

1

26

Graduate addresses of Miss Hart’s Training School (in typescript) 1906-1915 

1

27

In the Footsteps of Froebel n.d. 

1

28

Incomplete List of Names of Children who Attended the Illman School for Children 1927-1959 

1

29

Invitation mailing list n.d. 

1

30

Ledger book miscellaneous accounts 1904-1916 

1

31

Ledger book Journal inserted with miscellaneous notes 1907-1918 

1

32

Ledger receipts and payments 1924-1925 

1

33

Ledger multiple accounts with alphabetical index 1925-1930 

 OS

 

Ledger book Journal 1925-1931 

2

3

Ledger book Cash Receipts and Disbursements 1928-1930 

2

4

Ledger book Cash Receipts and Disbursements 1930-1934 

2

5

Ledger multiple accounts with alphabetical index 1930-1936 

2

6

Ledger book Cash Receipts and Disbursements 1934-1936 

2

7

Ledger book mailing list and other miscellaneous entries 1911-1929 

1

34

Personnel Action Form and Recommendations 1940-1958 

1

35

Property appraisement 1930 

2

8

Salaries 1925-1926 

1

36

Scrapbook, forms, leaflets, and correspondence 1948-1950 

1

37

Children’s Class Records 

Aa – Adams, H. 

1

38-43

Adams, K. – B 

 3

 

C – Do 

 4

 

Dr – Gibbo 

 5

 

Gibbs – Holl 

 6

 

Holt – Law 

 7

 

Law-McD 

 7A

 

McG – O 

 8

 

Pao – Sam 

 9

 

Sam – Ta 

 10

 

Te – Zal 

 11

 

Zar – Zi 

12

1-7

Memorabilia 

Blueprints for the School Building at 4000 Pine Street 1927 

 OS 1

 

 

Schoolmen’s Week 1950-1967 

Box

Folder

Correspondence 1952-1953 

12

8

Correspondence 1954 

12

9

Correspondence 1952-1953 

12

8

Correspondence 1954 

12

9

Correspondence 1955 

12

10

Correspondence 1956 

12

11

Correspondence 1957 

12

12

Correspondence 1958 

12

13

Correspondence 1959 

12

14

Correspondence 1960 

12

15

Correspondence 1961 

12

16

Correspondence 1962 

12

17

Correspondence 1963 

12

18

Correspondence 1964 

12

19

Correspondence 1965 

12

20

Correspondence 1966 

12

21

Correspondence 1967 

12

22

Conference on Higher Education 1958 

12

23

Conference on Higher Education 1959 

12

24

History n.d. 

12

25

International exchange scholars 1950-1958 

12

26

Lancaster meeting 1957-1958 

12

27

Lancaster meeting 1959 

12

28

Meeting brochures 1958-1961 

12

29

Meeting photographs, 25 n.d. 

12

30

Participants biographical material, with photos 1959 

12

31

U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Education Directory 1958-1959 

12

32

York meeting 1958 

12

33

York meeting 1959 

12

34