[Dissertation] Compulsory attendance legislation in America, 1870 to 1915

222 Pages·1988·9.684 MB·English

by  Martin Jay Eisenberg

COMPULSORY ATTENDANCE LEGISLATION IN AMERICA,
1870 TO 1915
Martin Jay Eisenberg
A DISSERTATION
in
Economics
Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy.
1988
upervisor /of Dissertation
Graduate Group Chairperson
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COPYRIGHT
MARTIN JAY EISENBERG
1988
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i ii
To my father, DAVID EISENBERG,
and his "forty-five" minute answers.
And to my mother, JONNY EISENBERG,
for saying when enough is enough.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Over the three and a half years that I have been strug­
gling to complete my thesis, many people and institutions
have made significant contributions and I want to thank all
of them. In particular, the project would have gone nowhere
without the advice and encouragement of my thesis advisers,
Claudia Goldin and Robert Margo. Paul Taubman graciously
served on my thesis committee.
My fellow graduate students also provided valuable
assistance. David Buffum, Bruce Fallick, E. Scott Mayfield,
and Robert Whaples all warrant special mention. David
Albright provided empirical and econometrics advice.
I would not have completed the thesis without financial
assistance. I thank the Graduate Group in Economics for
providing me a teaching assistantship and teaching opportu­
nities. I appreciate the National Institute of Child Health
and Human Development Research Service Award granted to my
by Douglas Massey, Samuel Preston, and the Graduate Group in
Demography. I thank Robert Inman for arranging a fellowship
funded by the Program for Assessing and Revitalizing the
Social Sciences.
Administrative assistance was also crucial and I com­
mend the efforts of Van Pelt Library's inter-library loan
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V
staff. I owe an enormous debt to Regina Forlano, Adminis­
trative Assistant to the Graduate Group in Economics. Mary
Moscony at Franklin and Marshall College provided
photocopying assistance.
I also thank Henry Gemery of Colby College who showed
me that economics and history could be an exciting
combination. His encouragement during my undergraduate
years at Colby College and in the years since graduation is
greatly appreciated. David Rabadan, one of my high school
history teachers, spent many mornings talking history with
me and our discussions have guided me throughout my
education.
The thesis would never have been completed without
friends to help me keep my sanity. The lunch and volleyball
crowd of the Graduate Group in Economics at the University
of Pennsylvania made graduate school fun and bearable.
Rosanne Altschuler, Sandy Chen, Scott Hoyt, and Bob
Mooradian all helped me survive a difficult first year of
graduate school. Kathy Snead, Dave and Sally Buffum, Byron
Gangnes, Hilary Benson, Bruce Fallick, Robert and Gina
Whaples, and Scott Mayfield are all treasured friends.
Lastly, I thank my family. As a child, early morning
conversation with my grandmother, Adelaide Frane, over her
many cups of coffee, taught me how to develop and articulate
w
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vi
an argument. My siblings provided encouragement and
reassured me that I could complete the thesis. So, I thank
Ellen and Robert Henak, Ann Eisenberg, and Susan Eisenberg.
And my parents, David and Jonny Eisenberg, were always there
when needed.
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vii
COMPULSORY ATTENDANCE LEGISLATION IN AMERICA,
1870 TO 1915
Martin Jay Eisenberg
Claudia Goldin
School attendance and enrollment rates in the United
States, which rose substantially between 1870 and 1915, were
accompanied by the enactment of compulsory attendance laws.
Why were the laws passed and do they account for the in­
crease in educational investment? The questions are ad­
dressed as separate but related issues.
A time series of passage and amendments to compulsory
attendance laws is compiled for 1870 to 1915. The time
series is used to estimate the probability that a state
passed or amended a compulsory attendance law. The proba­
bility is a positive function of the attendance level and
Republican control of the state legislature. Republicans
wanted to use the public schools to create and preserve a
unique American culture, but hesitated to pass laws until
the majority of the population was already attending school.
The national findings are confirmed at the state level by an
analysis of roll call votes in Iowa and Pennsylvania.
While many proponents of compulsory attendance wanted
to use public schools to preserve their image of American
culture, the laws did not succeed in increasing public
school attendance. State age-specific attendance rates for
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1910 are used to assess the laws' impact. If states without
laws had had laws in 1910, attendance would have been one to
two percentage points higher.
The cross section analysis treats all compulsory atten­
dance laws as identical. Age coverage, the minimum period
of attendance, and enforcement provisions varied across
states. To account for the variation, Iowa's and Pennsylva­
nia's compulsory attendance laws are assessed using cross
section time series county-level attendance data. To mea­
sure the magnitude of the increase, hypothetical attendance,
estimated assuming the law had not been passed, is compared
to actual attendance. The laws account for slightly less
than a two percentage point increase in the attendance rate
five years after passage in both Iowa and Pennsylvania.
The failure of compulsory attendance laws to increase
school attendance means the laws are unimportant in explain­
ing increasing investment in human capital which made a sig­
nificant contribution to economic growth between 1870 and
1915.
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COMPULSORY ATTENDANCE LEGISLATION IN AMERICA, 1870 TO 1915
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
Chapter 2 Compulsory Attendance Law, 1870-1915 6
Chapter 3 The Politics of Compulsion 18
Chapter 4 The Politics of Compulsion in Iowa 42
Chapter 5 The Politics of Compulsion in Pennsylvania 61
Chapter . 6 Compulsory Attendance Laws Across the 88
Nation, 1910
Chapter 7 Compulsory Attendance Laws in Iowa and 111
Pennsylvania
Chapter 8 Summary Comments 149
Appendix A Time Series of Compulsory Attendance 155
Laws, 1870-1914
Appendix B Dates and Political Composition of State 161
and Territorial Legislatures, 1870-1915
References 199
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X
COMPULSORY ATTENDANCE LEGISLATION IN AMERICA, 1870 TO 1915
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1.1 Educational Trends, 1870-1915 2
Table 2.1 Dates and Clauses of Initial Compulsory 8
Attendance Laws
Table 3.1 Compulsory Attendance Laws Enacted Per 19
Decade
Table 3.2 Percentage of Legislative Sessions 19
Resulting In Compulsory Attendance Laws
By Decade
Table 3.3 Number and Proportion of Children 29
10 to 15 Years Old Gainfully
Occupied, 1880-1930
Table 3.4 The Likelihood of Passing a Compulsory 39
Attendance Law, 1870-1915
Table 4.1 Attendance and Enrollment Patterns of 44
Children Aged 5 to 19 in Iowa and the
Surrounding States, 1870-1915
Table 4.2 Months Attended in Iowa Schools, 45
1890-1900
Table 4.3 Iowa House of Representatives: Variable 52
Means and Standard Deviations
Table 4.4 Voting Patterns in the House of 58
Representatives on Iowa's Compulsory
Schooling Bill, 1888 and 1902
Table 5.1 Attendance and Enrollment Patterns of 62
Children Aged 5 to 19 in Pennsylvania
and the Surrounding States, 1870-1914
Table 5.2 Republican Majorities in the Pennsylvania 86
General Assembly, 1885-1899
Table 6.1 Percentage of States Mandating Attendance 97
By Age and Region, 1910
Table 6.2 Determinants of Average Daily Attendance 100
In 1910
W:.................. .............. ..........
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