A volume in Contemporary Research in Education Series Editor: Terry
A. Osborn, University of South Florida, Sarasota-Manatee
Normalites: The First Professionally Prepared Teachers in the
United States is a new original work which explores the experiences
of three women, Lydia Stow, Mary Swift and Louisa Harris, who were
pioneers in the movement in teacher education as members of the
first class of the nation's first state normal school established
in Lexington, Massachusetts in 1839. The book is biographical,
offering new insights derived from exceptional research into the
development of the normal school movement from the perspectives of
the students. While studies have provided analysis of the movement
as a whole, as well as some of the leaders of the initiative, such
as Horace Mann and Henry Barnard, there is a lack of rich,
published information about the first groups of students.
Understanding their accounts and experiences, however, provides a
critical foreground to comprehending not only the complexity of the
nineteenth century normal school movement but, more broadly,
educational reform during this period. Arranged chronologically and
in four parts, this book explores the experiences of Lydia Stow,
Mary Swift and Louisa Harris during their normal school studies,
their entrance into the world and commencement of their careers,
the transitions in their personal and professional lives, and the
building of their life work. Throughout these periods, their formal
educational experiences, as well as broader moments of
transformation, are considered and how life paths were shaped. This
book will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students and
faculty connected to teacher preparation programs. More than
100,000 students are currently awarded baccalaureate degrees each
year in Education. Over 80,000 of these students are women. Their
experiences are rooted in the pioneering efforts of Lydia Stow,
Mary Swift, and Louisa Harris at our nation's first state normal
school. It is a particularly fitting time to share their
experiences as the 175th anniversary of the start of formal, state
sponsored teacher education, the normal school movement, will be
celebrated in 2014.
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