Students Protesting the High School Dress Code That Banned Slacks for Girls in Brooklyn, New York City, 1942

This vintage photograph shows students protesting the high school dress code that banned slacks for girls in Brooklyn back in 1942. It illustrated a question in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle magazine on March 26 1942. As war raged around the globe, readers were invited to consider the burning question: “Should high school girls, particularly students of Abraham Lincoln High School on Ocean Parkway… be permitted to wear slacks to class?”

Girls show up in slacks at Abraham Lincoln High School, Brooklyn, in protest because a classmate, Beverly Bernstein, was suspended the day before for wearing slacks. Left to right: Roslyn Goldberg, Esther Cohen, Marian Hartman, Maryln Bodkin, Eleanor Groper. (Photo by Ben Sandhaus/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

The article featured 16-year-old pupil Beverly Bernstein, who was suspended from Lincoln for showing up to class wearing blue gabardine slacks.

“She wore them to school, along with a lipstick-red sweater,” the Eagle wrote, explaining that she was then sent to the office of the dean of girls, who apparently issued the suspension.

Outraged classmates showed their support by coming to school the next day in pants.

“Girls show up in slacks at Abraham Lincoln High School, Brooklyn, in protest because a classmate, Beverly Bernstein, was suspended the day before for wearing slacks,” reads the caption on the photo above.

These rule-breaking wartime students also circulated a petition, stating that girls should be allowed to wear pants because “they are better than skirts in the event of an air raid” and to “conserve silk stockings.”

Beverly Bernstein (Photo: New York Daily News)

Boys signed the petition as well, according to the Eagle.

The next day, the Eagle reported that Lincoln’s longtime principal decided that although he disapproved of slacks on girls, “if the girls wear them, we won’t get excited about it.”

This wasn’t the only Brooklyn high school student protest. In 1950, thousands of students across the borough walked out of class to support teacher pay raises.

Like Midwood and Madison, Lincoln is one of those legendary Brooklyn high schools with an impressive roster of graduates since opening in 1930—including Arthur Miller, Joseph Heller, Mel Brooks, and Neil Diamond.

(via Ephemeral New York)

School Without Rules: Welcome to Burgess Hill aka Beat School, Where You Can Do Whatever You Want in the 1960s

England has long been famous for its educational establishments, the freedom of choice of schools and for their political and social toleration. But here’s a boarding school where youth is not merely allowed but encouraged to have its fling.

Burgess Hill was a boarding school in Hertfordshire, England in the 1960s. A progressive school run by a Cambridge graduate, it allowed the kids to do what ever they liked!

Shots from the footage show children arriving at school. Some arrive on their own motorbikes, others jump out of a van. The kids wear casual clothes – jeans and leather jackets. A couple of the boys are “rockers” with quiffs and sunglasses, some might be called “beatniks”.

According to the narration from the clip, staff of the school believe that if you blindly forbid children to do something, then they will certainly revolt.

What follows is something that would probably give Ofsted a heart attack: A girl reaches for her pencil case and takes out a cigarette, which she then lights up. “The answer is to allow them to find out whether these conventions are good or bad. Besides, smoking calms the nerves.” – the voiceover adds.

Table manners are discussed over shots of pupils having their dinner. It is very relaxed, some don’t even sit at tables, a girl eats a piece of chicken with her hands. The rock chick gives the dog a piece of food.

The grounds of the school are shown. “Here without danger or worry to anyone the youngsters run and play.” Various shots of the children playing on ropes - hanging from a very high rope and swinging from tree to tree. Youngish boy walks along smoking a cigarette and playing a harmonica.

Drama lessons are very popular at the school as self expression is paramount. Some pupils performing in a play using “method acting”. One of the rockers holds a pistol in his hand. He pretends to be shot and lights a cigarette with shaking hands. Boys riding motorcycles move into shot.

Classmates young and old dressed in beat uniform dancing to the twist, Chubby Checker. Skirts swirl to reveal stockings and suspenders. A few boys ride their bikes around the room through the dancers.

Narrator states that when asked about their schooling one of the pupils says that “we learn no more than we would at an ordinary school. But there are compensations, like being happy.” The narrator ends with the wry comment: “Like being happy? Well we wonder.”

(via British Pathé)

33 Lovely Photos Show What the First Day of School Looked Like in the Past Century

While the outfits, books, bags and hairstyles may have changed, the excitement surrounding going back to school, making new friends and learning new things seems timeless.

Take a look at these lovely photos from HuffPost to see how the first day of school has changed from the past century.

A young boy and girl on the way to school for the start of a new term in the 1920s

A girl's first day of school in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, circa 1921

Japanese children in traditional garb start school in California in 1927

A 5-year-old girl shows off her books after her first day of kindergarten, circa 1929

A mother takes her daughter by the hand as they head to school in the late 1920s or early 1930s

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40 Old Photos Show What School Looked Like in the 1970s

School was different back in the '70s. Students focussed on the basics.. reading, writing, and mathematics. They also learned how to write longhand, and some of them took great pride in their “penmanship”.

Back in the '70s, the personal computer was still very much in the realm of science fiction.. hand held calculators became available in the mid '70s, but they were expensive, and few kids had them. For the most part, students learned through listening to the teacher.. by doing their homework in notebooks, reading “real” books..

School back then seemed more rigorous than it is today. There was no such thing as “grade inflation”.. if you didn't do well then your grades reflected that. Some things are better today.. there's more awareness of bullying.. and less tolerance for it. There's more consideration given today to kids who may be different.. i.e. slow, challenged, gifted etc. Back in the day it was all more or less one big melting pot, and you either sank or swam.

Take a look at these old pics to see what school looked like in the 1970s.

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20 Vintage Photographs That Capture Everyday Life in Wellesley College, Massachusetts From the Late 1940s

Wellesley College is a private women’s liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges. Wellesley is home to 56 departmental and interdepartmental majors spanning the liberal arts, as well as over 150 student clubs and organizations.

The college’s robust alumnae base has been widely viewed as the “most powerful women's network in the world,” and its graduates are often recognized as among the most accomplished of any institution and most responsive to fellow alumnae. Notable alumnae include Hillary Rodham Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Katharine Lee Bates, Cokie Roberts, Diane Sawyer, Nora Ephron, Pamela Melroy, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Soong Mei-ling and Bing Xin.

Here’s a photo series, reveals daily life of female students of Wellesley College taken, by photographer Nina Leen for LIFE Magazine in 1949.

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La Ventana: Texas Tech University’s Yearbook Featured Their Female Students as Playmates for 20 Years

In 1961, the Texas Tech University yearbook, La Ventana, began the tradition of having their own edition of Playboy Magazine, using female students as Playmates, although there was never any nudity.

As one of the oldest traditions at Texas Tech University, La Ventana (Spanish for “the window”) serves as the school’s primary source of recorded history. Its mission is to produce an outstanding depiction of the life of Texas Tech students in an accurate, appealing and innovative manner with broad coverage, in-depth stories, dynamic photographs, tight organization and creative design.

This practice continued for 20 years, 1981 was the end of the line for the Texas Tech Playboy yearbook section. Perhaps a new age of political correctness just couldn’t accommodate this “sexist” material at a university, and the Reagan era wouldn’t allow such an “unwholesome” addition to a fine upstanding Texas yearbook. Whatever the reason, when the 1982 edition of La Ventana rolled, the Playboy section was sadly missing.

1961

1962

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30 Vintage Photographs Capture Scenes of High School Typing Classes From Between the 1950s and 1970s

Call it keyboarding, or old-school typing...

During the 1950s and ’60s typewriting was taught mostly in elementary schools, and there was a widely held conviction that typewriting skills might fast-forward a student’s acquisition of the English language — especially spelling. Through typing, students tend to become more aware of the forms that letter patterns take, especially the beginning and ending of words, as Bartholome W. Lloyd reported in his research, “Keyboarding/Typewriting in Elementary School.”

Strategies for typing instruction started at the same time the typewriter came on the scene. It was towards the end of the 19th century that the typewriter gained its full status as a reliable tool for communication and writing.

Roughly around 1880, typing courses were provided by typewriter manufacturers like Remington in an effort to establish the typewriter’s status as an essential technological aid in business. Fast-forward 15 years into the 20th century, and you’ll find that public schools were starting to introduce typing in America’s high schools.

Typing is a skill that boosts employment opportunities. However, at one point it was also considered a medium through which reading and writing could be taught. A study by Wood and Freeman (1932) explored how typewriters affect students’ literacy.

They discovered that students using a typewriter to write had a better reading capacity and improved spelling skills. What is more, these students regarded writing on a typewriter to be more enjoyable than their counterparts who weren’t writing and reading on a typewriter. At this time, typewriters were a technology that was experimentally introduced as educators wanted to see how it could positively affect learning.

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30 Photographs Show What School Buses Looked Like in the 1950s and 1960s

Here is a photo set that shows old school buses from the 1950s and 1960s.

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30 Fascinating Vintage Photographs of Girls Home Economics Classes From Between the 1920s and 1950s

Many people argue that home economics classes are an outdated, patriarchal set of skills women were forced to learn back in the day that have no place in our modern, feminist school systems.

After all, the modern woman can buy her own clothes, pop dinner into a microwave, throw her laundry into a washing machine, and go out in the world to pursue whatever career she wants. However, the whole point of home economics classes of the past was to equip young people with the practical skills they needed to live life as independent adults.

In her article Bring back home ec!, Ruth Graham traces the trajectory of home economics classes throughout the 20th century. They have gone from being “rooted in progressive and even feminist thinking” (ca. 1899) to being “combat troops against malnutrition” during the Depression. In the 1950s, teachers became salespeople for convenience foods. By the 1960s-70s, the crucial knowledge taught in home economics class had become conventional knowledge and no longer seemed necessary. People also didn’t like thinking that home economics class simply prepared young women for marriage, which is understandable.

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Rare and Strange Photographs From the 1955 Art Students League of New York

The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists and for over 140 years has maintained a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a flexible schedule to accommodate students from all walks of life.

The Art Students League was founded in 1875 by a group of artists – almost all of whom were students at the National Academy of Design in New York City and many of whom were women. The artists declared their intention to found a new school by pinning a notice on the bulletin board of the Academy inviting students and instructors to attend a meeting. This occurred when it was rumored that the National Academy, due to financial difficulties, would cancel all classes temporarily, forcing students to forgo drawing from life for a significant period of time. Also at that time, in the post-Civil War era, New York City was rapidly becoming the artistic capital of the nation. However, many young artists, influenced by modern European developments, felt that the Academy’s instruction was too conservative and unsympathetic to their new ideas about art.

The League opened its school on the top floor of a building at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 16th Street. Classes were conducted in one small half-room. Lemuel E. Wilmarth, who taught at the National Academy of Design, was elected the first president of The Art Students League and became its first instructor. More students and artists joined, and by the end of the first season, the League was renting the entire floor. Courses were funded by membership fees alone. This was a unique policy that ensured the League’s ability to function as the only independent art school in the country, and the only one in which the life class, a crucial element, was available every weekday.

The League began and continues to be a collection of studios, each autonomous and directed by the creative authority and counsel of the individual instructor without interference from the administration – a tradition that ensures that students are able to choose among a wide range of modes of expression. This framework, based on the nineteenth-century French atelier system, enabled a pluralistic and inclusive education – one that cultivated both the technical and intellectual components essential to developing the skills of visual artists.

Below are some rare photographs from the Art Students League of New York in 1955:

These two students looking like ravishing lovelies were boys with a flair for dressing up.

The guy on the right is telling the two sweet young students that he represents a well-plucked chicken.

When the ball was over he kissed her goodbye, and said to her sadly with the ghost of a sigh, “Alas, I must leave you, now isn’t it a shame, for I’ve not had the time to ask you your name.”

Ah, Mr. and Mrs. Bighead, we presume.

Wrong again – just another pair of whacky students.

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