SLC, Room 208
Parking lot #7 to the Student Life Center
MAP

$39

Combining the work of the head and the hand in schooling has a long history, including right here in New Jersey. With roots going back to the “log colleges” of colonial America and the manual labor movement represented by abolitionist Theodore Weld, industrial – or vocational – education has been seen as a means of extending opportunities for young people. In 1889, a New Jersey state commission offered a novel definition of manual training as “thought expression” by means other than “verbal language” and New Jersey has been on the cutting edge of innovation since. After a brief historical survey, this class will consider how Monmouth County became a leader in vocational education and continues providing a path for others to follow.

2 SESSIONS

*Reduced fee made possible by the Friends of Lifelong Learning

Connie Goddard, Ph.D., is a historian who writes about schooling during the Progressive Era and its implications for today. Her new book, Learning for Work: How Industrial Education Fostered Democratic Opportunity (University of Illinois Press, 2024), which was motivated in part by her experience teaching at the state prison in Rahway, includes a history of the iconic Manual Training and Industrial School in Bordentown.

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