Red School House Child's Bank
date: label: date made
content: 1892-1906
notes: label: Description
content: Following patriotic fervor generated by the Centennial celebrations of 1776 and a resurgence in Nativism due to a fear and concerns of loss of white Anglo-American as a reaction to the large influx of foreign immigrants, classrooms began including patriotic symbols and school tools and supplies.
label: Description
content: This small child size little red schoolhouse bank represents the multiple and often conflicted messages of the white Anglo citizenry toward their new immigrant neighbors. Theodore Roosevelt, who, on January 3, 1919, wrote a speech for the American Defense Society "… We have room for but one language here and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, and American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house." (See Jan 7, 1919 edition of The Chicago Daily Tribune). Fifteen years earlier, as president, Roosevelt had come to the defense of Asian immigrants fighting school segregation in California. His comments on English came days before his death, and were championed by many native-born Americans happyfor cheaper labor but not for for the many cultural and language differences that came with immigration.
label: Description
content: The bank’s inherent message of saving for a bright future is positive. In 1816, Boston Provident became the earliest American savings bank. Savings banks were popular among immigrants and 71 % of Boston Provident’s early depositors were women and children. Early savings banks were charitable institutions, created to assist the poorer working class into developing thrift habits. Charles Loring Brace created a savings bank in 1854 for the boys he was assisting in vocational schools for the Children’s Aide Society in New York. School banking systems developed in the late 1870’s with public schools in New York but by 1885 had spread throughout the country. This bank was clearly meant to be functional as it has as a small slot on one side for coins and is easily opened with a latch on the bottom. The bottom is stamped “controlled by/Jos D. Lowe Co./ Banks and Brokers/131 Tremont St. Boston, Mass./for the price of 25cts. /patented.”
label: Description
content: Jos. D. Lowe Co. was a relatively new business in Boston, catering to women, according to advertisements in local newspapers of the period, and founded by botanist Josephine Dyer Lowe (1843-1930). Josephine had attended Mount Holyoke College for Women in 1863 and 1864, and married in 1867 a naturalized citizen, British-American Rear Admiral John Lowe, a Civil War veteran and expert in torpedo boats and submarines for the US Navy. She had varied interests and passed her unquenchable curiosity to her two surviving daughters Edith Brinton Lowe (b. 1875) and artist/author/ amateur archaologist Alice Lowe Ferguson (1880-1951). Josephine began attending MIT in 1896, where she studied architecture and engineering according to student records and graduated in 1899. She and her husband settled in Washington, D.C., where she was very active socially, published in botany, and was a member of several botanical societies. Daughter Alice married geologist Henry G. Ferguson in 1914, and made a home at "Hard Bargain Farm" in Accokeek, Maryland, which later became part of Piscataway National Park across the river from Mt Vernon.
label: Description
content: The bank was produced inexpensively from wood, cardboard, and paper. Since the base is stamped with a small price and given value it may have been sold or given to good customers, but more likely it would also have been used as an incentive to be awarded as a premium, which was a common practice at the time. Clearly the bank was created with the Nativist viewpoint in mind and designed for a child’s use. The text printed on the surface on both the back wall and the roof are what make this a wonderful artifact for teaching about Americanization. The back wall is devoted to the patriotic rhetoric and flag legend including that the designer of the “stars and stripes” was George Washington and its maker in 1777 as Mrs. Elizabeth (Betsey) Ross. There is a line at the bottom proclaiming the Town of Dorchester as the site of the first public school on May 30, 1630, a claim by the town that is open to debate.
label: Description
content: Under the eve of the roof is the Balch flag pledge, which predates the Pledge of Allegiance by several years. It was created by George Thatcher Balch, a Civil War veteran appointed by the New York City mayor to inspect city schools for health issues led to a preoccupation with the teaching of Patriotism within the schools. His pledge involves a salute that looked much like the Hitler youth salute. The words of the pledge are “I give my heart and my hand to my country—one country, one language, one flag.” The last part was adopted and modified as a slogan for the Americanization movement that Balch was so invested in and is what is printed on the bank. The motto proclaims: “On These We Insist: One Nation, One Flag, One Language, One School.”
label: Description
content: The original 23-word version of the Pledge of Allegiance is also included on one side of the roof in faded, painted letters. It reads: I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO MY FLAG AND TO THE REPUBLIC. FOR WHICH IT STANDS ONE NATION INDIVISIBLE - WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR All. The Pledge of Allegiance was created for the Columbus Day 400th anniversary ceremony at the Columbia Exposition and encouraged to be recited in schools throughout the country; it was published in the Youth’s Companion Magazine in September of 1892 a month before the ceremony. The Americanization movement continued until about 1920, but this bank was probably made between October 1892 and 1905. Several flag pledges were used in public schools, in 1905 but a common practice was the combine the 2 most popular pledges- the Balch Pledge and the Pledge of Allegiance. A combined pledge was adopted by the DAR and both presence of both pledges on this small artifact are evidence of the presence of Patriotism and Americanization in the schools of the period.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Massachusetts, Boston
topic: label: used
content: Education
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Education
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Dr. Richard Lodish American School Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2014.0244.006
label: accession number
content: 2014.0244
label: catalog number
content: 2014.0244.006
objectType: label: Object Name
content: bank
label: Object Type
content: educational toys
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: paint (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 9.7 cm x 9.5 cm x 9.7 cm; 3 13/16 in x 3 3/4 in x 3 13/16 in