Colleagues: In 2009 I had a book chapter published entitled “The Lamplighters: pioneers of adult literacy education in the United States.” The chapter was published in: Y. Goodman & J. Hoffman (Eds.) Changing literacies for changing times: an historical perspective on the future of reading research, public policy, & classroom practices. (pp. 108-123) New York: Routledge.
In this chapter I talk about some of the history of adult literacy education and discuss the contributions of several teachers to the education of adult illiterates, low literates, or English learners from the Civil War through the Civil Rights movement of the early 1960s. The book chapter is all prose with no illustrations. However, I can now make available pdf files showing photos of the teachers and copies of the materials they used to teach adult literacy.
There are four files in The Lamplighters pdf series. The first file illustrates the contributions to adult literacy education of General George Washington and the slave girls Harriet Jacobs and Susie King Taylor. The second file shows photos of and materials used by Cora Wilson Stewart, founder of the famous Moonlight Schools of Kentucky. The third file shows Cora Wilson Stewart, J. Duncan Spaeth, and the husband and wife team of Garry and Caroline Meyers in teaching adult literacy during World War I. The fourth file discusses the work of Paul A. Witty during World War II and the contributions of Septima Poinsette Clark to the teaching of tens of thousands of African- Americans to read and write during the civil rights movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Anyone interested in history and adult literacy education and who would like a free copy of each of the files should send an email to me at tsticht@aznet.net and I will send the files along, one file at a time over several days so as to not overload anyone’s email box.
Tom Sticht