The Progressive Era and Sanitation Reform

Abstract

Historical and contextual limitations hindered the use of artifacts recovered from privies to answer questions regarding gender roles, ethnicity, and school versus nonschool activities. For example, in Will County, Illinois, 1855, 1901, and the mid-twentieth century provide incremental watershed moments in the movement of control over education away from the parent and local community. Schools that predate 1855 and the establishment of free public schools in the state are more likely to contain an ethnic/local imprint. Artifacts recovered from sanitary privies provide limited information about schoolhouse activities other than at the time of abandonment. However, site plans indicating locations of schoolhouses, wells, privies, fences, and other features can address the relationship between changes to the physical school plant and reform movements. In particular, examination of the sanitation facilities at the three excavated rural schools illustrates reforms advocated by the Clean Living Movement of the Progressive Era.