Education

Education, Industrial
Education that focuses on acquiring basic labor skills such as carpentry, masonry, blacksmithing, and cooking. Blacks have had basic labor training since the days of slavery. On plantations in the antebellum South, blacks were trained in many aspects of industry. Slaves were expected to be masons, cooks, coopers, blacksmiths, carpenters, and farmers. Because whites relied on slaves for virtually all the heavy labor in the South, blacks were among the most skilled workers in that region.

USING AND PROVIDING PRACTICAL SKILLS

Historically, white people mapped out much of the industrial education of African Americans. After the Civil War, whites approached what they termed the “Black Problem” of how to incorporate free blacks into society while maintaining racial separation with economic harmony. Financed primarily by rich Northerners and organized by Southern whites, a school system was devised for the mass education of free blacks.
Notions of black inferiority influenced the educational policies of these “progressive” schools. “Negro education” minimized the need for advanced courses in liberal arts subjects and emphasized training in industrial arts instead. African Americans were groomed to fill the working class to provide the “low-rung” jobs of the Jim Crow South. This meant that while blacks were trained to have industrial jobs and become better farmers, they often were not trained to compete with white workers for better jobs.
During the late nineteenth century, the federal government and the states were founding many educational institutions meant to specialize in agriculture and mechanical arts. This trend fit well with the educational philosophy that guided plans for the education of African Americans. A number of schools still in existence today were founded to educate blacks in the industrial arts. They include Prairie View Agricultural and Mechanical College (founded in Texas in 1876), Florida State Normal College for...