Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T06:34:30.140Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

America's Graduation from High School: The Evolution and Spread of Secondary Schooling in the Twentieth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Claudia Goldin
Claudia Goldin
Affiliation:
Professor, Department of Economics, Harvard University, 215 Littauer Bldg., Cambridge, MA 02138 and Research Associate and Program Director, National Bureau of Economic Research.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Secondary-school enrollment and graduation rates increased spectacularly in much of the United States from 1910 to 1940; the advance was particularly rapid from 1920 to 1935 in the nonsouthern states. This increase was uniquely American; no other nation underwent an equivalent change for several decades. States that rapidly expanded their high school enrollments early in the period had greater wealth, more homogeneity of wealth, and less manufacturing activity than others. Factors prompting the expansion include the substantial returns to education early in the century and a responsive “state.” This work is based on a newly constructed state-level data set.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , June 1998 , pp. 345 - 374
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Angus, David, and Mirel, Jeffrey. “Rhetoric and Reality: American High School Course Taking, 1928–1990.” In Learning from the Past: What History Teaches Us About School Reform, edited by Ravitch, Diane and Vinovskis, Mans A., 295–328. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Barro, Robert. Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-County Empirical Study. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Barro, Robert, and Xavier, Sala-I-Mantin. “Convergence across States and Regions,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Vol 1. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1991: 107–82.Google Scholar
Denison, Edward F.Trends in American Economic Growth, 1929–1982. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1985.Google Scholar
Folger, John K., and Nam, Charles B.. Education of the American Population. A 1960 Census Monograph. Washington, DC: GPO, 1967.Google Scholar
Fuller, Bruce. “Youth Job Structure and School Enrollment, 1890–1920,” Sociology of Education 56, no. 3 (1983): 145–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldin, Claudia. Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia. “How America Graduated from High School: 1910 to 1960,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 4762, 06 1994.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia. “Appendix to How America Graduated from High School: An Exploratory Study, 1910 to 1960,” National Bureau of Economic Research-Development of the American Economy Working Paper No. 57, 06 1994.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia, and Katz, Lawrence F.. “The Decline of Non-Competing Groups: Changes in the Premium to Education, 1890 to 1940,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 5202, 08 1995.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia, and Katz, Lawrence F.. “Technology, Skill, and the Wage Structure: Insights from the Past,” American Economic Review 86, no. 2 (1996): 252–57.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia, and Katz, Lawrence F.. “Why the United States Led in Education: Lessons from Secondary School Expansion, 1910 to 1940,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 6144, 08 1997.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia, and Katz, Lawrence F.. “The Origins of Technology-Skill Complementarity” Quarterly Journal of Economics, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia, and Katz, Lawrence F.. “Human Capital and Social Capital: The Rise of Secondary Schooling in America, 1910 to 1940,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia, and Margo, Robert A.. “The Great Compression: The Wage Structure in the United States at Mid-Century,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 107, no. 1 (1992): 1–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). Census of Population, 1940 (United States): Public Use Microdata Sample. Ann Arbor, MI: ICPSR, 1984.Google Scholar
Jorgenson, Dale W.Productivity. 2 volumes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Kansas Superintendent of Public Instruction. Biennial Report of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Topeka, KS, 1916–1918.Google Scholar
Katz, Michael B.The Irony of Early School Reform: Educational Innovation in MidNineteenth Century Massachusetts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968.Google Scholar
Krug, Edward A.The Shaping of the American High School: 1880–1920. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964.Google Scholar
Krug, Edward A.The Shaping of the American High School: Volume 2 1920–1941. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1972.Google Scholar
Kuznets, Simon, Miller, Ann Ratner, and Easterlin, Richard A.. Population Redistribution and Economic Growth: United States, 1870–1950. Vol. 2. Analyses of Economic Change. Philadelphia, PA: The American Philosophical Society, 1960.Google Scholar
Labaree, David F.The Making of an American High School: The Credentials Market and the Central High School of Philadelphia, 1838–1939. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Lee, Everett S., Miller, Ann Rather, Brainerd, Carol P., and Easterlin, Richard A.. Population Redistribution and Economic Growth: United States, 1870–1950. Vol. 1. Methodological Considerations and Reference Tables. Philadelphia, PA: The American Philosophical Society, 1957.Google Scholar
Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Technical Education. Report of the Commission of Industrial and Technical Education. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1906.Google Scholar
National Catholic Welfare Conference, Department of Education. Summary of Catholic Education [various years]. Washington, DC: National Catholic Welfare Conference, various years.Google Scholar
Olson, Keith W.The G.I. Bill, the Veterans, and the Colleges. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1974Google Scholar
Osterman, Paul. Getting Started: The Youth Labor Market. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Parsons, Donald, and Goldin, Claudia. “Parental Altruism and Self Interest: Child Labor among Late-Nineteenth Century American Families,” Economic Inquiry 27, no. 4 (1989): 637–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perlmann, Joel. Ethnic Differences: Schooling and Social Structure among the Irish, Italians, Jews, and Blacks in an American City, 1880–1935. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Reese, William J.The Origins of the American High School. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Ringer, Fritz K.Education and Society in Modern Europe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Rotella, Elyce. From Home to Office: U.S. Women at Work, 1870–1930. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Smith, James P., and Ward, Michael P.. Women's Wages and Work in the Twentieth Century. Santa Monica, CA: The Rand Corporation, 1984.Google Scholar
Smith, William A.Secondary Education in the United States. New York: MacMillan Co., 1932.Google Scholar
Trow, Martin. “The Second Transformation of American Secondary Education,” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 2, no. 2 (1961): 144–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyack, David. The One Best System. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974.Google Scholar
Ueda, Reed. Avenues to Adulthood: The Origins of the High School and Social Mobility in an American Suburb. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United Slates: 1930. Population. Vol. 3. Washington, DC, GPO: 1932.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the United States. Washington, DC: GPO, 1975.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of Education. Report of the Commissioner of Education [for the year]. Washington, DC: GPO, various years.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau [Office] of Education. Biennial Survey of Education [years]. Washington, DC: GPO, various years.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Commerce. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1925. Washington, DC: GPO, 1926.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Commerce. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1938. Washington, DC: GPO, 1939.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Commerce. Bureau of Economic Analysis. State Personal Income by State: Estimates for 1929–1982. Washington, DC: GPO, 1984.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Education. 120 Years of American Education: A Statistical Portrait. Washington, DC: GPO, 1993.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Statistics of State School Systems [years]. Washington, DC: GPO, various years.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. National Center for Education Statistics. Digest of Education Statistics [year]. Washington, DC: GPO, various years.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Statistics of Non-Public Secondary Schools [years]. Washington, DC: GPO, various years.Google Scholar
Vinovskis, Mans A.The Origins of Public High Schools: A Reexamination of the Beverly High School Controversy. Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Walters, Pamela B., and O'Connell, Philip J.. “The Family Economy, Work, and Education Participation in the United States, 1890–1940,” American Journal of Sociology 93, no. 5 (1988): 1116–52.Google Scholar