The international rise of mass education over the past few centuries is often seen by historians as due to the increasingly long arm of the state (see, e.g., Lindert 2004). On this view, the early rise and high level of mass education in the United States in contrast with its colonial ruler Great Britain reflects the ability of Americans to mobilize local and state government support for public education from the earliest days of the Republic. Indeed, institutions dating to the colonial era could have been at work. The articles in this special section are informed by the view that schools and the instructional services they offered during the antebellum period were subject to the choices of buyers and sellers of these services. The article by Kim Tolley provides a rich case study of this basic principle with her account of Mrs. Sambourne's foray into music teaching in early-nineteenth-century North Carolina.