Lucius Beebe Memorial Library, Wakefield, Mass.

Title

Greenwood School, 1910

Description

"In his report to the Town for the year ending January 31, 1896, School Superintendent Charles E. Hussey noted that Greenwood students above the sixth grade had to 'come to the center of town to go on with their proper classes. For children to be away from home from 8 o'clock a.m. to 5 p.m., every school day to travel two miles, to eat a cold lunch in a school-room, constitutes, I believe, a genuine grievance, and the objections to such a necessity are substantial.' At the March 24, 1896 Town Meeting, committee members A.H. Thayer, William F. Young, H.W. Walton, William H. Lee, C.E. Hussey, William G. Strong, and Daniel Evans submitted a report recommending that a four-room brick and slate school house be built by H.J. Preston at a cost of $16,500. The report was accepted and the new Greenwood schoolhouse was occupied that autumn under the direction of its Principal, Miss S.E. Wilkins, a teacher for grades seven and eight. The two-story building contained four rooms and was built on a Main Street Town-owned lot. The building was situated to allow expansion to the east 'when necessary.' All the rooms had southern exposure with the stairs and corridors to the north. The teachers' room was on the first floor, with the classrooms on the second floor. The basement contained the 'sanitary arrangements of the dry cremating system.' The plans originally called for a unique design for the chimney which incorporated a clock tower which was to be provided by the citizens of Greenwood. In 1910, the year when bubbling drinking fountains were added to all school buildings, the Town report indicated that registration at the Greenwood School was larger than usual, with the eighth and ninth grades confined to one room 'by necessity, owing to the larger regsitration in the other grades.' According to the report, there were '54 students in one room where there should be 42.'" -- Text from calendar by Jayne M. D'Onofrio.

Image from the Wakefield Municipal Gas and Light Department annual calendar, 2006

Contributor

Institution: Lucius Beebe Memorial Library

Wakefield Municipal Gas & Light Department (Wakefield, Mass.)

D'Onofrio, Jayne M.

Coverage

Massachusetts--Middlesex (county)--Wakefield

Date

1910

Format

image/jpeg

Publisher

[Wakefield, Mass.] : Wakefield Municipal Gas & Light Department

Subject

School buildings

Greenwood School (Wakefield, Mass.)

Type

still image

Photographs

Original Format

1 picture : b&w

Extent

21 x 23 cm.