CRL’s textbook collection has undergone a recent resurgence of interest. Spanning the 18th to the 20th centuries, this underexplored collection of 80,000 items includes primary and secondary school books, post-high school business and trade schools, foreign language grammars and U.S. Military Academy. Covering 41 subject areas, from Agriculture to Zoology, the collection provides a rich foundation for research.
While individual items in the collection are rarely unique, the value of the collection is in its chronological range and the integration of multiple editions and title variants. Researchers can trace pedagogical and content trends across three centuries or note textual and visual discourse changes corresponding to significant political and social changes.
Case Study: Reading Primers and Civil Rights
A batch of reading primers, recently cataloged, shows changes in the illustrations prior to and after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Other primers showed a similar shift. Some used exactly the same image, except the color of the individuals' skin.
The cover, of the two reading primers titled "Fun with Our Family" had identical text but incorporated different illustrations. The volume on the left, in the incorporated image, was published in 1962 and the one on the right in 1965.
As strong conveyors of values, of cultural norms and of gender and ethnic representations, textbooks are important primary sources of prevailing intentions for the public school system that uses them.
Critical Questions for Researchers
Was the Great Cities School Improvement Program of the Detroit Public Schools using textbook images* of student diversity in schools to socialize young school children to expect positive experiences from school integration before it was court ordered in 1970?
Were they normalizing white flight for the children left behind by including stories and images white children reluctantly leaving the city because their fathers found a better job outside of the city?
Such questions underscore the research potential of this collection for CRL member libraries’ researchers and students investigating the intersections of education, culture, race, and policy in U.S. history. However, with 41 subject areas, there are limitless research opportunities into technology, economic, political, and cultural issues.
Accessing the Collection
To browse the 15,000 cataloged titles in the collection, follow this link.
To request material from the uncataloged portion of the collection, please contact Access Initiatives at asd@crl.edu. The collection is arranged by subject area.
*Writers' Committee of the Great Cities School Improvement Program of the Detroit Public Schools. Down City Streets. City Schools Reading Program. Illustrated by Dan Siculan, Tom Dunnington, and Roy Andersen. Chicago: Follett Educational Corporation, 1967.