Public School Reports

Overview

The Public School Reports collection contains about 10,000 items documenting public education in the United States from the 1830s through the 1950s. The collection includes:

Black and white photograph of the cafeteria at Morse School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, circa 1957.

  • Annual reports of state and local boards of education from 48 states and thousands of municipalities.
  • Curricula directives, including lists of required textbooks and courses of study.
  • Minutes from local school committee and other education authority meetings.
  • Miscellaneous individual school materials, such as student publications.
  • Narratives about school and school district history.
  • School and district directories of administrators, teachers and students.
  • State, school and district rules, regulations and financial information.

Finding Content

Materials for the New England states (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont) are cataloged and can be found by subject, title or keyword searching HOLLIS. New England materials were cataloged as part of the Hidden Collections grant project in 2015-16.

For all other states and territories, in-house shelf lists and guides are available if users are interested in accessing the material.

Questions?

Contact us to learn more.