The document summarizes key points from two sources - Kelley and Mickenberg - about the evolution of women's and children's education respectively. Both authors discuss how marginalized groups used education to expand their roles and influence. Specifically, Kelley describes how female academies educated women despite posing as modest institutions, while Mickenberg explores how leftist authors covertly used children's literature to promote social values. Despite focusing on different groups, the sources shared similarities around advancing education secretly to avoid challenging social hierarchies.

1. J. L. MICKENBERG
V.
M. KELLEY
Commonalities and Differences
By: Krysana Maragh
ENG: 363w

2. KELLEY: LEARNING TO
STAND AND SPEAK
 Kelley describes the evolution of women from domestic
beings to inhabitants of the public sphere, or what she calls
“civil society,” (p5)
• tea tables to community associations to teaching to authoring
periodicals and books to taking to the public stage and
sharing ideas and opinions openly (p8)
 The common denominator: female academies

3. KELLEY
 Women use educational training to open up social spaces and
expand associational networks. Kelley argues that through education,
women could change their roles and place their goals beyond those of
motherhood. “Advanced education opened the door to economic self-
support,” (p5).

4. KELLEY
The Female Academies:
• Kelley argues that founders of female academies
purposely ran under a vail of modesty as to not upset
the status quo of gender hierarchy.

5. KELLEY
 These female academies were comparable to their male
competition but were conscious not to let on the full scope of their
educational endeavors.
 Kelley writes that women took care to remind themselves to
remain humble and unassuming, acknowledging the enduring force of
the female gender obligations.

6. KELLEY
Elites Only:
• Female academies provided opportunities for women
to position themselves for more power and respect but
this was limited to only those families that could afford
to send their daughters to attend.
• This exclude the lower class almost entirely.

7. MICKENBERG: LEARNING
FROM THE LEFT
 Mickenberg explores the use of children’s books as an outlet for
the leftist and American Communist political agenda with a particular
focus on science and history.
 She argues that children’s book offered an environment where
dangerous questions could be raised without fear of persecution
because children’s literature was a field dominated and controlled by
women thus there was little inquiry into the content.

8. MICKENBERG
Mickenberg writes, “Its circulation was so limited
that proletarian literature for children escapes
comment in nearly every scholarly survey of
proletarian literature,” (Mickenberg 53).

9. MICKENBERG
“All problems are solvable through rational thought and calculated action”
 The wake of the Cold War and the Sputnik craze gave rise to a
multitude of science, biography, and history books that could safely
challenge the status quo, completely under the radar.
 Mickenberg writes, “People on the left…found books about science to
be good vehicles for communicating their social values to children,”
(p182).

10. MICKENBERG
 They drew from the work of Marx and Engels who had developed a
philosophy of an all-encompassing theory of change and development
known as dialectical materialism
• offered a step-by-step interpretation applicable to both science and
society.
 Authors would then use this “seemingly apolitical production” to
explain through their literature the workings of the world, as they viewed
it, emphasizing the power of science as a tool for human liberation (p62).

11. MICKENBERG
 Examples of Children’s Literature
Science and History for Girls and Boys (1932)
By: William Brown
• Contrast of the truths revealed by science v. fairy tales
taught by religion
• “if only the people had more scientific knowledge, they
would not be fooled by politicians and preachers and
newspapers,”

12. MICKENBERG
 Science books could show the dialectical materialism in that way
that was excitable to kids and could serve the Marxist agenda without
having any explicit political content.
 By the 1940s, the most prominent books lists of children’s
literature including New Masses to the National Guardian, almost
always included books in science (p 191).

13. MICKENBERG
American Folklore and History
 Mickenberg argues that figures such as Lincoln and Davy Crockett were bound
as much to legend as to history and thus folklore had an appealing quality that both
spoke to children and offered teachers an endlessly malleable approach to American
history.
 Communist authors often used folklore and lyrics as a way of depicting the
triumph of the laborer over his environment, amplifying the plight of oppressed
people triumphing over seemingly “insurmountable odds,” (p246)

14.  Examples of Children’s Literature:
The Book of Negro Folklore (1958)
By: Arna Bontemps, Langston Hughes
• Highlighted weakness overcoming strength through wit and cunning
 Mickenberg argues that radical authors whom wrote in this genre
were able to encourage young readers to challenge present racial and
gender conventions.

15. COMMONALITIES/
CONTINUITIES
 Both authors centered their arguments on literature of the
1920s-1960s
 Both authors focused on the advancements in education of
the underserved parts of the population, namely women and
children

16. COMMONALITIES/
CONTINUITIES
 Mickenberg’s arguments implied a level of secrecy and deception
present in children’s literature for the advancement of the Leftist
movement.
 Kelly proposed a similar agenda by the founders of the female
academies deliberately opting not to be labeled as colleges in order to fly
under the cloak of feminine modesty.
• Though the curriculum was virtually similar to that of male institutions,
by denouncing the label of “college”, these female academies could
advance their educational goals without challenging the gender hierarchy.

17. DIFFERENCES
 The main difference between both literary works is that Kelly
focused on the plight of women and Mickenberg focused on children.
 Kelly discussed the possibility for expansion of women’s education
and empowerment but Mickenberg centered his argument on the
reformation of youth education.

18. DIFFERENCES
 Lastly, Kelly suggests that the women’s movement and
approach was gradual, moving systematically from tea parties
to public lectures. But, Mickenberg suggests that the
Communist/Leftist agenda was present at the same level of
intensity throughout the movement

19. WORKS CITED
 Kelley, Mary. Learning to Stand & Speak: Women, Education, and Public
Life in America's Republic. Chapel Hill: Published for the Omohundro
Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg,
Virginia, by the U of North Carolina, 2006. Print.
 Mickenberg, Julia L. Learning from the Left: Children's Literature, the
Cold War, and Radical Politics in the United States. Oxford: Oxford UP,
2005. Print.

20. FIN