Segregated School Systems (1 results)

Rowan County Board of Education, teacher pay vouchers, 1888 and 1892, documenting African American education within the segregated public school system of post-Reconstruction North Carolina. The vouchers record segregated public education and its funding mechanisms through payments to Black teachers approved at the county level. These documents show how African American educators were paid through formally structured systems requiring countersignature by the county superintendent and approval by district committee members. Two manuscript teacher salary vouchers, each approximately 8.5 x 7 inches and written on both sides. The first, dated March 26, 1888, authorizes payment of $30.00 to Maggie Locke for teaching in "School District No. 4, Rowan County, for Colored Race," covering the period from January 3 to March 2, 1888, in Atwell Township. The printed form specifies that payment is contingent upon countersignature by the county superintendent and approval by at least two district committee members, establishing formal oversight procedures. The verso bears Locke's signed receipt dated March 27, 1888, acknowledging payment from county treasurer J. M. McCubbins. The second voucher, dated January 16, 1892, records payment of $25.00 to Isaac Kerns for teaching in "School District No. 2, Salisbury & No. 2 Prov., Rowan County, for Col[ored] Race," with similar requirements for administrative approval prior to disbursement. The verso includes Kerns's signed acknowledgment of payment. Both documents explicitly designate the schools as serving the "Colored Race," indicating the formalized racial segregation embedded within the educational system. These vouchers document the operation of segregated schooling in the decades following the Civil War, when African American education expanded under conditions of systemic underfunding and institutional control. The requirement for multiple authorizations before payment records the bureaucratic regulation of Black teachers' labor, while the recorded wages provide quantitative evidence for comparative study of compensation disparities. Produced during a period when access to education for African Americans remained contested, these documents contribute to research on Reconstruction-era legacies, Jim Crow governance, and the role of Black educators in sustaining community institutions. Light wear, minor creasing, and typical manuscript handling marks; overall very good condition. Documentary record of the administrative structure and lived realities of segregated education in the late nineteenth-century South. Signed.