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School, 1840

The first school house at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. View the original source document: WHI 42107

Although preocuppied with making money, many of Wisconsin's white settlers also wanted to develop their communities. Immigrants who grew up with inadequate schools wanted their children to receive better educations. Settlers who had received quality educations back home wanted to create similar institutions for the next generation in Wisconsin. Community leaders soon began organizing musicals and plays. Towns constructed Protestant churches to compete with the missionary priests in the area. The leaders of the cultural development movement also formed discussion groups, libraries and schools.

Schools and Taxes

The New England emigres living in Wisconsin had gone to good schools, and expected the same for their children. They were shocked at the poor condition of Wisconsin's private schools, and wanted to create a better public education system. But teachers were hard to find. The few teachers who were available were usually fresh out of school themselves. They often had to teach several grades of children within one small schoolhouse. People in Madison and Milwaukee often sent their children to private boarding schools in nearby states for a better education.

Electa Quinney

Wisconsin's first public schoolteacher was Electa Quinney, a member of the Stockbridge-Munsee band of Mohicans. Quinney had come to Wisconsin in the massive Indian removal from New York in 1827. She wanted to teach the children of the Stockbridhe-Munsee settlement around Kaukauna. In 1828, she opened the first school in the state that did not charge an enrollment fee. The school gave poor families who could not afford to pay for schooling their children a free education.

State Constitution

Wisconsin's constitution provided for state schools and a state university funded by taxpayer money and landsales. Even with the constitutional stipulation, there were little money and few resources for school improvements until the Civil War.

Before Wisconsin attained statehood in 1848, the legislature had incorporated four private colleges: Carroll College, Beloit College, Lawrence Institute and Sinsinawa Mound College. The University of Wisconsin was established in 1848, but classes did not meet until 1850 and the university received no state funding until 1866.

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[Sources: The History of Wisconsin vols 2 and 3 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin); Kasparek, Jon, Bobbie Malone and Erica Schock. Wisconsin History Highlights: Delving into the Past (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2004); Thwaites, Reuben Gold. History of the University of Wisconsin. Wisconsin Electronic Reader; Loew, Patty. Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal. (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2001)]