| Summary |
The purpose of this study is to describe the impact of the Great Depression of the 1930's on public education in Johnston County, a typical rural county of North Carolina. The period surveyed commenced with the school term of 1926-1927, when the first effects of the depression were felt in Johnston County, and extended to the school term 1940-1941, when definite progress had been made toward economic recovery. To grasp the impact of the times on the schools of the county, the total effect of the Great Depression upon the people in general must be understood. The affairs of public education were closely enmeshed with those of other phases of political, economic, social, and cultural life of the county. This study attempts to arrive at such an understanding, through discussion of the cause and effect relationships of the events which marked the rapid decline from prosperity to depression, and the slow ascent to recovery. While the Great Depression was not recognized as such, nationally, until 1929. the decline in Johnston County, which had begun in 1926, progressed rapidly, and by 1928 the economic deterioration was serious. In a county almost wholly dependent upon agriculture, steadily declining farm prices spelled financial disaster, not only for individuals, but for the county government as well. With the property tax as the principal source of revenue, and property owners, in large proportion unable to pay their taxes for years on end, the county treasury became all but bankrupt. Deficit spending, which began in 1927, steadily increased as more and more borrowing was necessary to produce the funds to meet payments on debt service and current obligations. The county debt, which assumed such huge proportions by 1930, when tax revenues were but a fraction of tax assessments was the result of maturing bonds which had been issued during the prosperous years of the twenties, for the construction of a half-million dollar courthouse, a fine network of county roads, and a considerably expanded school building program. While only fifteen per cent of the tax levy was for. debt service on school buildings, and twenty-four per cent of the levy was for other debt service, the political campaign conducted by the strong local Republican party in the elections of 1928 blamed the financial difficulty of the county on extravagances in public education. The Republicans won seats on the Board of County Commissioners and set out to make good their promises of economy. Conflicts over the school budget between the Democratic Board of Education and the county commissioners resulted in turmoil for the schools during the two years the Republicans were in office. Differences between the two boards which reached the courts saw the demands of the Board of Education upheld, but the victory was a hollow one; money was not available to meet appropriations for the public schools on the scale which had prevailed during the prosperous years. Democratic county commissioners, elected in 1930, were forced to continue, and even increase the austerity program for the schools begun by their predecessors. It is problematical whether or not, under the existing circumstances, the schools of Johnston County could have continued beyond the 1930 1931 school term. At the end of that school year the county treasury was so depleted that there were no funds to pay the teachers for their last month's work, and little hope was held for a betterment of financial conditions for the county during the coming year. |
| Summary |
When the General Assembly convened in 1931, the crisis in public education was as critical elsewhere in the state as it was in Johnston County. Legislation passed that year provided that the state assume the support of all except fixed charges for the operation of the schools for the constitutional six-months term. The plan to raise the money for state support through a state-wide property tax to be administered by the counties produced insufficient revenue to meet the appropriations, however, as too many property owners still could not meet their tax assessments, even though they had been reduced. The General Assembly of 1933 faced up squarely to the issue, abolished the state property tax, and imposed a general sales tax to provide the revenue for support of the schools for an eight-month term. Johnston County schools suffered in many ways during the depression, but the worst conditions were due to crowding. Consolidation, which had become imperative under the state teacher allotment formula, had caused large increases in the population of the schools which were retained, with no additional classrooms being provided to take care of the influx of new students. Even with the easing of the tax burden on the property owners, meeting the payments on debt service and current expense was still a great problem with the county government, and, for years, there were no funds available for school construction purposes. The coming of the New Deal in 1933 brought early relief to the beleaguered farmers, the unemployed, and the destitute of Johnston County, but the schools, which had felt the effects of the depression first, were the last to receive direct aid. It was late in 1935 before matching funds, under the Works Progress Administration, were available for school construction. Proceeding as rapidly as local funds could be raised to match the federal grants, the county government worked steadily through the late 1930*s to remedy the bad school situation. Under the impact of the Great Depression the people of Johnston County were brought closer together, and the one bright spot, as the depression wore on, was the fine spirit of cooperation and understanding which prevailed, between school, community, and county government, as well as between the races. The curriculum of Johnston County schools underwent changes, as directives of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction promoting character training and "enrichment" programs received the endorsement of local school The many projects of the WPA, NYA, and other groups. New Deal agencies were of considerable help to individual pupils in Johnston County and furthered the trend toward improved occupational education. The contributions of 4-H Club activities toward a more practical program of education for farm youth were outstanding. Although the school age population grew only slightly between 1927 and 1940 there were material increases in average daily attendance and in the number of students who completed high school. Public education in Johnston County was in better condition in 1940 than it had been in 1927, in spite of all the trials and hardships suffered under the impact of the Great Depression. |
| General note | Submitted to the faculty of the Department of History. |
| General note | Advisor: Joseph F. Steelman |
| Dissertation note | M.A. East Carolina University 1965 |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (leaves 139-142). |
| Genre/form | Academic theses. |
| Genre/form | History. |
| Genre/form | Academic theses. |
| Genre/form | Thèses et écrits académiques. |
