The Arthurdale School Cultural Intervention Through Rural Folklife Education in a Progressive New Deal Setting

This book chronicles the school envisioned by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1933 to serve Arthurdale, the New Deal government-created community in north-central West Virginia. Arthurdale was founded to house unemployed miners and their families and provide them with opportunities to receive healthcare and obtain gainful employment. Roosevelt had a particular interest in the education of children, feeling that education and social life were profoundly intertwined within a community. With that in mind, in 1934, she hired Elsie Ripley Clapp—an educator and leader in the Progressive Education movement—to design and implement the school, as well as oversee the social life of Arthurdale as a whole. In addition to covering the Arthurdale School's birth, life, and dissolution, Rosenberg discusses how the lessons of the school might serve the culture of education today, especially as an element of a comprehensive approach to community revitalization.

Jan Rosenberg was Founder and President of Heritage Education Resources, Inc. (HER), USA. Rosenberg earned her PhD in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania, USA. She worked in the field of folklore and education since 1980 and continued to serve in a variety of educational settings, including curriculum development and classroom work, as well as workshops on cultural competence for chaplains and health care professionals. She had a particular interest in the use of folklore in the classroom during the progressive education era of the early twentieth century.