In 1915, ice cream store prohibition was tough on teachers

Teachers and parents are already preparing for the beginning of the school year in Carroll County. Stores are advertising back-to-school sales and folks are making last minute plans for the first day of school, Aug. 30. (Sorry, kids.)

More than 27,000 students are enrolled in Carroll County Public Schools, making our county the ninth largest school system in Maryland, according to information on the CCPS website.

This year there are approximately 100 new teachers in the county. In 1870, five years after the public school system in Carroll County formed, Aug. 7, 1865, there were 86 male and 34 female teachers in Carroll County, according to the "First Annual Report of the State Supt. of Public Instruction for the School Year ending September 30, 1870."

According to "Schoolbells and Slates," authored by Joan Prall, by 1876, "Teachers' salaries totaled $29,776.46…"

That was the total for all the teachers in Carroll County at the time. The total budget for the school system, in 1876, was $51,056.85.

PTA Magazine, published in 1915, according to Prall, gave these rules for all female teachers:

"No smoking of cigarettes. No loitering around ice cream stores. No dressing in bright colors. No marrying during the term of the contract. No going out between eight o'clock in the evening and six o'clock in the morning."

Local historian Mary Ann Ashcroft notes in her research for the Historical Society of Carroll County, "Teaching has never been an easy profession, and it certainly wasn't in the nineteenth century. Salaries were meager (about $240 a year in 1894).

"Teachers might arrange payment of the rent for their schools, provide fuel for the school stove, rent county-owned books to students, maintain discipline ... and instruct.

"Students too poor to rent textbooks could use a free one, provided the teacher filled out a permit. When teachers failed to submit enough permits to account for every book, the rent was deducted from their salaries."

In 1920, according to an article for the Historical Society by Jay Graybeal, "Carroll County owned 125 school buildings and rented fourteen more… Teaching the nearly 7500 students was a faculty of 208; 181 taught elementary school and 27 were high school teachers. The teaching profession in 1920 was, by far, an occupation for single women. Of the 158 female teachers working in the county, only nine were married.

"The county spent nearly $204,000 to educate students in 1920. The best paying jobs were in the county's six high schools. These teachers earned an average of $903.70 while elementary teachers in white and black schools had average salaries of $537.85 and $431.87, respectively.

"Retired teachers were not entirely forgotten by the state, which appropriated $36,000 annually for a retirement fund. Teachers who had served twenty-five years, reached the age of sixty, were no longer able to continue their duties in the schoolroom, and had no other means of comfortable support received $200 per annum."

When he is not loitering around ice cream stores, Kevin Dayhoff may be reached at kevindayhoff@gmail.com.