11. Little Red Schoolhouse: Lucy Stone

Little Red Schoolhouse

By Georgann Eglinski

In the 1820s Lucy Stone (1818-1893) of Massachusetts had hopes of the same higher education her four older brothers had earned. While brother Bowman was preparing for college at a nearby academy, Lucy's mother informed her father that Lucy wanted to go to college too. His reply: "Is the child crazy?" To his daughter he said, "Your mother only learned to read, write, and cipher: if that was enough for her, it should be enough for you." But good enough was never enough for Lucy Stone.

Lucy's problems went beyond a stubborn father. Had she been able to persuade him that she was just as smart as (in fact, smarter than) her brothers, she'd have had trouble finding a challenging school  that would accept a girl. 

Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary in 1845,

 6 years after Lucy Stone enrolled.

 

But by the time she was 21 her plan came together. She had saved enough from teaching school to enroll in the new Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary where she could receive an education equal to her brothers'. It took her until she was 29 but she graduated from Ohio's Oberlin College, the first college to offer degrees to women.

Lucy graduated from Oberlin in 1847.

This photograph from the Library of Congress

probably dates to the 1850s.

 
Little Red Schoolhouse
By Becky Brown

The Little Red Schoolhouse is adapted from Ruth Finley's pattern in her 1929 book Old Quilts and the Women Who Made Them. We can use it to remember the educational policies of Lucy Stone's and her mother's day. Girls living in post-Revolutionary-War Boston could enroll in the public schools in the summer for two hours of afternoon classes

---if no boy wanted the seat.

Girls in the Boston public schools, 1909

Library of Congress.

Cutting an 8" Finished Block

 A, J, L and K - See the templates for the 8" block. 

B - Cut 3 rectangles (2 chimneys, 1 window) 2-1/4" x 1-3/8"

C - Cut 1 rectangle (sky) 2-1/4" x 4"

E - Cut 2 rectangles (siding) 1-7/8" x 5"

F - Cut 2 squares (siding) 2-1/4" x 2-1/4"

G - Cut 1 rectangle 1-3/8" x 5"

H -Cut 3 rectangles (1 door, 2 siding) 1-3/8" x 3-5/8"

I - Cut 1 rectangle (siding) 1-7/8" x 3-1/8"

  

The pattern is constructed in two parts:

The roof

The walls

Join the roof to the walls.

Cutting a 12" Block

See the templates on this sheet.

B - 3 Rectangles 3-3/16" x 1-13/16"

C - 1 Rectangle 5-13/16" x 3-3/16"

E - 1 Rectangle 7-3/16" x 3-3/16"

F - 2 Squares 3-3/16"

G - 2 Rectangles 7-3/16" x 1 13/16"

H - 2 Rectangles 5-3/16" 1-1/2"

I - 1 Rectangle 5-3/16" x 2-1/2"

J - 1 Rectangle 4-1/2" x 2-1/2" 

I adapted BlockBase #865, changing the proportions.

If you want some other choices look at the categories in BlockBase (Open the BlockBase tab at the bottom) and click on Pattern Categories: Realistic: 11 Houses etc).

Oberlin's 1855 class of women

Little Red Schoolhouse

By Becky Brown

Read a preview of Lucy's biography by her daughter here:

Alice Stone Blackwell, Lucy Stone: Pioneer of Women's Rights, 1930.

http://books.google.com/books?id=3uvbSK2W3JoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=alice+stone+blackwell+pioneer+rights&hl=en&sa=X&ei=saCeT8-oPJCE8AS4nIWfDw&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=alice%20stone%20blackwell%20pioneer%20rights&f=false

Oberlin College

My First House

By Dustin Cecil

Dustin says the block has structural problems similar to the first house he bought.

See a post with another 12" schoolhouse pattern at Yankee Notions BOM.

https://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2020/02/yankee-notions-2-schoolhouse.html