G.W. Carver, the Tuskegee Institute, and an early example of education on wheels -- or distance learning. A Contribution from Ed Garten

Some background to today's post:

John,
when we were at the Henry Ford Museum earlier this week we spent some time in a new special exhibit focused on the life and career of George Washington Carver. Curiously, while I thought I knew much about this man I was unaware of the vehicle he'd created called the Jesup Wagon which became sort of an innovation in what today we'd call "distance education."

At Tuskegee Institute, Washington directed his faculty "to take their teaching into the community." He responded to his own advice in 1906 by designing a "movable school" that students built. The wagon was named for Morris K. Jesup, a New York financier who gave Carver money through which to equip and operate the movable school. The first movable school was a horse drawn vehicle called a Jesup Agricultural Wagon and allowed for charts and instructional aids to be rolled down from the top much like, today, we'd use newsprint charts on easels. Later it was a mechanized truck still called a Jesup Wagon that carried agricultural exhibits to county fairs and community gatherings.

By 1930, this early form of "distance education" was called the Booker T. Washington Agricultural School on Wheels and carried a nurse, a home demonstration agent, an agricultural agent, and an architect to share the latest building techniques with rural people.

The "movable school" as Carver first termed it was the cornerstone of Tuskegee's extension services and epitomized the Institute's doctrines of self-sufficiency and self-improvement.

Attached are photos of (3) the first Jesup Wagon; (2) a later Jesup Wagon truck from the mid 1920s; and (1) a version of the Jesup Wagon from the mid 1930s.