The Elsberg Bill Signed
Mrs. Cisco’s activism brought attention to segregated schooling in New York, and the state adopted a new law that ended legal segregation in schools.
K-12 organizing
People ex rel. Cisco v. School Board of Queens, excerpt
After a few years of pushing for desegregation of the local Jamaica schools, Mrs.
Cisco on Trial in Queens
Samuel B. Cisco, a Black man, lived in Jamaica, in Queens County.
First Patriotic Election in the Beach Street Industrial School
Many New Yorkers lived in poverty in the 1890s, and depended on their children to work to help support the family.
Grammar School No. 33, New York City, Assembled for Morning Exercises
New York City’s rapid growth in the 1880s and 1890s meant a dramatically increasing number of children in the city, and in schools.
Map of Randall’s, Hart, and Blackwell’s Islands
In the 1830s, the City purchased Randall’s Island to use as a remote burial ground for the poor and as an almshouse.
The Idiot School
Édouard Séguin learned how to teach children with intellectual disabilities when he lived in France.
Survey of Blackwell’s Island
Many blind people lived in dire conditions in the city almshouse for the poor, because they were not able to support themselves and had no other place to go.
Exercises of the Pupils of the NY Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb
Sign language is believed to have been in use by different peoples, including Native Americans, for many centuries.