Race Statistics in the Loudoun County Public Schools, 1880-1885 and 1910-1925

Edited by Larry Roeder, MS

Draft one, 3/26/2016

All of this material is in a book called Accounts of Districts with Treas and Census Returns, which covered a wide range of information from 1880 to 1925, mostly on financial and personnel matters for each school district.

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2.4.2 Yr. 1918-1929 District and Census Reports.

Background• During the period of segregation, LCPS kept a lot of statistics on race in numerous

forms. The hand-written reports show a breakdown of student populations from 1910 through 1925 by sex and race, and also include data on illiterates. They are summaries of school census reports which are held in the archives.

• All of the material in this report is from a book called Accounts of Districts with Treas and Census Returns, which covered a wide range of information from 1882 to 1925, mostly about financial and personnel matters for each school district.

• In the same book are lists of teachers by name from 1882 until 1890 and from 1916 until 1919. None of those lists shows race, yet we know from research that some of the teachers were African-American, otherwise known as “colored” in those years.

• The absence of race in these reports doesn’t mean that the school system didn’t take notice. Annual reports to the Department of Public Instruction in Richmond from 1892 onward noted whether instructors were “colored” or white, so the Superintendent likely took note of it all along, especially as segregation was mandatory. See the Edwin Washington Project at https://loudounschoolproject.wordpress.com/roster-of-loudoun-instructor/teacher-rosters/. In addition, pasted into the inside cover were very fragile newspaper clippings of race reports for 1880-1885.

• A good example of tracking race in the Archives from this period would be the Superintendent’s 1892 Results of Examination of Applicants for License to Teach. This book showed the results of examinations by both white and “colored” teaching applicants. This included 36 “colored,” included some who are listed in early reports Accounts of Districts with Treas and Census Returns like Benjamin Allen who instructed from 1882 until 1889, then had to take the exam in 1892.

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1880 and 1885. Printed Reports on Race. Pasted to inside cover of book

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Pasted to inside cover Accounts of Districts with Treas and Census Returns was this printed report from 1885, which provides a breakdown of race by total population and by student population.

A similar, more fragile report is pasted underneath for covering 1880 through 1885.

These reports were too fragile to flatten out, so I used a cell phone.

Race Statistics for 1900 by District and sex. Illiterates are also shown.

See page 289.

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Race Statistics for 1905 by District and sex. Illiterates are also shown. See page 331.

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Race Statistics for 1910 by District and sex. Illiterates are also shown.

See page 391.

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Race Statistics for 1915 by District and sex. Illiterates are also shown. See page 420

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Race Statistics for 1920 by District and sex. Illiterates are also shown. See page 492

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Race Statistics for 1925 by District and sex. Illiterates are also shown. See page 490 and 491

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