North Bennet Street Industrial School
Immigration to the US Resources | Other Resources
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| "Three Generations Enjoy the Tarantella," from North Bennet Street Industrial School:[annual report]. |
Located in Boston's congested North End, the North Bennet Street School was founded with a dual mission—education for employment, and acculturation of its neighborhood's primarily Italian immigrant residents, who struggled both to make a living and to adapt to American customs and culture. Under the leadership of Boston philanthropist Josephine Agassiz Shaw, the school opened in 1880 as the North End Industrial Home. Initially, it operated laundry and sewing rooms where local women could improve their skills and earn a small livelihood. Later, after adding a kindergarten and a day nursery, the Home started printing and woodworking shops for school-aged children. By 1885, the Home's focus had shifted from employment opportunity to education, and the directors had changed its name to the North Bennet Street Industrial School.
Over the next 20 years, the School developed an extensive manual-training program in partnership with private philanthropy and the Boston Public Schools. Children from North End grammar schools were granted "release time" to attend North Bennet Street, and an average of 900 children per week—most of them Italian—attended. Boys enrolled in printing, drawing, carpentry, clay-modeling, and leatherwork classes, and girls, in preparation for family life as well as for possible employment, studied printing, clay modeling, cooking, housekeeping, and laundry.
North Bennet Street directors and teachers viewed their offerings as model programs that the public schools could then adopt. They took special pride in pioneering the American adoption of Sloyd, a Swedish woodworking program that was believed to draw on a child's eye, hand, and mind to develop the whole person. By the early 1890s, the Boston Board of Education required its schools to offer cooking, sewing, and manual training classes, although the offerings were uneven, and many schools had kindergartens.
School directors believed that their manual training program served a number of purposes. Most simply, the program offered preparation for employment by teaching specific skills to immigrant children so that they could avoid the poverty and dependency that seemed to characterize the Italian community. Equally important, the program instilled habits of work—diligence, responsibility, initiative, and pride in accomplishment. In the past, children would have learned these values at home and as apprentices, but the modern factory system and the disorganized family life of immigrants had disrupted the social order. Industrial training, together with North Bennet Street's related programs of English classes, lectures, and reading clubs, provided alternative ways to assimilate immigrants into the world of work and into traditional American customs and behavior.
George Greener, school director from 1915 to 1954, introduced handcrafts, such as ceramics and weaving. He also adapted the industrial arts program to meet specific needs of modern factories and began a vocational guidance program. Long-standing recreational activities—sports, reading clubs, and camps—continued, and civics classes prepared immigrants for naturalization.
Gradually, the Boston Board of Education took over the school's administration and expenses. In the 1940s, the school offered training classes to veterans, and, later, to students with disabilities. By 1985, when the Board transferred its social service programs to another agency, it changed the name to the North Bennet Street School and began to focus solely on quality handcraft education.
Today North Bennet Street continues to offer a variety of post-secondary programs in traditional crafts, including carpentry, violin making, piano technology, cabinetmaking, and bookbinding.
^ TOPImmigration to the US Resources
Listed below are digital resources from the Immigration to the US collection about, or related to, the North Bennet Street Industrial School. These resources represent only a selection of what exists on these topics. More physical materials on these topics may be available at the owning repositories, some of which are open to the public.
Manuscripts
North Bennet Street Industrial School (Boston, Massachusetts). Records, 1880-1973. Included here:
Series II. Office Files
Series IV. Class Registers and Attendance Books
- 28vo-29vo: Daily Record of Day Nursery, Kindergarten, and Public School
- 28vo. Sept. 1912-Aug. 1913
- 29vo. Sept. 1913-Dec. 1914
- 30vo. North Bennet Street Day Nursery, Feb. 1915-Aug. 1916
Series VII. Scrapbooks
North Bennet Street Industrial School. Headworker's Scrapbooks:
- 5vo. NBSIS material, 1916-1920
- 7vo. NBSIS material, 1920's
- 10vo. NBSIS material, 1925-1927
- 13vo. NBSIS material, 1925-1932
Publications
North Bennet Street Industrial School, Specialita Culinarie Italiane: 137 Tested Recipes of Famous Italian Foods. Boston, Mass.: North Bennet Street Industrial School, 1936.
North Bennet Street Industrial School, After All--Is Education Worthwhile? Boston, Mass.: North Bennet Street Industrial School, 1920.
North Bennet Street Industrial School, Annual Report. Boston, Mass.: North Bennet St. Industrial School.
North Bennet Street Industrial School, Annual Report/ North Bennet Street Industrial School. Boston, Mass.: North Bennet St. Industrial School, 1909-1912.
North Bennet Street Industrial School, A Brief Report to Show That an Appeal for Funds is Justified. Boston, Mass.: North Bennet St. Industrial School, 1918.
North Bennet Street Industrial School, Bulletin. Boston, Mass.: North Bennet St. Industrial School, 1921-23.
North Bennet Street Industrial School, Evening trade classes. Boston, Mass.: North Bennet St. Industrial School, 1929.
North Bennet Street Industrial School, Exhibit of the North Bennet Street Industrial School: 39 North Bennet Street, Boston : Horticultural Hall, April Seventh to Fourteenth, 1907. Boston, Mass.: North Bennet St. Industrial School, 1907.
North Bennet Street Industrial School, The New and the Old. Boston, Mass.: North Bennet St. Industrial School, 1926.
North Bennet Street Industrial School, News Bulletin. Boston, Mass.: North Bennet St. Industrial School, 1930.
North Bennet Street Industrial School, North Bennet Street Industrial School: A Laboratory School: Busy at all Times. Boston, Mass.: North Bennet St. Industrial School, 1916.
North Bennet Street Industrial School, North Bennet Street Industrial School: ... A Report For .... Boston, Mass.: North Bennet St. Industrial School, 1913-.
North Bennet Street Industrial School, The North Bennet Street Industrial School and Social Service House: A Chapter in Results. Boston, Mass.: North Bennet St. Industrial School, 1915.
North Bennet Street Industrial School, A Statement. Boston, Mass.: North Bennet St. Industrial School, 1924.
North Bennet Street Industrial School, Summer Bulletin. Boston, Mass.: North Bennet St. Industrial School, 1920.
North Bennet Street Industrial School, The Work of the North Bennet Street Industrial School from .... Boston, Mass.: North Bennet St. Industrial School, 1881-1905.
Rockwell, T.S. The North End Settlements and the Foreigner. 1912.
Finding Aids 
North Bennet Street Industrial School Records. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.
^ TOPOther Resources
Listed below are web sites about, or related to, the North Bennet Street Industrial School. These resources are listed to point users to further information outside the context of the Immigration to the US collection. The Open Collections Program and Harvard University bear no responsibility for the contents of these web sites. This list is not intended to be comprehensive.
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