Politics, Disability, and Education Reform in the South : The Work of John Eldred Swearingen

Politics, Disability, and Education Reform in the South explores how race, gender, disability, and politics all came together to impact the career of one State Superintendent of Education in South Carolina who fought to improve educational conditions for African-Americans, women, and millworkers' children in South Carolina. "Fashioned from a vast array of archival sources as well as secondary sources, newspapers, periodicals, family correspondence, and oral interviews, Politics, Disability, and Education Reform in the South: The Work of John Eldred Swearingen analyzes the political and educational contexts during which Swearingen fought to improve educational conditions for African-Americans, women, and the children of millworkers of the Palmetto State as State Superintendent of Education 1907-1922. Blinded in a hunting accident at 13, Swearingen became the first blind student admitted to the University of South Carolina, and became a successful teacher and politician. Fighting for equalized funding and desegregated schools put him in direct opposition with the Ku Klux Klan, the General Education Board, and Governor Coleman Blease. Swearingen's story lends itself to scholars of education and political science, as well as any reader with an interest in the intersections of race, gender, disability, politics and education"-- Provided by publisher Front Matter....Pages i-xiv Introduction....Pages 1-14 South Carolina, Populism, and the “New South,” 1865–1908....Pages 15-52 Fighting the Good Fight, 1907–1915....Pages 53-85 Political Triptych: Swearingen, Blease, and Tillman, 1911–1915....Pages 87-121 Swept Up in Progressivism, 1915–1919....Pages 123-160 Robert Cooper and the Final Battle, 1919–1957....Pages 161-199 Conclusion: Not the Windows but the Occupant Looking Through....Pages 201-211 Back Matter....Pages 213-259