Urban Enrollments and the Growth of Schooling: Evidence from the U. S. 1910 Census Public Use Sample

Abstract

This article reassesses the effect of urban location on school enrollment in the United States in 1910 in order to explore the question of educational expansion. Previous national analyses of urban versus rural differences have relied on aggregated data and consequently have been unable to control for a range of individual characteristics that differ in their distribution between cities and rural areas. Data from the 1910 Public Use Sample on over 100,000 individuals aged 5-18 in 1910 were analyzed. In our analysis, we controlled for variables related to recency of immigration (foreign-born status, second-generation status, parents' English-speaking ability), parental educational background (reading, writing), and parental economic resources (home ownership, father's occupation and self-employment status), as well as race and marital disruption. We conducted our analysis separately for three age groups: 5-9, 10-13, and 14-18. Our findings indicate that the influence of cities on enrollment differed sharply with age: children aged 5-13 were as likely to be enrolled in small towns as in large cities, while children aged 14-18 were more likely to be enrolled in rural areas. The introduction of controls for recent immigration increased the enrollment of urban areas relative to rural areas, while the controls for race and farming increased the enrollment of rural areas relative to urban areas. We discuss the implication of these results for theories of educational expansion.