If one were to visit downtown Springfield, Illinois, now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, a variety of state buildings would greet the visitor with glass faces and steel arms, inviting one to renew a driver's license, lobby a representative, visit a Lincoln historical site, or enjoy a relaxing lunch with office workers. It is an area that bustles during business hours, but is abandoned after 5:00 p.m. as state and county workers commute back to their homes to relax with family and neighbors. At the turn of the twentieth century, this same geographic locale remained active after the workday, for it was a neighborhood of homes to many people. One of these residents was Stella Root, the music supervisor for the Springfield schools. She lived at 211 E. Jackson, at a boarding house run by Jesse and Ada McCay, along with the McCay's teenage daughter, Celda, and Mary Poffenburger, a Springfield dressmaker who also boarded there. Her neighbors up and down the street came from a variety of places and had diverse occupations. She lived next door to Thomas Logan, a local minister, his wife Caroline, and their family of three daughters. One family down the street ran a construction company, a lawyer lived a few doors past the boarding house, and the supervisor of the boiler works lived just a house or two further. Ms. Root's residence was not the only boarding house on the block, and many of the homes employed live-in servants. It seems to have been a rather well-kept and prosperous neighborhood, most likely filled with large Victorian homes, wide yards, and ample porches like those of many period homes found still standing today in Springfield. (1) Ms. Root presumably began living on Jackson Street in the fall of 1898 when she began working as a special teacher of music in the Springfield schools. She was hired for this position by the Springfield Board of Education on July 5, 1898, at a salary of $800 a year. (A special teacher of drawing, Cantrell, was hired at the same meeting at a salary of $650 a year.) (2) It may be that Root and Cantrell were the first fine-arts specialists ever employed by the Springfield district, for in the previous board meeting minutes it was recorded that: The matter of electing Special Teachers of Music and Drawing was referred to the next meeting. (3) In addition to hiring fine-arts specialists for the first time, there is evidence that the Springfield schools were undergoing a consolidation effort with smaller country schools in the outlying areas, and that efforts were underway to build a new high school building. It is quite possible that Stella Root's hiring was part of a larger school reform effort in Springfield. (4) Previous to Root's tenure in Springfield, it appears that the music education instruction found in the schools was influenced by a woman referred to only as Miss Roper. It is unclear what position Roper held in the Springfield schools, but prior to Root's arrival there are frequent references to Roper providing singing entertainment for teacher institute days, sometimes as often as two or three consecutive sessions. (5) Teacher institute days appear to have been a monthly Saturday meeting held at a variety of local churches. As attendance and tardiness were recorded in the teacher institute records, it can be assumed that all teachers were required to attend these early in-service training sessions. (6) These institute days provided a perfect forum for discussing topics relevant to the pubic schools and for influencing teacher practice and opinion. It is not surprising, then, to find that prior to the hiring of Stella Root to organize music education for Springfield's schools, a bit of precursory music education public relations work took place on one of these Saturday sessions. On January 8, 1898, Miss Harvey of Chicago gave a talk on 'Music with reference to public school work,' suggesting that a movement was underway to organize a solid music curriculum in Springfield. …
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Jan 1, 2010
Trent Davis 
Open Access
