This creative project encompasses two major parts: an historic context study, and a survey of extant one-room or one-teacher schools in a four county region of East Central Indiana. The historic context study looks into the early school laws in Indiana that promoted, and established a state-wide system of free public education. More specifically, the history focuses on the laws and social factors that led to the rise and fall of the one-room or one-teacher school as the primary source of education for Indiana children. The history of the rise and fall of the one-room schoolhouse in Indiana can be divided into three major eras: the pioneer period between 1787 and 1851; the golden era of one-room schoolhouse education from 1851 to 1907; and, the final demise of the one-teacher school as an institution as consolidation of schools became popular.The purpose of the first half of the project is to create a context for the remaining one-room schoolhouses listed in the inventory that makes up the second half of the creative project. The pictorial inventory lists and provides basic historical information on extant one-room and one-teacher schoolhouses in the Indiana counties of Delaware, Grant, Henry, and Jay. Currently there are approximately 78 one-room schoolhouses still in standing in the four counties. This number is a small percentage of the well over 400 one-room and one-teacher schoolhouses that dotted the four counties at the turn-of-the-century.These two parts together create a document that promotes awareness of a disappearing rural resource. The project also provides a stepping stone for future research into the history of education in Indiana, and the specific rural schools which helped to build the Indiana school system. / Department of Architecture

The purposes of this study were: (1) to study the conditions that influenced the construction of early rural schoolhouses in Indiana, (2) to examine how emerging concerns for sanitation and student health surfaced from the construction of early rural schoolhouses, and (3) to provide a data base for individuals who desire to do further research on school buildings and their historic preservation. The research concentrated on the period of 1875 to .1915. Special attention was given to conditions that led to the passage of the Sanitary Schoolhouse Act of 1911.Results revealed that early schoolhouses often were constructed as little more than shelters. Virtually no consideration was given to either educational processes or the health and safety of occupants. As a result, water and other design and care of water and sewage systems resulted insanitary factors became major concerns. The inadequate serious health concerns for students and teachers. These concerns contributed to the passage of laws that eventually led to: (1) the abandonment of early rural schoolhouses, and (2) the construction of more sophisticated structures often designed by professional architects.This study also revealed that some of those early schoolhouses that survived have been converted to residential, business, or civic purposes. Photographs of such buildings in Boone, Hamilton, Hancock, Hendricks, Henry, Madison, and Tipton counties in Indiana are included in the thesis. They provide evidence that preservation is a means with which these buildings can continue to serve a useful existence.There is historical value in understanding conditions that led to the rise and fall of early rural school buildings. Collectively, data about the construction and sanitary conditions provide insights into rural culture, expand an appreciation of the uniqueness of design for these buildings, and enhance the importance and desirability of preserving these structures. The net product of this thesis is to provide a view of the construction of buildings in central Indiana of this period. / Department of Architecture