Prudence Crandall's role in Connecticut's history long predates her 1995 designation as state heroine. For decades, scholars have studied Crandall and her Canterbury Academy, but Jennifer Rycenga's Schooling the Nation: The Success of the Canterbury Academy for Black Women instills new life and modern-day relevance into the familiar story. Rycenga presents the academy as a collaborative and cooperative endeavor spanning race, gender, and class to advocate for Black and female agency alike.Schooling the Nation follows the Canterbury Academy's 1831–1834 trajectory: the academy for white students; African American student Sarah Harris's desire for an education; the inception of the academy for Black students; Canterbury's response; the academy's support network; the four trials; the academy's closing due to mob violence; and the aftermath. This chronology serves as a framework for the book's primary emphasis. Each part of the narrative centers on marginalized voices, citing them as foundational and integral to the academy's success. Interracial collaboration and individual agency are central throughout this retelling, alongside the ideas of intersectionality and nonviolent resistance. Rycenga treats the Canterbury Academy as part of a larger whole, placing it into the context of New England and the United States rather than viewing it as an isolated episode. Readers will note the convincing connections Rycenga draws to feminism, civil rights, and the individual lives which influenced—and were influenced by—the Canterbury Academy for Black Women.The book presents the Black students as individuals desirous of higher learning—individuals with lives changed by their education—as the reason for the academy's existence. This is a much-needed addition to the familiar narrative about the Canterbury Academy, expanding the student list to over thirty women with unique stories. Other scholars have argued that the academy was a failure, but Rycenga contends that it succeeded through its eighteen-month operation and contributions to the abolition and early civil rights movements. Furthermore, many of the students went on to work in education and social activism. Rycenga also clarifies Crandall's religious beliefs, noting that by 1831 she had converted from the Quaker tradition to that of the Baptists, and later to that of Spiritualism.Schooling the Nation demonstrates much painstaking research, analysis, and interpretation of relevant historiography. Rycenga's notes and bibliography are considerable, and she cites a multitude of primary sources in her analysis, including letters and speeches from the likes of Maria Stewart, William Lloyd Garrison, and James Forten. She also utilizes legal records and many contemporaneous newspapers, such as the Liberator, the Windham County Advertiser, and the Connecticut Courant. Similarly, Rycenga's extensive historiographical awareness and engagement—manifest in citations to relevant scholarship spanning from the late nineteenth century to the present—solidifies the Canterbury Academy's place in the secondary literature.Schooling the Nation illustrates the importance of Prudence Crandall and the Canterbury Academy beyond Connecticut, simultaneously turning the study inward to the individuals and groups who made the academy a reality. As Rycenga writes, “the significance of the academy ultimately depends on what it reveals about women, about interracial cooperation, and about the power of education, more than constitutional subtleties or the vulgarity of racist behavior” (103). This redirected focus and expansion of the academy's significance urges readers to heed the events of 1830s Canterbury and their lasting impact; it also serves as a prompt to engage more deeply with Connecticut's past.Regardless, the book has a few limitations. Schooling the Nation may be enjoyed by a general readership, but Rycenga seems to write primarily for academics, scholars, and individuals with prior knowledge of the Crandall/Canterbury account. Additionally, the author's creative use of language can confuse matters: the book is replete with complex syntax, lengthy sentences, and phrases such as “economic vicissitudes” (95), “busybody moralism” (162), and “(self-)select(ed)men” (120).Schooling the Nation presents abundant examples of the enduring fight for equality, powerfully represented via interracial collaboration bridging economic status and gender. This collaboration, visible throughout and beyond the eighteen months of the academy's operation, is something worth emulating in the present day. Altogether, Rycenga's reshaping of the academy narrative is a welcome and necessary addition to the historical analysis of feminism, civil rights, and Connecticut. Schooling the Nation is a worthwhile and thought-provoking read.
Anna M. Beecher (Thu,) studied this question.