Thursday, October 20, 2016

Newfoundland School 1920 and it's window arrangement

Newfoundland school was located in Delaware east of Gumboro, near the Delaware/Maryland line.  The photo is from the Delaware Public Archives and is labeled as being 1920.  Now there is a later more traditional looking one room school house in Newfoundland that I assume came after this one. 

The school building is interesting as it only has windows along one side of the building and a single window by the entrance.  In the 1890s the popular opinion of "experts" was in schools without electricity and that did not have kerosene lanterns, there should be only windows on the east side of the building, the blackboard should be on the west side and the light should fall on the left shoulders of the pupils.  There was a fear that if windows were on both sides of the building it would allow cross lighting that would create reflections that in turn would lead to eye strain which, was felt at the time, would lead to nerve disorder.


As you can see on this side is a number of windows.  in the background is  a small stable and toilets

I have no way of knowing the orientation of the building, is the above the east side?

below is a 1934 article that mentions this left side / east side idea altho this is addressing the left handed person.


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