Grand Rapids Board of Ed. Census 1910

Collection

Identifier: Collection 409

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This 1910 school census consists of information for six school districts with each ledger encompassing a different city ward. We have most of the records for Districts 1-6, but there are sections of the city that are unaccounted for. By analyzing the records we have, it is currently believed that the boundaries of each district coincide with the expansion of the city.

District 1 encompasses the center of the city and has 12 ledgers- for the 12 different city wards; District two is a ring around District 1; and District 6 only has one ledger for Ward 6 in the most northwestern corner. The 1909 Annual Report from the Grand Rapids Board of Education contains a map of the school districts in 1910 with the different locations of the public schools and the boundaries for each school district (an original is also featured in our map collection: #240/2.3/1). This particular map indicates that there is a different school district for each school, which does not concur with the districts outlined in the 1910 census records.

In the first box, we have records for District 1 wards 1-12, and District 2 ward 10. In the second box we have records for District 2 wards 2-12. In the third box we have the records for District 3 wards 1, 3-7, and 9-12. In the fourth box we have the records for District 4 wards 5, 10-12; District 5, wards 5, 6, & 11; and District 6 ward 6.

Dates

July 1910

Biographical / Historical

Originally there was one GRPS District, but this was split in two in 1848 when the East Leonard St School was built at Canal and Coldbrook. The two school districts created were District No. 1 and the Coldbrook School District (also known as District No. 6). The boundaries of the Coldbrook district were “all of the city north of a line between Newberry and Mason streets,” and District 1 encompassed the village of Grand Rapids proper. A third school district was formed on the west side of the city when Grand Rapids Union School opened in 1855. These three districts were all collapsed into one GRPS school district under the act of 1871. The board of education was downsized later and a new charter was drafted in 1906.

The board provided the means to take the school census yearly, as it was required by law, in order to receive the funds from the state office for maintaining the district and school libraries. The school district could erect school buildings and provide the necessary supplies for them, it could furnish a library, and could levy a tax for any of these purposes. Three offices were elected to a district board; a moderator, a director, and an assessor. School districts in Michigan were limited to 9 square miles (the average size was about 4 square miles), and when 2 or more contiguous districts had 200 children they could unite to form a union school. To create a new school district, the clerk of the Board of School Inspectors delivered a written notice of the formation of a new district to those living within the new school district's boundaries.

Extent

2 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

This is an incomplete census of school children in Grand Rapids conducted by enumerators from the Grand Rapids Board of Education. The information was collected systematically, going street by street through the different school districts and city wards. Each record contains the home address, the name of the parent or legal guardian, the child's name, gender, age, the school they attend, and supplementary remarks.

Related Materials

Kent County School Census, 1903-1925, Microfilm

Collection #120: Lynn H. Clark County Commissioner of Schools/ Kent County Superintendent papers

Collection #240: Grand Rapids Public Library Map & Atlas Collection (Map of Schools and School Districts, Box 2.3 was FF.IV.B)