Learning After Dark: Wheeling’s 1873 Night Schools and a Meaningful Measure of Parity
Newly examined Board of Education proceedings reveal how Black citizens petitioned for evening education—and how Dr. John C. Hupp helped turn their request into public policy.
Before Wheeling’s schoolhouse lights could remain on after dark, citizens had to ask that they be turned on.
A newly examined newspaper summary of a special Wheeling Board of Education meeting provides the essential backstory to the city’s first public night schools. Published in the Wheeling Daily Register on November 29, 1873, the report shows that the program did not begin merely as an administrative experiment. It emerged from organized public demand.
Most significantly, Wheeling’s Black citizens spoke for themselves.
The newspaper reported:
“A petition praying for the establishment of a night school for colored children, signed by a very large number of colored citizens, was read.”
Petitions from local manufacturing firms requesting night schools were also presented. Together, these documents brought two important constituencies before the Board: working people seeking educational access and employers operating within Wheeling’s growing industrial economy.
The Board’s response was not a vague promise. Under the leadership of Dr. John C. Hupp and the Committee on Night Schools, it adopted a detailed plan for five public evening schools—including one in the city’s Colored School.
Why Nineteenth-Century America Needed Night Schools
The nineteenth-century night school was created for people whose working lives made daytime education difficult or impossible.
Before strong compulsory-attendance and child-labor laws became widespread, children and teenagers frequently worked in factories, mills, mines, workshops, stores and private homes. Adult laborers, apprentices and immigrants also sought instruction but could not leave their employment to attend classes during regular school hours.
Night schools brought education to them after the working day ended.
Some early evening schools were operated by churches, charitable societies, employers and private instructors. As public-school systems expanded, municipal school boards increasingly incorporated evening instruction into their own educational programs.
Educational historian Susan B. Carter found that New York, Rhode Island and Kentucky established some of the earliest public evening schools during the 1830s. By 1870, the United States had at least 60 public evening high schools and an even larger number of elementary evening schools. By 1900, 165 American cities were providing evening instruction.
The curriculum usually emphasized reading, writing, arithmetic, geography and history. More advanced students might study bookkeeping, composition, mechanical drawing, algebra, science or other subjects connected to employment and further education.
Night schools represented a genuine expansion of educational opportunity, but their history also contains a contradiction. They helped working people obtain an education, yet they operated within an economy that expected many young people to work during the day. They were both instruments of advancement and accommodations to the inequalities of industrial America.
That national context makes Wheeling’s 1873 experiment especially meaningful.
A Petition From Wheeling’s Black Community
The November 28, 1873, Board meeting was held in special session. Among the matters placed before its members was the petition “signed by a very large number of colored citizens.”
That wording is important.
The night school was not simply bestowed upon Wheeling’s Black community by white officials. Black residents collectively identified a need, organized around it and formally petitioned their public-school authorities.
Their names were not included in the newspaper summary, but their agency was unmistakable. They wanted the public school available at hours when working people could attend, and they brought that demand directly to the Board of Education.
The petitions from manufacturing firms reveal that the need extended across industrial Wheeling. The record does not explain the companies’ motives, so we should not assume whether they were acting from civic concern, a desire for more educated workers, compliance considerations or some combination of those interests. What can be said is that both Black citizens and local employers were pressing the Board to respond to the educational realities of a working city.
Dr. Hupp and the Committee on Night Schools
The Board assigned the issue to its Committee on Night Schools, led by Dr. John C. Hupp.
At the special meeting, the newspaper reported:
“Dr. Hupp, from the Committee on Night Schools reported the following.”
What followed was a comprehensive series of resolutions governing where the schools would operate, who could attend, what subjects would be taught, how teachers would be compensated, and how the program would be supervised.
This gives the Foundation’s developing Dr. Hupp story an important new dimension.
In our earlier post, “A Doctor Is Caned,” we examined the unusual ceremonial cane presented to Dr. Hupp by Wheeling’s Black citizens in recognition of his advocacy. His powerful public words about education revealed an ally who understood that learning was essential to freedom, citizenship and advancement.
The night-school proceedings show that his commitment was not confined to speeches.
Here, Dr. Hupp was doing the institutional work of educational reform. He was leading the committee, bringing its recommendations before the Board and helping convert public appeals into an operating program.
The cane represented gratitude for his public advocacy. These minutes help us understand the substance behind that gratitude.
Five Public Night Schools
The committee proposed five evening schools:
Washington and Madison subdistricts would be served in the Washington schoolhouse.
Clay and Union would be served in the Union schoolhouse.
Centre and Webster would be served in the Webster schoolhouse.
Ritchie, along with pupils living in the portion of Webster south of Caldwell’s Run, would be served in the Ritchie schoolhouse.
The commissioners of Clay were directed to open an evening school in the Colored School building.
The Board ordered the schools opened on or before Monday, December 8, 1873.
This was not an informal literacy circle or privately financed charitable class. It was a Board-authorized public-school program operating in public school buildings under formal rules.
A Serious Academic Program
The adopted plan reveals that Wheeling intended its night schools to provide genuine academic instruction.
Classes would meet five evenings each week—Monday through Friday—from 7:00 until 9:00 p.m. The initial term would last three months, excluding the regular holiday vacation observed by the day schools.
Admission was limited to people whose “vocations” prevented them from attending daytime classes. This provision confirms the fundamental purpose of the program: it was intended for those whose employment stood between them and an education.
Instruction was to concentrate on the “common English branches,” a nineteenth-century term generally encompassing foundational subjects such as reading, writing, grammar and arithmetic.
The program was not restricted to elementary lessons, however. Teachers could also provide instruction in the higher subjects taught in the day schools when students were sufficiently prepared.
That is an important distinction. Wheeling’s night schools were not conceived merely as remedial programs. A working student who had mastered the fundamentals could continue into more advanced studies.
Principals were required to submit reports to the superintendent, and the general rules governing attendance and conduct in the day schools were to be followed as closely as practicable. Registers and reporting forms would be supplied by the superintendent.
The Board therefore placed evening education within the administrative structure of the public-school system.
The Colored School Was Included
The inclusion of the Colored School is the most significant feature of the plan for this Foundation’s research.
Wheeling’s public schools remained segregated. The evening program did not erase that racial division. Nevertheless, the Board extended the same basic educational initiative to the Colored School rather than reserving night instruction for white students.
The five schools were governed by the same operating framework:
Evening instruction was Board-authorized.
Classes were intended for people unable to attend during the day.
The schools would meet five nights each week.
Sessions would run from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
The initial term would last three months.
Instruction would cover the common English branches.
Qualified students could pursue higher subjects offered in the day schools.
Attendance, conduct and reporting requirements would apply.
In these documented respects, the Colored School participated in the same public educational experiment as the city’s white schools.
That was meaningful parity in access, schedule, curriculum and public authorization.
Inclusion Was Real; Resources Were Not Identical
The fuller Board record also requires an important qualification.
For each of the four white night schools, local commissioners were authorized to employ as many as two certified teachers: a principal at $40 per month and an assistant at $25 per month. Two heated and lighted rooms were to be provided in each building.
The Colored School was assigned one qualified teacher at $30 per month and one heated and lighted classroom.
The record does not explain the differing allocations. They may have reflected anticipated enrollment, available space or the racial inequalities embedded within the segregated system. Without additional evidence, we should not claim a reason.
We can, however, state the historical distinction clearly: Wheeling offered the same basic evening-school program to Black students, but it did not authorize identical staffing, salary structures or classroom capacity.
The inclusion was real. Complete equality was not.
Recognizing both facts honors the Foundation’s commitment never to compromise historical integrity.
From Resolution to Reality
A second article, published by the Register on December 2, confirms that the Board’s plan moved quickly from resolution to implementation.
The newspaper announced that night schools had begun or were about to begin in the Washington, Union, Webster and Ritchie schoolhouses. It also named the teachers assigned to those locations.
Then came the announcement concerning the Colored School:
“The colored School will be opened at night for the first time on Monday night next, with Wm. Gaskins as teacher.”
That Monday was December 8, the deadline specified in Dr. Hupp’s committee resolutions.
The two newspaper reports therefore create an unusually complete documentary sequence:
A very large number of Black citizens petitioned for a night school.
Dr. Hupp and the Committee on Night Schools developed a detailed program.
The Board of Education adopted the resolutions.
The Colored School received a scheduled opening and a named teacher.
William Gaskins was selected to lead its first evening classes.
This was public advocacy transformed into public policy—and then into a functioning classroom.
William Gaskins and the First Night Class
William Gaskins deserves to be remembered by name.
The available articles do not yet provide a complete biography, but they identify him as the teacher entrusted with opening the Colored School’s first night program. He would have entered a classroom occupied by people who had already completed a day of labor and still chose to pursue an education.
The students’ names have not yet been found. We do not know their ages, occupations or individual ambitions. Some may have wanted basic literacy. Others may have sought stronger arithmetic, grammar or writing skills. More advanced students may have hoped to study subjects normally available in the day school.
What the record makes clear is that the opportunity existed because Black Wheeling demanded it—and because educators and Board members, including Dr. Hupp, acted upon that demand.
Building Upon the Public Colored School
The 1873 night school was another chapter in a public educational story that had begun seven years earlier.
In the fall of 1866, the Wheeling Board of Education established the city’s Colored School as part of its public system. It was supported by tax dollars, not founded as a private charity or an informal Freedmen’s Bureau school.
John W. West, a Black educator, became its first teacher. A federal education official visiting Wheeling in 1867 reported finding “a good School House well fitted up, and a good School, taught by Mr. West a colored man.” The visitor also recorded that money from Wheeling’s city school tax had been “fairly divided with the colored people,” building the schoolhouse and paying its expenses.
Robert West, John’s brother, would also become an instructor at the school.
By 1873, Wheeling’s Black community was asking the public system to do more. The citizens who signed the night-school petition were not requesting admission to a private favor. They were asserting a claim upon an institution that their taxes supported and that the Board of Education was obligated to administer.
The Board responded by extending the school day beyond daylight itself.
When the Schoolhouse Lights Remained On
The Register called Wheeling’s night schools an “experiment” and predicted that they would become permanent.
Whether every detail of that aspiration was fulfilled will require additional research.
Enrollment registers, superintendent reports, Board minutes and later newspaper notices may reveal how many people attended, what they studied and how long the programs continued.
What we already possess, however, is remarkable.
We have evidence of Black civic organization. We have a petition signed by a “very large number” of colored citizens. We have an educational committee led by Dr. John C. Hupp. We have the Board’s adopted operating plan. We have the name of the Colored School’s night teacher. And we have a date on which the program was scheduled to begin.
Access to education is not determined solely by whether a school building exists. It also depends upon when its doors are open, whether working people can enter and whether public institutions respond when citizens demand more.
In 1866, Wheeling opened a tax-supported public school for Black children.
In 1873, Wheeling’s Black citizens petitioned for education after the working day ended.
Dr. Hupp and the Committee on Night Schools carried that demand into the Board of Education.
On the evening of December 8, the Colored School’s doors were scheduled to open—and, under the instruction of William Gaskins, its lights were to remain on until nine o’clock.
Sometimes educational progress begins with legislation. Sometimes it begins with a courageous teacher. And sometimes it begins when ordinary citizens place their names upon a petition and insist that opportunity remain available after dark.
-T
Historical terminology
The term “Colored School” is used because it was the institution’s historical designation and the language appearing in the 1873 records. Its use reflects the segregated educational system of the period.
Sources
“Board of Education,” The Wheeling Daily Register, November 29, 1873, page 4. Summary of the special Board meeting held November 28.
“The Night Schools,” The Wheeling Daily Register, December 2, 1873, page 4.
Susan B. Carter, “Evening Schools and Child Labor in the United States, 1870–1910.”
National Archives, “The Freedmen’s Bureau.”
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Freedmen’s Bureau education report dated May 1, 1867.
