You've heard it many times, "our schools aren't doing enough" or "we both have to work to make ends meet." That sentiment is expressed often in 1997. How about this one-"I wish it was just like in the old days"? Think about it. Would you really want to live "back then"?

It's 1879 and you are a school teacher in Killingly, District 12, Chestnut Hill. How much are you paid? If you are lucky enough to work in the grammar school you make $50.00 a month. If you work in the primary school you only make $28.00 a month. Your classroom varies from season to season. You need to work, on average, 179 to 180 days. Your students vary from semester to semester and you have three terms, Fall, Winter and Spring. You are responsible for teaching mathmatics, surveying, geography, history, natural science, (Botany and geology), rhetoric and "belles lettres", intellectual and moral philosophy, Latin, Greek and French.

The school receives $10.00 from the State Treasury and an additional $5.00 for each 100 students for maintenance of the library and apparatus. This needs to be approved by the School Visitors of course. They are the equivilant of a 1997 School Board. The dictionary you use is Websters'. Any unabridged version cost $8.10 through the school but if you buy it outside the school it will cost $12.00.

These are hard times for you and your students. You have two sisters, Nora and Elvira Seamans. Their father is Job F. Seamans and he is on the school committee and he's a Deacon. When he and his wife, Rose, had Nora, Job was a millworker. He later became a shoemaker. In 1879-80, Ellie missed the winter term, and Nora missed the summer term. Dr. Hill hasn't made any trips there recently, but you never know what could happen. The Seamans' have already lost one child at 6 months of age to Dysentary and Rose recently had a stillborn girl.

Elisha and Ellen Soule send their two boys, Fred and Clarence. They are good boys and receive in deportment a (+), which means above mediocrity. Very few of your students receive (O) for outstanding, or a (-) for below mediocrity. Elisha works for the mill, but at one time was a salloon keeper.

You know how hard it is for the mill people. If they're single or have a grown family that all works, they make out o.k. But for the man with a young family, it's hard unless his wife works too. The rent is paid to the mill owners and the local store is also owned by the company. With the company setting the prices, they make out fairly well. It's the workers who have to scratch to make ends meet. The wives take care of the gardens and put up canned goods. They've seen where some vegetables can now be bought already canned, but it's cheaper to do their own.

Because of the 1875 strike in Taftville, there is now the Tramp Act. This was legislated to benefit the mill owners in an attempt to break the unions that were forming. What the Tramp Act was for, was those who went to other states looking for work, but needed to sleep on the streets and beg for handouts. You could beg in your own state, just not in the neighboring one. The consequence is a year in jail!

For amusement, there are the band concerts in the park. The new opera by Gilbert and Sullivan is coming to America soon. They say it is about the shams and absurdities of modern society. They also have decided to come here to personally to oversee the rehersals.

This is the age of industry where womens' work is becoming a little easier. There are store bought clothes, although not too many people wish to buy them because of the poor quality. You are considered" low class"if you buy your clothes instead of make them.

The authors of choice are, Lew Wallace who penned "Ben Hur" and Mark Twain who has so far written "Innocents Abroad" and "Tom Sawyer". There is also a popular magazine called "Ladies Home Journal" that many women like.

Our president is Rutherford B. Hayes and Connecticuts' govenor is Charles B. Andrews of Litchfield.

1865 - State Board of Education formed
1868 - Ct. public elementary schools were free, ie. supported by taxes and/or state aid
1869 - A need arose for more and better trained teachers because of an increase in school population
1870 - number of manufacturing establishments- 5,128 - first public high school built in killingly - students in colleges/universities around the country, 67,000
1871 - Mrs. C.C. Burleigh of Brooklyn Ct. was ordained Unitarian Minister
1873 - M.N. Wolf of Avon patented the sewing machine lamp holder, first intercollegiate football game was played at Yale, establishment of the Bureau of Labor Statistics
1875 - Hartford made sole capital city, Patron of Husbandry (Grange) organized, Taftville strike, Civil Rights Act forbidding racial descrimination or separation in public accommodations was legislated.
1876 - Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeat Custer at Little Big Horn River, Alexander Graham Bell demonstrates the telephone, House of Representatives impeaches Secretary of War, William Belknap for receiving bribes for sale of trading posts in Indian Territory. First Ph.D. degree given to a black at Yale
1877- First bicycle factory in America established in Hartford, property earnings retained by the wife, first telephone exchange in the world opened in New Haven, first telephone directory issued in New Haven.
1879- New Capital Building in Hartford completed, Richard Upjohn is the architect. Govenor Charles B. Andrews,R. Litchfield.
1881-Govenor Hobart B. Bigelow, R. New Haven.
1882 - Street lights were bought in Killingly-94 lamps and lamp post- costing $7.25 each, Connecticut Telephone Company opened, later became SNETC
1883- Govenor Thomas M. Waller, D. New London.
1885- Henry B. Harrison, R. New Haven.
1893- Women permitted to vote for school officers

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