Back to School - Fall 2022 History Acquisitions

Many elements of school attendance and instruction have changed over the past 80 years: chalkboards have become digital interactive whiteboards, students can choose from more elective classes than ever before, and apps have replaced paper notes as a way of passing messages. Student newspapers and yearbooks, however, endure as a way for classmates to share their thoughts and commemorate the exceptional and the mundane during their years together. The Columbus Museum recently acquired two newspapers and a yearbook that help illuminate the school days of Chattahoochee Valley residents.

Soon after the 1930 opening of Spencer High School, students began creating The Spehisco as a newspaper and, as they noted on the masthead, “a medium of expression.” Spencer was Columbus’ first high school open to Black students, making it an important institution for the entire region. The May 1939 Spehisco issue boasts of the school’s largest-ever group of 78 graduates and three plays presented by the senior class. Dr. George Washington Carver’s visit, which drew an overflow crowd to Spencer’s auditorium, was covered alongside the unveiling of a plaque of Carver that the neighboring Tom Huston Peanut Company presented to the school. The February 1940 Spehisco features the school’s first mid-year graduation, as well as the curriculum for Negro History Week, the forerunner of Black History Month.

In both issues, updates about musicals, sports, alumni, social events in Columbus’ adult Black community, and business advertisements offer intriguing details about the city’s African American middle class on the eve of World War II.

The Coronet served as the yearbook for Mountain Hill School, a rural 1-12 school for white students in southwestern Harris County. When the school opened in 1930, it included amenities not present in many students’ homes, such as electricity, indoor plumbing, and central heat. Country musician Chet Atkins attended Mountain Hill School for about three years, practicing his guitar in the auditorium and boys’ bathroom. Many of this 1948- 49 yearbook’s pages are hand-written by students, and the upper grades are almost entirely comprised of girls, suggesting that many boys stopped attending to work full-time. Advertisements in the back feature businesses across a relatively wide geographic range: Columbus, Hamilton, Chipley (now Pine Mountain), and LaGrange. This edition was owned by Principal King D. Owen, who lived in Phenix City for much of the 1940s.

Images:

1. The Spehisco, Spencer High School newspaper, 1939, The General Acquisitions Fund, The Columbus Museum. G.2021.70.1

2. The Coronet, Mountain Hill School yearbook, 1949, The General Acquisitions Fund, The Columbus Museum. G.2021.70.3