| Title: |
The Fire of Liberty in Their Hearts: The Diary of Jacob E. Yoder of the Freedmen's Bureau School, Lynchburg, Virginia, 1866-1870. |
| Language: |
English |
| Authors: |
Yoder, Jacob E.; Horst, Samuel L. |
| Availability: |
Library of Virginia, The Library Shop, 800 E. Broad St., Richmond, VA 23219 ($24.95). |
| Peer Reviewed: |
N |
| Page Count: |
232 |
| Publication Date: |
1996 |
| Document Type: |
Book; Historical Materials |
| Descriptors: |
Black Education; Black History; Diaries; Educational History; Educational Philosophy; Elementary Secondary Education; Racial Relations; Reconstruction Era; Rural Schools; Teaching Experience; Urban Schools |
| Geographic Terms: |
Virginia |
| ISBN: |
978-0-88490-181-5 |
| Abstract: |
Jacob Eschbach Yoder was one of the many northern schoolteachers who went south to assist in educating the newly freed African American population in the years immediately following the Civil War. Impelled by a religious fervor stemming from his upbringing in the Mennonite faith and especially by the educational ideals he had absorbed from his mentor, James Pyle Wickersham, Yoder left his native Pennsylvania early in 1866 to become an instructor and administrator of Freedmen's Bureau schools in Lynchburg, Virginia. Yoder's diary provides valuable information about his work and personal development as well as useful insights into daily life in Reconstruction-era Virginia. His eyewitness account of the struggle for freedom, and his comments about the freedmen's ability to grasp fully that freedom, show a man wrestling with his own preconceptions and radical politics. After an unsatisfactory attempt to run his own school in Pennsylvania, Yoder returned to Lynchburg. In 1868, he became superintendent of 24 freedmen's schools in Lynchburg and six rural counties. When the Freedmen's Bureau program ended in 1870, Yoder accepted a position in Lynchburg's new public school system, ultimately becoming principal of the city's all-Black high school and administrator of its Black schools, serving the Black community for the rest of his life. The introduction gives a history of Yoder's life and Reconstruction-era Virginia that puts the diary in context. Notes to the introduction, a description of how the diary was edited, an index, and photographs are included. (TD) |
| Entry Date: |
1997 |
| Accession Number: |
ED408115 |
| Database: |
ERIC |