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Educational historians have established that progressive education was a multifaceted, diversified approach to education reform, and have recognized that such a variegated phenomenon is difficult, if not impossible, to define. Instead, historians attempt to capture the complexity of progressive education either by articulating its principal qualities or by identifying different wings, or varieties, of progressivism in education. This paper attempts to contribute to the historical understanding of progressive education by arguing in favor of recognizing a previously overlooked variety of progressive education that reflects not only definitive elements of John Dewey's educational theory, but also major tenets of American philosophical pragmatism, which may be called "pragmatic progressivism". The identification of pragmatic progressivism as a variety of progressive education could indicate that Dewey had more influence on educational practice than previously thought. This paper reviews representative historical attempts to characterize progressive education in the US and explains four elements of Dewey's educational theory that manifest tenets of American philosophical pragmatism. It then identifies fifteen historical progressive education activities and theoretical proposals that occurred during the period spanning the 1920s to the 1960s that reflect the four elements of pragmatic progressivism.

The cases analyzed in this essay exemplify both the influence of the sexual revolution and the conservative backlash against it. Topics that were once considered obscene were now seen as educational. Without this greater openness, none of these court cases would have been possible. In fact, people fighting against censorship and repression initiated all three cases: a teacher demanding academic freedom, a church asserting its right to instruct its youngest members without state interference, and students claiming the right of free expression in the school paper. That there were defendants in these cases also points to a stubborn opposition to new sexual freedoms. While the courts usually upheld free expression, they still granted state and local authorities wide latitude in setting the curriculum. School boards could ban sex education courses altogether if they liked. A sex column in the student paper and a sex course at the local church might represent sexual freedom, but they also existed because the public schools were not adequately addressing sexual matters.

The article discusses three court cases that took place in the U.S. during the 1970s concerning the role of government in determining sex education curriculum in public schools and whether local authorities could censor and/or regulate sex education. The article examines the cases Mercer v. Michigan, Unitarian Church West v. McConnell, and Bayer v. Kinzler which took place in Michigan, Wisconsin, and New York, respectively.

Examines the history of sponsored research and industrial relationships at the University of Michigan. Reason for the inherent conflict among various stakeholders in sponsored research; Information on the tensions that emerged in the centralization of the university; Relationship of the federal government with the university after World War II.

This paper examines the history of sponsored research and industrial relationships at the University of Michigan. For the purposes of this paper, sponsored research is defined as research performed by the university that is funded by an outside constituent. Although this paper covers events from the start of the twentieth century, it concentrates on the events after Word War II until the Vietnam War, when the role of the federal government changed and sponsored research flourished tremendously. Specifically, it follows the development of the Division of Research Development and Administration (DRDA) and the Office of Vice President of Research (OVPR). The central issue in this paper is the inherent conflict among various stakeholders in sponsored research. The existence of formal department(s) overseeing sponsored research served to both encourage and control its development. It was a tool for the university as much as for the entrepreneurial faculty. This is a story of how sponsored research became a valuable mechanism to preserve the teaching mission of the university and to guide the development of research as to complement that mission, by encouraging faculty to be present in the university and limiting their involvement in the world beyond the university walls. At the same time, this paper describes the tensions that emerged in the face of centralization and legislation; and of the defining moments that shaped the research policies in the decades after.

Historians of higher education generally agree on a handful of ideas about the early years of the land-grant colleges that grew out of the Morrill Act of 1862. For their first three decades, the land-grant colleges struggled to survive: lacking students, funding, and public favor. Charged, by the Morrill Act, to promote "the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes," they were plagued by contradictory interpretations of how to implement the mandate. (Act Donating Public Land 1862, 14). The land-grant colleges' greatest challenge was agriculture. How could they entice students to study agriculture? What could they do about the (seemingly) relentless political pressures inspired by farmers who insisted that agriculture be the foremost of their priorities? The colleges simply could not deliver what farmers wanted. Too few people with college-going aspirations wanted to study agriculture and perform farm labor. Judged against their agricultural mission, land-grant colleges "could only be described as failures" in their opening three decades (Scott 1970, 27). Historians recognize Michigan Agricultural College (MAC, now Michigan State) as a notable exception to this general rule. Was MAC a narrow-gauge agricultural college or was it something else? How did the Michigan Agricultural College enact the Morrill Act's "liberal and practical education" mandate? To address that question, this paper investigates the time period from the 1850s to the 1870s. After performing a self-diagnosis of declining enrollment in the mid-1890s, the MAC faculty concluded that many people's ideas about their college did not correspond to what the college actually did. A "continuous campaign of advertising and education" was needed to convince people that MAC put the sciences and their applications at the center of its efforts "to develop all its pupils into broad-minded men, good citizens, and ideal farmers or mechanical engineers" (Edwards, Smith, Kedzie 1896, 63). Stated in terms of the narrow-gauge and broad-gauge classification, MAC aspired to be both, by striving to unite "labor" and "study."

The article discusses the role of archival theory, practice and technology in the study of educational history. Particular focus is given to inclusiveness in archival practice and to the role of technology in the documentation of modern educational history. It is suggested that technology allows for socially marginalized people to offer their own interpretations of history. Details on conditions in the Detroit, Michigan public school system are presented. Other topics include archival storage, electronically stored information (ESI), cell phones, and geographic information systems (GIS).

The article examines the public and internal rhetoric of the closing of the laboratory school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The number of operating schools in the National Association of Laboratory School has declined between 1970 and 1981. The closing of the laboratory school coincides with the development of a new mission for its School of Education in the 1960s and early 1970s. The closure of the school gave the School of Education a place to research techniques in education and to transmit them to a new generation of teachers.