The Background
The following article was published in The Atlanta Journal in 1893, and written by W.W. Goodrich, an architect who practiced in Atlanta between 1889 and 1895.
If Goodrich ever designed a classroom building during his time in Atlanta, there’s no record of it. His only known project for an educational institution in the Southeast is Yonah Hall, a dormitory and library at the Georgia Female Seminary1 2 3(later Brenau University) in Gainesville, Georgia.
Goodrich also wasn’t an ophthalmologist, but that didn’t stop him from attempting to diagnose the cause of myopia and astigmatism in Atlanta’s children.
“Atlanta today is inquiring the cause of its youth wearing glasses,” Goodrich writes. Were they, though? “Little boys and girls in our city are seen every day wearing glasses”, he continues, adding, “In the times of our grandparents, children wearing glasses were unknown and unheard of.”
Citing “European oculists”, here Goodrich attributes vision problems in Atlanta’s students to a lack of northern light in their classrooms, and then provides a detailed description of an ideal school building of the early 1890s: built on a ridge, designed with a steel frame and fireproof materials (requiring “no insurance”, apparently), with a north light in the classrooms — “and only a north light”, he stresses.
I won’t criticize Goodrich’s description too much — it’s more interesting than most of the things he wrote about. It’s also true that schools at the time were often designed so that their classrooms were primarily exposed to the softer, consistent tones of northern light, but that wasn’t always practicable due to site limitations.
Note that Goodrich’s plan includes a “dynamo” to “furnish the light for dark days” — electric lighting was available, but was quite dim by modern standards, so architects still had to design schoolrooms to receive as much natural light as possible.
In the 1880s and early 1890s, Bruce & Morgan of Atlanta were the indisputed leaders of school design in the Southeast, planning so many academic structures that in 1889, they even wrote a book about it: Modern School Buildings, which included full-page illustrations of their projects.4 If a copy of the book still exists, I’m unaware of it.
Of the dozens of grade schools designed by Bruce & Morgan, only one remains in Union, South Carolina.5 However, most of their landmark college buildings still stand, such as the Main Building at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Samford Hall at Auburn University in Alabama, and Agnes Scott Hall at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. Only the buildings at Auburn University and Agnes Scott College are north-facing, but all of the firm’s school designs feature an abundance of oversized windows.
In 1891, G.L. Norrman addressed the problem of school lighting with his plan for Atlanta’s Edgewood Avenue Grammar School. Built on a ridge with a north-facing front, the building was designed so that each of the 8 classrooms received sunlight from four sides, and as the Atlanta Journal reported of the plans: “Mr. Norrmann [sic] himself is so much in love with them that he has had them copyrighted.” He immediately repeated the Edgewood plan for theSixteenth Street School in Columbus, Georgia, and both buildings survive.
In 1896, Norrman’s plan for the Anderson Street School in Savannah, Georgia, was reportedly selected, in large part, because all 12 of its classrooms received southern exposure.6 So much for that theory on northern light. The Anderson school plan was so successful that Norrman later duplicated it for both the 38th Street School and Barnard Street School in Savannah — all 3 buildings still exist.
Goodrich praises his fellow Atlanta architects in this article, describing them as “men of rare discernment and practical intelligence” and commending their “beautiful school buildings”. Obviously, Goodrich was a bullshitter and ass-kisser, but he was right about one thing: Atlanta’s architects did design some beautiful school buildings.
Light In The Schools.
A Suggestion For The Board Of Education.
The North Light Only Should Be Used.
Mr. W.W. Goodrich Calls Attention to the Matter.
What the European Governments are Doing for Protection and the Good Results Obtained.
Written for The Journal.
The public is at present more interested in schoolhouse sanitation, and the light in our public school rooms than in any other subject before our practical, everyday people, who have made Atlanta what she is and what she will be “in the glorious future.”
Atlanta today is inquiring the cause of its youth wearing glasses. Myopic and astigmatic optics are of such frequent occurrence and of such everyday appearance on the streets that people have ceased to wonder at its cause or causes, and accept the fact as a matter of course, and pass the subject by as too frivolous to be thought of, or of too common place a subject to pay any attention to.
The optic organism is of such a sensitive nature, and its development of such a wonderful use to everyone, that without good eyes anyone thus afflicted is indeed in a sad predicament. And yet, little boys and girls in our city are seen every day wearing glasses. In the times of our grandparents, children wearing glasses were unknown and unheard of.
The subject being discussed must and should be first thought of your public school board, “yet that august body,” so far as the parents of the school children are aware, have never considered this subject at all. At least if they have, the school-room does not show it, and the astigmatic and myopic optics of many pupils are in contradistinction to good sanitary school measures and good optical schoolroom arrangements.
“First”–A site for a schoolhouse should be on a ridge, so that the drainage shall fall on all sides.
“Second,” the site should be a north light, and a north light only; each room should have a north light, and only a north light, and no other light from any other points of the compass, should enter a schoolroom than what comes from a direct line to the north star.
“European oculists” have convinced their respective governments that to preserve the eyes of the present and future generations, only a north light will be admitted in a school room and in all class rooms whether in public or private room, and the governments of Europe have made laws to that effect. The effect of said laws has been to decrease optical diseases or malformations, to cure many old and chronic cases in children and to increase and restore the mental and physical health of all its youth, and to eradicate occult faults. Truly a wonderful blessing, more so than vaccination for smallpox. It is thus seen, that it is imperative upon the school board, to first consider that subject treated. And not let it go by without any consideration.
Atlanta has beautiful school buildings, the architects of them are men of rare discernment and practical intelligence, graceful, classic detail, and ornament, that thrill the mind’s eye, and enrapture the soul, and inspire the whole being to do grand and great things for our city, rise uppermost in the pupil and student of both sexes.
And they have a keener discernment to accomplish great tasks and to improve their minds by their study under the classic roofs and Roman detail and Spartan simplicity than is accomplished under any other order of architecture.
Structural construction should be a thoroughly ventilated basement built of granite, cased with hollow tile, and plastered with the patent wall coverings inside.
The superstructure, of pressed brick, terra cotta and marble trimmings, lined with hollow tile, plastered with patent wall coverings on the inside.
The floor joists and studding of steel filled in with hollow tile, the studding plastered with patent wall covering in a light tint of bluish gray, the ceilings of pearl green.
The floor covered with asphaltum over the hollow tile; “no wood at all” on the floors.
The roof of steel, covered with slate. The windows should have plate glass, so that there will be no reflex curves and no distorted concave or convex surfaces.
The sanitary arrangements should be in an annex and of the most scientific appliances with ventilating shafts. The ventilation should be by a fan and air shafts, a dynamo run by city service easily kept in order, constantly in motion, would change the air in each room in three minutes, and the dynamo could furnish the light for dark days, or for scientific laboratory work.
The building entire heated by live steam, using direct in a coil in tanks in the basement for each room service, and conveyed upward by fan.
It will be seen at a glance that our building is “fire proof”–no insurance, no nuisance by defective plumbing, and solid as the future of Atlanta. Her educated and practical architects can blend the requirements of hygiene with that nobles of all professions “American Architecture,” and Atlanta must be as she should be, the center from our which shall go the saying that she sets the face of the world.
W.W. GOODRICH7
References
- “A Great School for Gainesville.” The Atlanta Constitution, May 25, 1893, p. 3. ↩︎
- “An Elegant Building.” The Atlanta Journal, June 22, 1893, p. 1. ↩︎
- “Gainesville Gossip.” The Atlanta Constitution, June 23, 1893, p. 3. ↩︎
- “From Our Notebook.” The Atlanta Constitution, June 23, 1889, p. 17. ↩︎
- “The Graded School Building.” The Weekly Union Times (Union, South Carolina), June 19, 1891, p. 2. ↩︎
- “The New School Building.” The Morning News (Savannah, Georgia), February 12, 1896, p. 8. ↩︎
- Goodrich, W.W. “Light In The Schools.” The Atlanta Journal, April 17, 1893, p. 3. ↩︎