Cigarettes and Ice Cream for Lunch: Parent and Student Rights at the Butte Industrial School in the Long Progressive Era

Authors' Names

Lauryn N. TeccaFollow

Presentation Type

Poster Presentation

Category

Social Sciences/Humanities

Abstract/Artist Statement

In 1903, Butte opened the doors of the Butte Industrial School for truant children. Following the guidelines of truancy schools in places such as Chicago and Cleveland, the school was an attempt to deal with Butte children who habitually skipped school and hold them accountable for their actions. Quickly after opening, juvenile court proceedings became a fixture in The Butte Miner. Scholarship on the school centers around the children's experiences and their treatment in the juvenile courts that sentenced them there. Very little is said about the parents of these children. According to a 1915 U.S. Bureau of Education report on truancy schools, ninety percent of the children in the Butte Industrial School had foreign-born parents. A cursory glance at newspaper coverage of the juvenile court cases reveals that many of the children being confined in the school came from large families and were responsible for supplementing family income or helping mothers run the house. Using newspapers, school reports, and court proceedings, this research seeks to understand the Butte Industrial School and its politics through the parents and families whose lives it touched. This is an issue of state power, parental rights, and the politics that govern working-class, immigrant families in Western Montana.

Mentor Name

Jody Pavilack

Personal Statement

Butte is often at the center of historical narratives on Montana. The place has an important story, and its importance in the West cannot be overstated. Every year of my childhood, my dad had a work trip to Butte and would bring the whole family along. I remember the hot, summer sun hitting my shoulders as my mom walked us up and down the streets of downtown Butte, telling us everything she knew about the places we saw. I believe that historical research should be guided by the things we love. In embarking on this project, I spent a lot of time considering what I loved. People and Montana are at the top of that list. It took very little time from there to decide on my research agenda. Combing through newspapers, I stumbled upon a story of a mother helping her son lower himself from the industrial school’s window to escape. I found another story of a mother begging a judge to let her daughter return home, promising she would send her to school every day from that moment on. Stories about people struggling against this institution became more and more prominent as I looked closer. Then I realized, nobody was talking about who these parents were. This project is my attempt to think about the identity of the individuals who were touched by the school and what that means for the history of Western Montana. The mothers and fathers fighting for their children walked the same streets I walked as a child. Their kids wandered the neighborhoods I drove through with my parents. I hope that this work helps to bring their stories to the forefront of Montana history.