In a previous post, I talked about how Nadia and I pored over school catalogs to glean information for a presentation we crafted.  In fact, we use the school catalogs for a lot of information about the school.  I was a student here in the 1990s, and back then I had little understanding of how much information the catalog I used to try and plot out my trajectory as a student had about the school itself.

One of the most interesting things we’ve discovered is that while E. B. Prettyman was Principal of the Maryland State Normal School — Towson University’s first incarnation — alumni of the school were listed in the catalog, and codes were included to indicate their status.

This is a page from the first catalog under Prettyman’s tenure which began in 1890.  If you look at the bottom, you’ll see what I mean.

While there was no law on the record books that mandated teachers be single, it was well known that once a female teacher married, she left teaching behind.  This practice formally ended in the 1930s when Lida Lee Tall was the head of the school.

Interesting, is it not, that there are only three named options for graduates of the Maryland State Normal School?