[NLA] Celebrating Cora Wilson Stewart

[Thomas Sticht]

Research Note 				January 10, 2002
Tom Sticht

Celebrating the Life of Cora Wilson Stewart and the Founding of the 
Adult Education and Literacy System of the United States

Born some 127 years ago, on January 17, 1875 in Kentucky,  Cora Wilson
Stewart serves as an exemplar of what one person can do to advance a
cause. Stewart’s cause was the eradication of adult illiteracy and she
began to work for it in her home state of Kentucky. In 1911, while she
was superintendent of public schools in Rowan County,  she started a
program to eliminate adult illiteracy. This program, according to
historian Wanda Dauksza Cook  "might well be classified as the official
beginning of literacy education in the United States".

The schools operated only on moonlit nights so people could find their
way to and from school safely, hence the name Moonlight Schools. The
schools were staffed by volunteer teachers from the day schools for
children. Stewart was convinced that adults should not use the same
materials as children to learn to read, so she developed for adult
studentsThe Rowan County Messenger, a newspaper with short sentences and
lots of word repetition. In teaching writing, she concentrated first on
teaching adults to write their own names, believing that this was a
vital way of developing what we would today call self-esteem. In 1915
she published the Country Life Reader: First Book and the next year she
published the Country Life Reader: Second Book. Both books featured
functional materials from adult’s daily lives. 

During the decade from  1916 to 1926 Stewart carried out numerous
activities on behalf of the education of adult illiterates. During World
War I she was concerned with Selective Service findings that some
700,000 men were totally illiterate, so she developed The Soldier’s
First Book to teach military recruits to read. The Soldier’s First Book
explained why we were at war with such prosaic passages as:

Why are we at war?
To keep our country free.
To keep other people free.
To make the world safe to live in.
To stop the rule of kings.
To put an end to war. 

Adults in the Moonlight Schools were instructed about how to write to
their relatives and other loved ones who were away at war, and men
waiting for the draft received literacy education to prepare them for
military service. 

Later, in 1926, Stewart formed the National Illiteracy Crusade, but by
the time of World War II, national interest in the cause had faded, and
she turned her attention away from adult illiteracy issues to the
activities of the Oxford Group, a religious organization of the
Christian faith. 

Cora Wilson Stewart, the woman some would consider the Founder of Adult
Literacy Education in the United States, died in 1958 at the age of
eighty-three.  

On January 17  we celebrate Cora Wilson Stewart’s life,  the pioneering
work she initiated and her tireless efforts as a national and
international advocate and champion for adult literacy education. 
Today, in large part as a legacy of her early work,  the Adult Education
and Literacy System (AELS) of the United States exists and provides
literacy education each year for millions of adults in thousands of
programs in all 50 states and territories of the United States.  This
unique educational system for adults  serves as a national monument to
Cora Wilson Stewart, one of the great education leaders of the twentieth
century.
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