Class, Circa 1915

Taken in front of the McIntyre school house, this class photo is from about 1915. Although no documentation could be found on the founding of the schoolhouse, it was probably built shortly after the establishment of the town in 1910. Typical of schools in  coal mining towns, the McIntyre school had no indoor plumbing. Students used two segregated outhouses located on school property. 

Generally, teachers were not well paid. The average monthly salary for male teachers in Young Township schools in 1912 was $46 and, for females, $44. In 1919, the Pennsylvania State Legislature passed a new teacher minimum salary law. Depending on the type of teaching certificate and gender of the teacher the salaries ranged from $60 to $80 a month.  The monthly cost per pupil in Young Township schools in 1912 was $1.72. In 1899, the length of the school year was seven months. By 1921, it was increased by one month. 


Photo: courtesy Ed Setlock family collection.

Joshua Thomas Stewart, Indiana County, Pennsylvania: Her People, Past and Present, vol.1
(Chicago: J.H. Beers and Company, 1913), 210.

Louise Gilchriese Walsh, History and Organization of Education in Pennsylvania 
(Indiana, Pennsylvania: R.S. Grosse Print Shop, 1930), 263, 272.