The Next Needed Thing: The impact of the Jeanes Fund on Black schooling in the South, 1900–1930

Abstract

I estimate the impact of two large-scale interventions aimed at improving the quality of black schooling in the South between 1900 and 1930. The first, The Julius Rosenwald Fund, focused on physical infrastructure by building nearly 5,000 schoolhouses. The second, The Anna T. Jeanes Fund, built a corps of trained Supervisors whose contributions ranged from teacher training to fundraising, hence their motto: The next needed thing. Variation in the timing and placement of these programs allows me to evaluate impacts of each and to compare per-dollar effects of investments in human resources (Jeanes) and physical capital (Rosenwald) on educational inequality.