The First High Schools in Atlanta

Boys' High School 1906

Founded in 1872, the Boys’ High School was one of the first public high schools in the city of Atlanta. It opened on February 1^st in rented rooms above a shoe store in order to provide white males with the opoortunity to receive a secondary education. Four days later, the Girls’ High School was also opened. This picture is of the building that housed the school in 1906, though it moved around constantly to be able to cope with the growing number of white students that enrolled each year. More and more middle class males wanted their education, while black children of the same age had no such opportunity. It wasn’t until 1896 when it finally had a stable school building on the corner of Gilmer and Courtland Streets. Sadly,  according to the Atlanta Historical Quarterly, in 1924, "this large, red, brick building was completely gutted by fire" forcing the school to move to a plant in Midtown Atlanta where it is still kept today just under a different name. Both the Boys’ and Girls’ High Schools were college preparatory schools with extremely high standards and traditional teaching methods. However, Boys’ High School also was home to a technical school that eventually, in 1909, became Technological High School, until they merged back together in 1947 to become Henry Grady High School. The Boys’ High School and Tech High School were open to only white males until 1961 when Henry Grady High School was integrated for the first time.

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Girls' High School 1925

After the Constitution in 1868 was written following the end of the Civil War, it mandated that the children in Georgia would be given an education, and the state would be held accountable for it. Shortly after, in 1872, Girls’ High School was built, and educated white women in Atlanta from 1872-1947. There is much history found in the roots of this high school according to Tammy Harden Galloway's article from The Georgia Historical Quarterly, for it is “one of the seven schools in the original Atlanta’s public school system". It also was “one of the first two high schools established, the other being Boys’ High” (Galloway). Although a large amount has changed in the educational system present today, the basis of learning has stayed similar for the longest of times, for the students back in Girls’ High School learned “orthography, elocution, grammar, physical geography, natural philosophy, Latin, Greek, algebra, chemistry, composition, rhetoric, English Literature, French, German, physiology, and geometry” (Galloway). Principals such as Nettie Sargent were hired in order to teach women home responsibilities that they would be exposed to, such as cooking, and preparing women for the shift there would be in the workforce. In 1888, with the commercial department, there were skills taught in book-keeping and stenography. With the very large shift present between roles back before it was acceptable for women to take on the jobs in the workforce today, a study of girls’ schools in the past show the lack of power that women were so naturally taught and bred to and the history behind it. Although it is very clear that women have not gained full equality in present day and are still in some ways set back by “gender roles”, it has been made clear that women have come a long way and will continue to stand for what is just.

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