Before I address who in the class of 1907 went on to college after graduation, I would like to expand on the subject of the exclusive nature of high school attendance in 1907. Below is a photo of the Senior (class of 1906) and Junior (class of 1907) study hall at Norwalk High School in the spring of 1906: sixty-five students in all. There were twenty-six graduates in 1907. [1] The Class of 1906 had thirty-one graduates, [2] for a total of fifty-seven graduates over two years.

Eighty-eight percent of the students in this photo would graduate within the next two years. But this must have been just a fraction of the number of young people in their mid to late teens living in Norwalk, Oho at that time. Where were the rest?

Working is my guess.

My grandmother listed the names of all the students in the class, and the faculty members behind them. But one person she did not name: the young African-American standing in the back. Did she know his name, I wonder?

Footnotes:

[1] “School Life is Ended,” The Norwalk Daily Reflector, June 15, 1907, page 1-2, column 6.

[2] “High School Commencement,” Norwalk Daily Reflector, June 7, 1906, page 3, column 3.

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