Women’s Education in Belle Fraister’s Iowa Schoolgirl Notebooks, 1880 to 1890

Iowa Women's Education

Manuscripts & Autographs

Fraister, Belle. Iowa Schoolgirl Handwritten Notebook Archive documents the classroom work of a late nineteenth-century Iowa girl, preserving evidence of women’s education through manuscript exercises in history, English, penmanship, grammar, and arithmetic. The notebooks show how a schoolgirl practiced factual recall, moral phrasing, written style, and practical calculation during a period when secondary education for girls increasingly prepared students for teaching, clerical work, and public intellectual participation as well as domestic life. The material provides direct evidence of everyday pedagogy, handwriting discipline, and curriculum formation in Iowa between 1880 and 1890.

Iowa, 1880–1890. Archive of 3 handwritten school notebooks belonging to Belle Fraister, totaling 146 pages, many blank, in decorated pictorial wrappers; notebooks measure approximately 8" x 7" and 8" x 7½". The notebooks contain written work in history, English, penmanship, and arithmetic, with one history section summarizing states through structured categories such as time, cause, place, and people. For Georgia, Fraister writes “Time - 1733,” “Cause - Refuge for the poor and persecuted,” “Place - Savannah,” “People - English,” and notes “1752 - Geogia became the first Royal Province.” Other pages show repeated penmanship practice, including the phrases “Promise little but do much” and “Union is strength,” calligraphic stroke exercises, and grammar notes on pronunciation, inflection, pitch, synonyms, and related language study. One notebook includes a small newspaper clipping on the death of John G. Saxe with a brief handwritten biographical note beneath it. All notebooks bear stamps from the original stationery store.

[1] Fraister, Belle. History Notebook. Iowa, 1880–1890. Contains structured state-history summaries, including entries for Georgia organized by date, motive for settlement, location, and people, showing classroom methods for memorizing colonial and state history. [2] Fraister, Belle. Penmanship Notebook. Iowa, 1880–1890. Includes repeated letters, words, phrases, and calligraphic strokes, documenting handwriting instruction as both practical skill and moral exercise through maxims such as “Promise little but do much” and “Union is strength.” [3] Fraister, Belle. English and Arithmetic Notebook. Iowa, 1880–1890. Contains notes on grammar, pronunciation, inflection, pitch, synonyms, arithmetic, and a clipped notice with a manuscript biography of John G. Saxe, showing the combination of language study, numeracy, and literary awareness in Fraister’s schoolwork. Decorated wrappers with light handling wear; interior pages generally legible; many pages blank, as noted. Overall very good. A compact manuscript archive documenting the subjects, methods, and written discipline of girls’ education in late nineteenth-century Iowa.

Item #19698

Price: $450.00