Typical Characteristics of One-room Schoolhouses

One-room schoolhouses vary by geographic region and time period. Building materials ranged from wood, to brick, to stone. Most were rectangular in form but there was a trend to construct octagonal one-room schoolhouses, in hope of better lighting each scholar’s workspace. Pennsylvania has preserved examples of these architecturally significant one-room schoolhouses. Most rectangular or square forms possess a single prominent entrance opposite a solid rear wall. The defining feature is a front façade with a gable end roof, topped by a bell and belfry.

Philadelphia architects, Sloan and Stewart, influenced by their contemporary A. J. Downing’s pattern books, created a guide to school architecture. They considered a range of choices for city, town, and rural schools such as Locust Grove. They specified “pediments and arches over prominent entrances and prominent entry towers or bell towers denoting the school’s public function” and recommended “modest brackets” to distinguish common stone buildings as public institutions.[1] One-room schoolhouse plans did not incorporate windows in the wall opposite the main door, so as not to backlight the teacher or blackboard writing.[2] Large side windows were specified to allow natural daylight to illuminate the building even on cloudy or rainy days. Architects even suggested that windows be placed only on the left side of the classroom, as to not create shadows for right-handed scholars’ when practicing penmanship.[3] Rural Pennsylvania schoolhouses of the late 1800s were most often a single room and most commonly constructed of brick or stone.[4]