Smith-Hughes Act

Historical Background

Beginning in the late 19th century, a variety of groups began to advocate the addition of new manual training courses like woodworking and cooking in schools, on the basis of a societal belief in the moral, educative, and practical value of work. Many supporters, like businessmen and labor unions, saw it as an answer to labor problems in a rapidly industrializing society. Employers hoped it would weaken the power of labor unions in training and supplying positions in industry while workers saw in it an opportunity for individual advancement and for dignifying labor itself. Many philanthropists and moral reformers, on the other hand, viewed manual training as an opportunity to inculcate the moral values of work that they feared were being eroded by modern society. In contrast, many educators and pedagogical reformers saw work as a way to put into practice new teaching methods and philosophies that emphasized cultivating children's interest through active learning and to vitalize the curriculum.

While hundreds of cities experimented with manual training classes in the late 19th century, in the early 20th century supporters began to advocate more systematic programs of work education and to emphasize its economic and utilitarian values more forcefully. Business groups, for example, began to argue that American economic progress and global competitiveness required public funding of trade instruction as found in Europe. In 1905, the Massachusetts state legislature appointed the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Technical Education, known as the Douglas Commission, to investigate the need for state-aided vocational training. Its oft-cited final report urged state aid, arguing higher levels of technical training and industrial intelligence was a pressing individual and state interest. It left ambiguous whether this industrial education should take place in the existing public schools or whether new vocational schools should be established. In the next decade, dozens of cities and states, including Massachusetts, experimented with vocational education, trying both separate technical and trade schools as well as vocational programs within the existing public school system.

The findings of the Douglas Commission were embraced by a diverse group of reformers who came together to support vocational education at local, state, and national levels. In 1906, they formed the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education (NSPIE) to organize publicity and lobbying efforts on behalf of vocational education and draw together the supporting groups, including the American Federation of Labor, National Association of Manufacturers, National Education Association, and social welfare reformers. As a result of their efforts, Congress appointed the Commission on National Aid to Vocational Education in 1914 to investigate the possibility of federal aid. Staffed by four pro-vocational-aid congressmen and five members of NSPIE, the Commission's final report declared that vocational education was an urgent national interest that necessitated federal action. Vocational training, it argued, would vitalize general education and democratize schooling by adapting it to the real needs of children, promote industrial efficiency and national prosperity, decrease labor and social unrest, and promote a higher standard of living for workers. It recommended federal grants to the states to promote vocational education, with particular focus on supporting the training and salary of vocational teachers. The Commission proposed legislation that was introduced by two of its members, Senator Hoke Smith (Georgia) and Representative D. M. Hughes (Georgia), and was passed by Congress in 1917, with minor modifications, as the Smith-Hughes Act.

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