The History of Adult Education in Art in 1930s Delaware: An Examination of Participation and Accessibility

Adult education implemented within the public schools became widespread in the early 1900s in the United States and became available in Delaware in 1919, with 1% of the school budget set aside for this purpose. Although these programs began for purposes of the Americanization of immigrants, the focus shifted to leisure education in the 1930s. This new focus led to the offering of art and craft programs for adults. Although this marks the first time that art education was offered to adults by the public school system on a large scale, some groups of adults were more likely than others to have access to art programming. This paper explores not only the art opportunities available to adults in 1930s Delaware, but also the factors that either granted or limited access to their art education.