A new source for historical-educative research: commercial catalogue of educational aids. First methodological reflections

ABSTRACT

In recent years, the commercial catalogues of businesses that produce teaching aids – which, prompted by the spread of a pedagogical vision linked to activism, first appeared in the second half of the nineteenth century in parallel with the first production of school objects – have acquired increasing importance as a research source in the field of historical pedagogy. Their versatile nature makes them a rich, varied and precious research tool that can make a considerable contribution to the field of studies related to school materials. The aim of this article is to define the characteristics of this source to subsequently show how recent research grants have been able to offer a first instance of comparative reflection on the issue. From a review of the data that has emerged, a methodological framework for studying commercial catalogues of teaching aids as a research source is being traced out, with plans for future steps on an international level to reinforce its study.

KEYWORDS:

• Commercial catalogues
• teaching aids
• source of research
• school materials
• methodology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ A critical review of the studies on the material culture in schools that have developed in the last 30 years in different countries is contained in: Vera Lucia Gaspar da Silva, Juri Meda, and Gizele de Souza, eds., “The Material Turn in the History of Education,” special issue, Educació i història: Revista d’història de l’educació 38 (2021).

² As is well known, this approach starts with Dominique Julia and develops initially thanks to the studies of André Chervel, Marc Depaepe, Frank Simon, Antonio Viñao Frago, Ian Grosvenor, Martin Lawn, Kate Rousmaniere, and Augustin Escolano: Dominique Julia, “La culture scolaire comme objet historique,” Paedagogica Historica Supplement 1 (1995): 353–82; André Chervel, “Des disciplines scolaires à la culture scolaire,” Paedagogica Historica 31, no. 1 (1996): 181–95; André Chervel, La culture scolaire. Une approche historique (Paris: Bell, 1998); Marc Depaepe and Frank Simon, “Is There any Place for the History of ‘Education’ in the ‘History of Education’? A Plea for the History of Everyday Educational Reality in‐ and outside Schools,” Paedagogica Historica 30, no. 1 (1995): 9–16; Antonio Viñao Frago, “Por una historia de la cultura escolar: enfoques, cuestiones, fuentes,” in Culturas y civilizaciones: III Congreso de la Asociación de Historia Contemporánea, ed. Celso Jesús Almuiña Fernández (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 1998): 165–84; Ian Grosvenor, Martin Lawn, and Kate Rousmaniere, Silence and Images: The Social History of the Classroom (New York: Peter Lang, 1999); Martin Lawn and Ian Grosvenor, eds., Materialities of Schooling: Design, Technology, Objects, Routines (Oxford: Symposium Books, 2005); Augustin Escolano Benito, ed., La cultura material de la escuela (Berlanga de Druero: CEINCE, 2007); and Antonio Viñao Frago, “La historia material e inmaterial de la escuela: memoria, patrimonio y educación,” Educação 35, no. 1 (2012): 7–17.

³ Juri Meda and Ana María Badanelli, eds., La historia de la cultura escolar en Italia y en España: balance y perspectivas (Macerata: EUM, 2013); Maria Joao Mogarro, ed., Educaçao e Patrimonio Cultural. Escolas, objetos e practicas (Lisbon: Ediçoes Colibri/Instituto de Educaçao, 2015); and Marta Brunelli, Alle origini del museo scolastico. Storia di un dispositivo didattico al servizio della scuola primaria e popolare tra Otto e Novecento (Macerata: EUM, 2020).

⁴ Ian Grosvenor, “Pleasing to the Eye and at the Same Time Useful in Purpose: A Historical Exploration of Educational Exhibitions,” in Materialities of Schooling: Design, Technology, Objects, Routines, ed. Martin Lawn and Ian Grosvenor, 163–76; Pierre Moeglin, Les industries éducatives (Paris: Presse Universitaire de France, 2010); and Juri Meda, Mezzi di educazione di massa. Saggi di storia della cultura materiale della scuola tra XIX e XX secolo (Milano: FrancoAngeli, 2016).

⁵ Pedro Luis Moreno Martínez and Ana Sebastián Vicente, “Los catálogos de material de enseñanza y la cultura material de la escuela. La colección del Centro de Estudos sobre la Memoria Educativa (CEME) de l’Universidad de Murcia,” in Patrimonio y Etnografía de la escuela en España durante el siglo XX, ed. Pedro Luis Moreno Martínez and Ana Sebastián Vicente (Murcia: SEPHE-CEME, 2012), 295.

⁶ Their value as a commercial sales instrument – which is in truth the ultimate reason for their being produced and therefore their primary task – only remains active during the year of their publication.

⁷ Please refer to note 4 with regard to the issue of economic interests linked to the production and marketing of teaching materials.

⁸ Maria José Martínez Ruiz Funes and José Pedro Marín Murcia, “Génesis y desarrollo de los catálogos de material escolar en España en el periodo entre siglos XIX-XX” (paper presented at the ISCHE annual conference, Milan, Italy, 31 August – 3 September 2022); and Francesca Davida Pizzigoni, Tracce di patrimonio. Fonti per lo studio della materialità scolastica nell’Italia del secondo Ottocento (Lecce: Pensa MultiMedia, 2022).

⁹ Juri Meda, “Mezzi di educazione di massa. Nuove fonti e nuove prospettive di ricerca per una ‘storia materiale della scuola’ tra XIX e XX secolo,” History of Education & Children’s Literature VI, no. 1 (2011): 253–79; and Meda, Mezzi di educazione di massa.

¹⁰ Pedro Luis Moreno Martínez, “El mobiliario escolar en los catálogos de material de enseñanza: consideraciones metodológicas,” in La infancia en la historia: espacios y representaciones, ed. Luis María Naya Garmendia and Paulí Dávila Balsera (San Sebastian: Erein, 2005), 342–55.

¹¹ Reference is made here to perspectives, methodologies and sources for the study of classrooms presented in Sjaak Braster, Ian Grosvenor, and María del Mar del Pozo Andrés, eds., The Black Box of Schooling. A Cultural History of the Classroom (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2011). Suffice it to mention: images and representations of classrooms (photographs, paintings and pictures on school walls), writings and documents inside the classroom (school exercise books, teachers’ log books and observer reports), memories and personal experiences of classrooms (first-person documents from teachers and pupils, and oral history interviews), the space and design of classrooms (architecture, school murals and the transformation of space), and material objects in the classroom (school furniture, primers for reading and school wall charts). For an up-to-date review of the breadth of sources and methodologies used by the international scientific community for the study of the material aspects of schools, see note 1 above. The correlation between the material history circumscribed in a specific territory and the transnational one and the relations between these two dimensions is significant and certainly to be taken into account by those who intend to use the catalogue as a source, as suggested in Wiara Rosa Alcântara and Diana Vidal, “The Syndicat Commercial du Mobilier et du matériel d’enseignement and the Transnational Trade of School Artefacts (Brazil and France in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries),” Paedagogica Historica 58, no. 1 (2022): 84–98. In the same way, opportunities to study the catalogue in relation to different disciplinary areas such as economic history, legal history (patents, legal representation, commercial rights, etc.), and the history of educational technology should also be taken into account.

¹² León Esteban Mateo, “Los catálogos de librería y material de enseñanza come fuente iconográfica y literario-escolar,” Historia de la Educación 16 (1997): 17–46.

¹³ León Esteban Mateo, “La academizacíon de la escritura. Modelos e instrumentos para aprender a escrivir en la España del siglo XIX y comienzos del XX,” in Historia ilustrada del libro escolar en España. Del Antiguo Régimen a la Segunda República, ed. Augustin Escolano Benito (Madrid: Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez, 1997), 315–44.

¹⁴ Moreno Martínez, “El mobiliario escolar en los catálogos de material de enseñanza,” 342–55; and Pedro Luis Moreno Martínez, “History of School Desk Development in Terms of Hygiene and Pedagogy in Spain (1838–1936),” in Materialities of Schooling: Design, Technology, Objects, Routines, ed. Martin Lawn and Ian Grosvenor, 71–95.

¹⁵ Fabio Targhetta, “Uno sguardo all’Europa. Modelli scolastici, viaggi pedagogici ed importazioni didattiche nei primi cinquant’anni di scuola italiana,” in Storia comparata dell’educazione. Problemi ed esperienze tra Otto e Novecento, ed. Mirella Chiaranda (Milano: FrancoAngeli, 2010), 1, 55–176; Meda, Mezzi di educazione di massa; Marta Brunelli, “Posibles metodologías de trabajo histórico sobre la cultura material de la escuela: entre el material didáctico y los catálogos de enseñanza. Primeros resultados de una investigación en curso,” in Cultura Material Escolar em Perspectiva Histórica: escritas e possibilidades, ed. Vera Gaspar, Gizele de Souza and César Augusto Castro (Vitória: EDUFES-Editora da Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo/SBHE, 2018), 181–215; Marta Brunelli, “Cataloghi commerciali dei materiali scolastici e collezioni storiche dei sussidi didattici. Nuove fonti per la storia dell’industria per la scuola in Italia (1870–1922),” History of Education & Children’s Literature XIII, no. 2 (2018): 469–510; and Pizzigoni, Tracce di patrimonio.

¹⁶ Renaud d’Enfert, “Les objets de l’école, XIX-XX siècles. Une approche matérielle de la culture scolaire,” in Sur les traces du passé de l’éducation. Patrimoines et territoires de la recherche en éducation dans l’espace français, ed. Jean-François Condette and Marguerite Figeac-Monthus (Pessac: Maison des Sciences de l’Homme d’Aquitaine, 2014), 149–62; and Marguerite Figeac-Monthus, ed., Éducation et culture matérielle en France et en Europe du XVIe siècle à nos jours (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2018).

¹⁷ Heloísa Helena Pimenta Rocha, “Indispensáveis em todas as escolas: uma incursão no mundo dos objetos escolares,” Cultura Material em História(s): artefatos escolares e saberes. Educar em Revista 35, no. 76 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1590/0104-4060.67775; Gustavo Rugoni de Sousa and Ana Paula de Souza Kinchescki, “‘O mais novo! O mais bonito! O melhor!’: os objetos da escola em catálogos comerciais,” in A teia das coisas: cultura material escolar e pesquisa em rede, ed. Andréa Bezerra Cordeiro and others (Curitiba: NEPIE-UFPR, 2021), 98–115; Wiara Rosa Rios Alcantara, “Cultura Material Escolar e Comércio Local: Uma abordagem a História Econômica sobre a Escola Urbana (SÃO PAULO, 1894–1902),” Rev. Iberoam. Patrim. Histórico-Educativo 7 (2021): 1–24; and Pollynne Ferreira de Santana, “O museu na escola: a coleção de modelos didáticos para o ensino de botânica do Museu Louis Jacques Brunet / Ginásio Pernambucano (1893–1934)” (master’s thesis, Paranà University), 1–859, vol. 1 and 2.

¹⁸ Maria José Martínez Ruiz Funes, “Los catálogos de material de enseñanza como fuente para el estudio de la cultura material: la recepción y difusión del método froebel en España,” in Patrimonio y Etnografía de la escuela en España y Portugal durante el siglo XX, ed. Moreno and Sebastián Vicente, 265–77; Dolores Carillo Gallego, “Los catálogos de material escolar como fuente de la historia de la educación matemática: el caso de los ábacos,” Historia y Memoria de la Educación 7 (2018): 573–613; Moreno Martínez and Sebastián Vicente, “Los catálogos de material de enseñanza y la cultura material de la escuela”; Pedro Luis Moreno Martínez and José Pedro Marín Murcia, “La casa comercial Ultura y la oferta de material pedagógico moderno en España (1924–1934),” in Pedagogía museística. Prácticas, usos didácticos e investigación del patrimonio educativo, ed. Ana María Badanelli Rubio, María Poveda Sanz and Carmen Rodriguez Guerrere (Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2014), 509–21; José Pedro Marín Murcia and María José Martínez, “Categorización de los materiales didácticos para la enseñanza de los seres vivos en los antiguos gabinetes y laboratorios,” Cabás 21 (2019): 1–22; María José Martínez Ruiz-Funes and José Pedro Marín Murcia, “España entre Europa e Iberoamérica en la comercialización de material escolar en el primer tercio del Siglo XX,” Sarmiento 24 (2020): 43–74; Pedro Luis Moreno Martínez and José Pedro Marín Murcia, “Teaching Material Catalogues as a Source for Studying Educational Practice in Natural Science in Spain (1882–1936),” History of Education and Children’s Literature 15, no. 2 (2020): 49–60.

¹⁹ This is a summary of the points on pages 872, 873 and 874 of María José Martínez Ruiz Funes, Pedro Luis Moreno Martínez, and Ana Sebastián Vicente, “Los catálogos de material de enseñanza como recurso didáctico,” In La Constitución de Cádiz. Genealogía y desarrollo del sistema educativo liberal: XVII Coloquio Nacional de Historia de la Educación. Cádiz, 9-11 de julio de 2013, ed. Maria Gloria Espigado Tocino and others (Cádiz: ED, 2013), 867–78.

²⁰ In terms of divisions, number of pages, iconographical and communicative choices, order of presentation of the disciplines and relevant type of objects and so on.

²¹ Gizele de Souza, “Sortimento de Livros e Materiais Didáticos em Catálogos: fontes para a História da Educação e para a Cultura Material Escolar” (paper presented at the ISCHE annual conference, Milan, Italy, 31 August – 3 September 2022).

²² It is necessary to specifically use the word “hint” because the catalogue is able to reveal (and thus make us understand) the pedagogical-educational intentions of a certain period but, however, is not able to reveal the actual activity that took place in classrooms. The catalogue is in fact an indication (a mirror of the political, cultural and commercial will of the moment) but lacks the ability to provide us with real data about the actual classroom use of the proposed objects, as we will explain again in the conclusions of this article.

²³ Marguerite Figeac-Monthus, “Ce que nous dit un catalogue de la fin du XIXe siècle les pratiques éducatives et de l’espace sociétal: l’exemple de la maison Deyrolle à Paris” (paper presented at the ISCHE annual conference, Milan, Italy, 31 August – 3 September 2022).

²⁴ Again, as already mentioned, the catalogue offers us an indication, but for an in-depth study of the subject this needs to be integrated with other sources (both institutional, such as school curricula, reports and ministerial circulars, and related to actual school life, such as teachers’ reports and diaries, annual programme reports, and notebooks, to name a few). With regard to studies on school subjects, it is sufficient to refer to the two types of studies which were initiated at an early stage in French and English, resulting respectively from André Chervel, Histoire de la grammaire scolaire (Paris: Payot, 1977) and Ivor Goodson, School Subjects and Curriculum Change (London: Croom Helm, 1983).

²⁵ Maria José Martínez Ruiz Funes and José Pedro Marín Murcia, “Génesis y desarrollo de los catálogos de material escolar en España en el periodo entre siglos XIX-XX.”

²⁶ Atti dell’XI Congresso pedagogico italiano e della VI esposizione didattica, Roma, settembre-ottobre 1880 (Roma: Tip. E. Sinimberghi, 1881).

²⁷ Juri Meda, “The Rise of the Italian Educational Industry Between 19th and 20th Century” (paper presented at the ISCHE annual conference, Milan, Italy, 31 August – 3 September 2022).

²⁸ Sometimes in certain catalogues it is possible to find declarations about sales data or usage statements by schools. This is the case for example with the company Paravia, which from 1880 includes comments from the publisher and from the early twentieth century includes transcriptions of letters of thanks sent by schools who had purchased Paravia teaching materials: Francesca Davida Pizzigoni, “I primi cataloghi di oggetti didattici della ditta Paravia: alle radici di un futuro da leader di mercato,” in Looking for the First “Educational Technologies”: Commercial Catalogues as Sources for the Study of the Birth of School Materialities, ed. Maria Cristina Morandini and Francesca Davida Pizzigoni (Macerata: EUM, 2023), 75–91. However, these are exceptional cases, which only refer to teaching objects that enjoyed particular success and which are of course always oriented towards exalting the success of an object and its didactic benefits.

²⁹ Interesting elements about the actual classroom use of certain teaching aids have recently emerged from the study of teachers’ diaries. This research was developed as part of the project School Memories between Social Perception and Collective Representation (Italy, 1861–2001), coordinated by the University of Macerata and in partnership with Università Roma Tre, Università di Firenze, and Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Milano, the results of which are available online: www.memoriascolastica.it/it. However, these are specific cases, which do not make it possible to generalise, but which again emphasise the importance of cross-referencing several sources to obtain a broader interpretative framework.

³⁰ See note 10 above.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Francesca Davida Pizzigoni

Francesca Davida Pizzigoni holds an International PhD from the University of Caen (France) and since 2014 has been a researcher at INDIRE - National Institute of Documentation, Innovation and Educational Research – and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Turin. Her studies focus on school history, in particular on the theme of material culture in schools and school museums. She developed the project “Do you want to build your own school museum?” which led to the definition of a method of creating school museums with the active participation of pupils: this project led to the establishment of the Network of School Museums and attracted the attention of several research centres (University of Seville, University of Bordeaux, SEPHE, Federal University of Paranà, and University of Macerata).

She coordinates the Commission for the cataloguing of the Cultural Heritage of schools at SIPSE-Società Italiana per lo Studio del Patrimonio Storico-Educativo. She is a member of the Scientific Committee of several journals (national and international) and conferences. She holds a scientific qualification as an Associate Professor in History of Education. Her recent volume “Il Catalogo perduto. La produzione per l’infanzia della casa editrice cattolica SEI di Torino” won a 2022 SIPED- Società Italiana di Pedagogia award.