All Around Pennsauken

By Robert Fisher-Hughes, AAP Columnist and Amateur Historian

Henry W. Longfellow Elementary School was one of the schools built during the boom years of the 1920s, when the entire Delaware Valley region was rapidly growing, Pennsauken included. Much of this growth was spurred by the expectations aroused by the construction of the first automobile bridge across the Delaware River south of Trenton, then called the Delaware River Bridge and, later, the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. The post-World War years also caused a rapid expansion of business and industry in both Philadelphia and Camden; this in turn generated a rapid growth of population in the nearby suburbs, bringing many new families with children to Pennsauken.

Among the school building projects in Pennsauken in the 1920s were a school in Delair to replace one destroyed by fire; an additional building to expand the Greenville School on Marlton Pike; and the largest initiative, the building of Central School, to give Pennsauken its own junior high school.

The proposal to build two new elementary schools, one for Bloomfield Park and one to serve the communities of Delaware Gardens, Hillcrest, and the west portion of Collins Tract, came on the heels of the schools construction projects mentioned above; at the same time, Pennsauken Township was heavily involved in projects to pave streets and sidewalks and to extend sewer connections to underserved parts of town. The result in 1926 was a brief but noisy taxpayer revolt over the taxes needed to fund all these projects. This movement involved the heckling of Township Committee and School Board meetings; the formation of a “tax-protesting group” with public, outdoor meetings; and wild charges about Committee members and others in the administration profiting from shady transactions for the land on which to build the new schools.

This movement found its charismatic leader in a recent arrival in the Township, a woman with a mysterious and titillating past as a Greenwich Village artists’ model and a gift for attracting followers that led to comparisons with Joan of Arc. Her name was Mrs. Bantelman, and she cultivated her image with stirring calls to action to halt all improvements in the Township, characterizing Pennsauken’s new schools as “luxurious” and extravagant, and her picture appearing in the newspapers alongside large headlines.

The fervor of this movement dissipated somewhat, however, when it was revealed that the “shady” land dealings had been done through straw purchasers to save the taxpayers money; and as the mundane realities of maintaining a political organization, such as paying for the use of halls for meetings, set in. It was also found that the neighborhoods included many mothers who were as much in favor of new schools as the largely male followers of the childless Mrs. Bantelman opposed them. In the mid 1920s, women could now vote, and they won the day. The schools would be built.

The Pennsauken Board of Education of the day, guided by leaders such as supervisor George B. Fine, business manager Harry G. Carson, and solicitors Albert Burling and Clifford Baldwin, acquired the needed land, and considerably more, and obtained the services of the chief architect of the Philadelphia schools, Irwin Thornton Catharine. This distinguished schools architect produced a single design for both school buildings that reflected the pride and rising aspirations of American communities in that era. He remained involved throughout the bidding process, at one point advising the board in rejecting initial bids and making alterations in the original plans to simplify design elements and reduce the cost.

Construction was extended, the date stone at Longfellow being set in 1925; but completion of the project was achieved in early 1927. At last, the two new schools opened for viewing on January 31, 1927, with the new school term beginning the following day, February 1. The schools had 12 classrooms, an office, teachers’ room, medical room, library and a gymnasium that doubled as an assembly room. At first, only two new teachers had to be appointed to the new schools, as most of the faculty was transferred from other schools in the system where they had been teaching in overcrowded conditions.

There was no kindergarten per se in the new schools, where children acclimate to the educational setting through play, drawing, songs, and such. Instead, in an experiment that might have been considered “old school” even in the 1920s, children five years of age were enrolled for primer classes to be prepared for first grade. At Longfellow School, the primer classes were taught by Mrs. Martha Fine, the wife of schools supervisor George B. Fine.

Since its start, Henry W. Longfellow Elementary School has carried on its mission of educating Pennsauken children for more than 90 years, turning out thousands of pupils prepared with the skills to  take on the further educational challenges needed for success in life. It has been the workplace of hundreds of teaching professionals, dedicated to achieving this mission.

It has also served its community in other ways: as a polling location, as a community assembly place, for summer playground programs, as a meeting place for community organizations such as the Boy and Girl Scouts, and in a myriad of other ways. During the Depression, the local WPA developed summertime playground programs for kids out of school. In 1943, it was an aid station for survivors of the worst train wreck in the Township’s history. Most importantly, it has helped to create citizens ready to take part in the life of their community.

The old school may now be outmoded, ill-fitted to today’s school population, in deteriorating condition and unfashionable in appearance to tastes of the 21st Century. Longfellow Elementary School may necessarily yield to the wrecking ball; but if it must vanish from our landscape, it will remain in our community in the citizens, taxpayers and parents who began the journey in its classrooms, halls and playgrounds.

Sources for this column include: contemporary newspaper accounts from the Camden Morning Post, Community News and Riverton New Era; and the National Historical Registry data for buildings designed by Irwin Thornton Catharine.