This 1923 class photo included the 50 pupils from 6A and 6B grades and their teacher, Miss Evelyn Mohr outside the original Garfield School. The school’s namesake, James A. Garfield is framed in the photo. Garfield was the 20th President of the United States, a great orator, preacher, lawyer, and Civil War general, served in the U.S. House of Representatives and was initially politically known as a Radical Republican (i.e. slavery abolitionist). These Protestant reformers were heavily influenced by religious ideals and saw the Civil War as God’s punishment for the evils of slavery. His public support of allowing African Americans to vote is reflected in his speech at Ravenna, Ohio in 1865, “Let us not commit ourselves to the senseless and absurd dogma that the color of the skin shall be the basis of suffrage.” President James A. Garfield was inaugurated on March 4, 1881, but was assassinated Sept. 19, 1881, just over six months after taking office.
Jill Wagner