The Bennett Law, officially Chapter 519 of the 1889 Acts of the Wisconsin Legislature, was a controversial state law passed by the Wisconsin Legislature in 1889 dealing with compulsory education. The controversial section of the law was a requirement to utilize the English language as the sole medium of instruction in all schools, whether private or public. Meanwhile, German Catholics and Lutherans, who combined a strong sense of American patriotism with strong ethnic pride, operated large numbers of parochial schools in the state and widely utilized the German language in the United States as the medium of instruction. The Bennett Law was bitterly resented by German Americans, but also by CatholicPolish Americans, and even by Scandinavian immigrant communities. The law was seen not only as an insult to the patriotism of the State's large community of non-English-speaking voters, but also as an unconstitutional attack against the independence of their church denominations and religious schools from control by the State. Although the law was ultimately repealed, there were significant political repercussions in the 1890 and 1892 elections; for the first time in decades Democrats won control of the Legislature and all state-wide elected offices, as well as both U.S. Senate seats and nearly all of Wisconsin's seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Technically, Wisconsin law already required English language instruction in schools, but the requirement was never enforced. Early in the session, state senator Levi Pond proposed a bill to audit the status of compliance with the state's English language education requirements. The bill provoked a flood of opposition and was abandoned in the Senate.[1]
The namesake of the law, Michael John Bennett, was serving his second term in the State Assembly and had attended a conference in Chicago with educational leaders from various backgrounds to draft model legislation for educating the youth and ending child labor. The bulk of the Bennett Law dealt with raising the legal working age to 13 and requiring parents and caregivers to ensure that any child between the ages of 7 and 14 was receiving at least 12 weeks of schooling per year. Due to its mostly non-controversial nature, the law passed quickly almost without any debate.[1][2][3][4] The problematic portion occurred in section 5 of the law, which defined a "school" as an institution which utilized only the English language for instructions on reading, writing, math, and U.S. history.
The backlash began shortly after the law was published. Governor Hoard doubled down on his position and attempted to mobilize the English-speaking population of the state for his reelection bid in 1890 by insisting that the state must embrace and enforce the English only movement.
As opposition swelled, Hoard escalated to a defense of the public school system, which was not under attack: "The little schoolhouse—stand by it!" he cried out. Hoard ridiculed the state's German-Americans by claiming that he was a better guardian of their children's education than their parents or their clergymen. Hoard had counted votes and thought he had a winning coalition by whipping up nativist distrust of Germania as anti-American. In Milwaukee, a predominantly German-speaking city where an estimated 86 percent had foreign-born parents,[5] Hoard attacked Germania and religion:
We must fight alienism and selfish ecclesiasticism.... The parents, the pastors and the church have entered into a conspiracy to darken the understanding of the children, who are denied by cupidity and bigotry the privilege of even the free schools of the state.[6]
The Germans were incensed at Hoard's blatant attacks not only on their linguistic rights and culture but also on the independence of their religious schools, which had been set up and funded by the parents in order to inculcate their community's religious values, from control by the state.[citation needed] Furthermore, Hoard's insistence that the state could legally intervene in the internal affairs of families and church denominations and would now dictate which language students at private schools could speak and learn in was considered intolerable.[citation needed]
Traditionally Democratic Irish Catholics were initially not as vigorous in opposition to the law, with a substantial section of the community even supporting it, as Hoard had hoped. However, the outpouring of militantly anti-Catholic rhetoric by Hoard and many of the law's supporters alienated a majority of the Irish in Wisconsin, prompting the top Irish newspaper in the state, the Chippewa Falls-based Catholic Citizen, to write that the Bennett Law represented a convergence of "all the sectarian, bigoted, fanatical and crazy impurities" within the Republican Party and which had now taken the reins of power.[9] The Germans, for their part, organized thoroughly and supported Peck. Combined with popular reaction against the new McKinley Tariff, the result was a major victory for the Democratic Party in Wisconsin, the first in decades. The Edwards law was a similar law in Illinois, where the same forces were at work to produce a Democratic win.
Wisconsin is a state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by land area and the 20th-most populous.
The Universities of Wisconsin is a university system of public universities in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is one of the largest public higher-education systems in the country, enrolling more than 160,000 students each year and employing approximately 41,000 faculty and staff statewide. The system is headquartered in the state capital of Madison.
Over 50 million Americans claim German ancestry, which makes them the largest single claimed ancestry group in the United States. Around 1.06 million people in the United States speak the German language at home. It is the second most spoken language in North Dakota and is the third most spoken language in 16 other states.
William Dempster Hoard was an American politician, newspaper publisher, and agriculture advocate who served as the 16th governor of Wisconsin from 1889 to 1891.
The Manitoba Schools Question was a political crisis in the Canadian province of Manitoba that occurred late in the 19th century, attacking publicly-funded separate schools for Roman Catholics and Protestants. The crisis was precipitated by a series of provincial laws passed between 1890 and 1896, and another passed in 1916.
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or archdiocese, of the Catholic Church in southeast Wisconsin in the United States.
Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that held that the "Siman Act", a 1919 Nebraska law prohibiting the use of minority languages as the medium of instruction in the schools, violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Siman Act had been passed during World War I, as part of the English only movement and during a time of pervasive anti-German sentiment, atrocity propaganda, and spy scare paranoia promoted by the news media in the United States. The Supreme Court invalidated the Siman Act and stated that that the liberties granted by the Fourteenth Amendment apply just as much to minority language speakers.
Compulsory education refers to a period of education that is required of all people and is imposed by the government. This education may take place at a registered school or at other places.
Frederick Xavier Katzer was an Austrian-born prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Green Bay in Wisconsin (1886–1891) and archbishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in Wisconsin (1891–1903).
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin is the affiliate of the Democratic Party in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is currently headed by chair Ben Wikler.
Michał Kruszka or Michael Kruszka was a Polish American immigrant, politician, and journalist. He served four years in the Wisconsin State Senate and two years in the State Assembly, representing Milwaukee's south side and southern Milwaukee County. He was the first Polish American member of the Wisconsin Legislature.
Sebastian Gebhard Messmer was a Swiss-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Green Bay (1892–1903) and Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee (1903–1930).
Anthony Steven Evers is an American educator and politician serving as the 46th governor of Wisconsin since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as Wisconsin's Superintendent of Public Instruction from 2009 to 2019.
Lorenzo Dow Harvey was an American educator who served as Superintendent of Public Instruction of Wisconsin in the late 1880s and early 1900s.
Edward Clarence Wall, was an American grain commission merchant and Democratic Party politician from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Humphrey Joseph Desmond was an American lawyer, writer, newspaper editor, and politician. He was a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly in the 1891 session, representing the part of the city of Milwaukee.
Michael John Bennett was an American farmer, teacher, and Republican politician from the U.S. state of Wisconsin. He was a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1887 and 1889, representing the western half of Iowa County. He was the author of the controversial Bennett Law (1889 Wisc. Act 519), which provoked a massive backlash from the German American community against the Republican Party.
Attempts to secure women's suffrage in Wisconsin began before the Civil War. In 1846, the first state constitutional convention delegates for Wisconsin discussed women's suffrage and the final document eventually included a number of progressive measures. This constitution was rejected and a more conservative document was eventually adopted. Wisconsin newspapers supported women's suffrage and Mathilde Franziska Anneke published the German language women's rights newspaper, Die Deutsche Frauen-Zeitung, in Milwaukee in 1852. Before the war, many women's rights petitions were circulated and there was tentative work in forming suffrage organizations. After the Civil War, the first women's suffrage conference held in Wisconsin took place in October 1867 in Janesville. That year, a women's suffrage amendment passed in the state legislature and waited to pass the second year. However, in 1868 the bill did not pass again. The Wisconsin Woman Suffrage Association (WWSA) was reformed in 1869 and by the next year, there were several chapters arranged throughout Wisconsin. In 1884, suffragists won a brief victory when the state legislature passed a law to allow women to vote in elections on school-related issues. On the first voting day for women in 1887, the state Attorney General made it more difficult for women to vote and confusion about the law led to court challenges. Eventually, it was decided that without separate ballots, women could not be allowed to vote. Women would not vote again in Wisconsin until 1902 after separate school-related ballots were created. In the 1900s, state suffragists organized and continued to petition the Wisconsin legislature on women's suffrage. By 1911, two women's suffrage groups operated in the state: WWSA and the Political Equality League (PEL). A voter referendum went to the public in 1912. Both WWSA and PEL campaigned hard for women's equal suffrage rights. Despite the work put in by the suffragists, the measure failed to pass. PEL and WWSA merged again in 1913 and women continued their education work and lobbying. By 1915, the National Woman's Party also had chapters in Wisconsin and several prominent suffragists joined their ranks. The National Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was also very present in Wisconsin suffrage efforts. Carrie Chapman Catt worked hard to keep Wisconsin suffragists on the path of supporting a federal woman's suffrage amendment. When the Nineteenth Amendment went out to the states for ratification, Wisconsin an hour behind Illinois on June 10, 1919. However, Wisconsin was the first to turn in the ratification paperwork to the State Department.
Robert B. McCurdy was a Canadian American immigrant, businessman, and Republican politician. He was a member of the Wisconsin State Senate, representing Winnebago County during the 1873 and 1874 sessions, and served in several state government administrative roles.
The Thirty-Ninth Wisconsin Legislature convened from January 9, 1889, to April 19, 1889, in regular session.
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