Back to school!

For area schoolchildren, summer is over and it’s time to hit the books again. Almost everything about the back to school experience has changed dramatically over the past hundred years – from school supplies, to subjects, to mode of transportation. Everything, that is, except the dreaded school picture. The above photograph shows the juniors at North Middletown High School (Lexington, Ky.) in 1941 lined up in the Roman numerals “XI.” Clever, no?

The two photographs below show a school for African-Americans in South Elkhorn, and a school in the Walnut Hills area (both in Fayette County) in 1901.

The North Middletown High School photo is from the Collection on Lafayette Studios, and the remaining two are from the Fayette County Schools photographic collection.