Third Grade Readers in the Appalachian Region 1900-1930: An Analysis of Content, Characters, Settings and Authors

This presentation fits with the theme of the conference as it seeks to research the diversity or lack thereof in reading textbooks provided to third grade students in the Appalachian Region during the early 20th century. The analysis will provide information on the diversity of reading materials, with focus on subject matter and authors. The research method will use primary source documents in the form of actual copies of the third reader textbooks. Each story in each reading text book will be analyzed in terms of identifying information related to the diversity tracking topics of research outlined above.