Abstract
Between 1909 and 1968, Jeanes Supervising Industrial Teachers, or “Jeanes supervisors,” provided much-needed guidance and assistance to impoverished rural black southern communities. Funded by an endowment left in 1907 by Pennsylvania Quaker Anna T. Jeanes to support African American education, Jeanes supervisors aided black teachers in rural southern schools as they sought to improve educational quality and access and reform domestic habits. The communities in which they labored often lacked or, more appropriately, were systematically denied the resources to make these changes. This article explores the work of Arkansas Jeanes supervisors, active in the state from approximately 1909 until 1950, who were valued and even revered for their contributions to and advocacy for rural African American communities. It further explores how their activism included but also transcended concerns about basic educational skills to encompass an agenda that addressed African Americans’ health concerns.