ABSTRACT
The recent historiography of American education has witnessed two attempts to end the celebration of school reformers as triumphant gladiators; both address the role of social conflict in the creation of public schools. The first group of historians, relying on the insights of the so-called consensus historians of the 1950s, argued that the conflict was chimerical, that most Americans were not divided on the issue of free public education, and that "die-hard conservatives" were impotent in the American context. The consensus theme is appropriate to the creation of public school systems in two different ways. First, among American elites, there was almost no opposition to the provision of mass education. Second, at the popular level, parents during the early nineteenth century voted with their children's feet to demonstrate their commitment to school attendance. One way to relate conflict and consensus would be to think of conflict not simply between groups but within groups and even within individuals lives.
