I have always believed in the slavery/paddle connection.  The lash left tell taling marks that would prove a disincentive for buyers at slave auctions to buy at a higher price inspite of superior brawn.  Who would want an incorrigible slave?  The paddle marks faded in time for auction day.  The anti-SCP zealots overplayed this card but historically I believe the paddle has been the instrument of correction of choice in the south.

The crops were single task work that didn’t involve collusion among workers that would endanger discipline.  A single supervisor with the right to inflict pain without disabling a worker made corporal punishment the ideal way of maximizing the profit of the owner.

American Way,

Thanks for your comment. I do not think there is any doubt about the connection between slavery in the South of the USA (and elsewhere?) and the use of paddles. What I do not understand is how this spilled over into school use of the paddle, if it fact this was the case. Slavery ended well before compulsory education began in the South. Possibly, parents used the paddle in the intervening years so was known and readily adopted by schools. That is, parents adopted the paddle in preference to the switch long ago in the South. I have found little on this.

The worst slave abuse seems to have happened in the large plantations at the hands of overseers. On small landholdings slaves were generally treated better of necessity, being a more integral part of the owner’s family. There, wayward slaves may have been treated more as wayward children rather than dangerous rebels. Numerous small landholders likely had more influence on public schools than a few wealthy, often absent, large plantation owners.

I find the South very hard to understand.

Hello KK,

A comment based on recollection rather than careful data logging and therefore of no demonstrable scientific value.  I wish I had kept records, but sadly the possible relevance of the data stream has only just occurred to me.

As you are aware American Way links a very considerable number of reports on various aspects of CP from digitised US newspaper archives.  These are spread over very many threads, are mainly from the mid-19th century through to the early part of the 20th century from all parts of the USA and cover everything from domestic discipline through school and college punishments and  on via sheriff and court dispensed summary JCP to prison punishments.

I try very hard to read all of these newspaper links, if only for fear of missing something.  Possibly you do too, in which case you will doubtless be able to confidently contradict me.  As you know I would not take that amiss.  However, looking back from memory it seems to me that mentions of paddles in schools have on the whole been conspicuous by their absence.  Switches, belts and rattans however abound. Even the birch seems to get the occasional mention.

In the field of JCP however the paddle and it’s near relative the barrel stave reign seem to occur very frequently. All the way from boys and youths bent over barrels in the town square for unofficial but citizen approved whackings at the behest of local sheriffs, marshals and mayors or dealt with by equivalent arrangements in court buildings at the behest of judges, up to formal prison disciplinary punishments.

Is it possible, I wonder,  that the widespread use of the paddle in schools is very recent, perhaps as late as the 1930s, and was driven by something as simple as increased urbanisation making switches less convenient to obtain and the increasing availability of well equipped wood work rooms (wood shops I think they call them the US) in schools making it simple to make paddles for staff.  If so a possible corollary might be that preserved schoolrooms displaying sometimes patently recent paddles may be distorting history.

I crafted a reply and saved it as a draft while I researched a detail. Now I can not find the draft.

hello KK,

A most interesting and convincing response to my speculative query, thank you.

All your reasons why school paddles might appear infrequently in old US newspapers are indeed relevant, the first one particularly so.

Another aspect of the use of the school paddle which you have remarked on more than once I think, and which I still find odd, is that in areas of the US where many people believe that the bible is the literal word of God, they choose to ignore that word in respect of the chastisement of their children.  A few examples of fairly specific biblical instructions on CP:

• Proverbs 10:13   In the lips of him that hath understanding wisdom is found: but a rod is for the back of him that is void of understanding.
• Proverbs 13:24  He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.
• Proverbs 23:13   Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.
• Proverbs 23:14    Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul.
• Proverbs 26:3  A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool’s back.
• Proverbs 29:15    The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.
• 2 Samuel 7:14   I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men.
• Psalms 89:32  Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.

If indeed the bible is the word of God it is clear that God backs the rod, sometimes emphasizing the point by mentioning stripes.    Unlike those with canes, switches and rod like implements, beatings with paddles don’t leave stripes.  Bruising yes, stripes no!

It might also be inferred from the biblical phraseology that God is not in favour of the CP of  girls.  However the first quotation may be a hint that God is in favour of  SCP for academic failure!

“The first quotation may be a hint that God is in favour of  SCP for academic failure!”  I don’t think so!

“The man void of understanding exposes himself to the lashes of his own conscience, to the scourges of the tongue, to the censures of the magistrate, and to the righteous judgments of God. Those that foolishly and wilfully go on in wicked ways are preparing rods for themselves, the marks of which will be their perpetual disgrace.” (Commentary by Matthew Henry 1662 – 1714)

Understanding the Bible calls for translation and interpretation.  Those who take a single translation literally fail, sometimes conveniently, to appreciate the true meaning.

Hello hcj,

Those who take a single translation literally fail, sometimes conveniently, to appreciate the true meaning.

It was indeed most convenient in that case.  However KK has in the past expressed himself as hostile to, and puzzled by, smileys so I didn’t add one.  I think that he, and indeed you, have a fair idea when I’m being less than serious.  I regret though that I might have inadvertently confused some of our newer readers as to the biblical interpretation.

Hello A_L,

Oh yes, I knew you weren’t being serious; my remark was aimed elsewhere (and it’s nice to have the opportunity for a bit of theology once in a while!)  I’m afraid I despise those who use such excuses for the mistreatment of children.  It is they who will suffer the rod of perpetual disgrace.

Early 20th Century news reports

Old newspapers often contain useful brief or passing mention of paddles. Individual items may add little to our knowledge of how things were but in combination can be powerful.

The following is an excerpt from an enduring small town newspaper established 1824 and still going.
_________________________

The Woodville Republican (Mississippi) – Oct 20, 1934. Page 1, column 3.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid= … pg=345,837

Students in the Chicago schools “walk out” in Protest against something they do not like. A walk-out in a school is a good thing, but it should be of the old-fashioned two-man variety. The writer recalls more than one school walk-out that was salutary, but the teacher constituted the rear-guard, armed wich a substantial paddle. What happened after the door was closed need not be discussed.
_________________________

The column, headed “Washington Current Comment”, was likely written by the editor and likely refers to an incident when he was a boy a few decades earlier, perhaps around the turn of the century. It is interesting that he does not have to explain to his readers what a paddle was used for. The incident may not have occurred in or near Woodville but did not need explanation.

Woodville, one of oldest towns in Mississippi, is set among the rolling hills and pastures of Wilkinson County, cotton and timber country, just north of the Louisiana-Mississippi border in the southwest corner of the state. It was incorporated in 1811, after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and not long before Mississippi’s admission to the United States in 1817. Its current population is around 1,000, mainly African American, and declining.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodville,_Mississippi

Earlier US newspapers often include the word Republican or Democrat in their name as if their were two distinct species of reader, which I find strange.

Access to selected US small town newspapers is now available via:  http://www.smalltownpapers.com/index.php