Carl F. Kaestle

Professor Carl Kaestle was a historian of American education and literacy. He was a professor at UW Madison, the University of Chicago, and Brown University, His early research focused on the development of American schools, particularly in the 1800s. Writing for The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Harvey J. Graff declared Kaestle “one of the leading practitioners of American educational history.” David Tyack referred to Kaestle’s Pillars of the Republic as “the best interpretation of antebellum school development written thus far.” Later Kaestle wrote about federal involvement in K-12 education as well as the history of literacy. He served as President of the National Academy of Education in the 1990s.