History
Named after Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson High School opened in September of 1908. The first school in the world to fully incorporate Dr. William A. Wirt's "Work, Study, Play" educational platform, Emerson was state of the art for its time. The school boasted mechanical shops, science labs, a student-run bank, a student-run zoo and was the first educational facility in the nation to have an indoor swimming pool. Emerson High School is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Emerson High School closed in 1981 due to under population. However, the building reopened during the mid-80s as Emerson VPA, the first Visual and Performing Arts schools in the state of Indiana. In 2008 the Emerson building was shuttered once again due to mold issues. The district moved its visual and performing arts program first to the former Kennedy King Middle School and then into the former William A. Wirt High School building in Gary's scenic Miller Beach community. In 2009, the district renamed the school "Wirt-Emerson Visual and Performing Arts High Ability Academy."
Read more about this topic: Emerson School For Visual And Performing Arts
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.”
—Henry Ford (1863–1947)
“The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)