1908 NEA Spelling BeeDate June 29, 1908

Location Hippodrome Theater,Cleveland, Ohio

Winner Cleveland (team),Marie C. Bolden(individual)

Sponsor National EducationAssociation

No. ofcontestants

60

Pronouncer Solomon Henry Clark

1908 National Education Association SpellingBeeThe 1908 National Education Association Spelling Bee was a team-based,inter-city spelling bee held on June 29, 1908, at the Hippodrome Theater inCleveland, Ohio. Predating the 1st Scripps National Spelling Bee in 1925 byseventeen years, this 1908 competition was the first national spelling bee in theUnited States. Cleveland won the team competition, and Marie C. Bolden wasthe individual champion.[1]

The spelling bee was part of the forty-sixth annual convention of the NationalEducation Association (NEA), which was held in Cleveland. The NEA invitedteams to compete from across the United States and promoted the competition asthe first national spelling bee. Six thousand people, including convention speakerBooker T. Washington, attended the event at the Hippodrome.[2][3][4]

Unlike the later Scripps National Spelling Bee competitions, the 1908 NEA Spelling Bee was an inter-city contest, with teams offifteen eighth-graders each participating from Cleveland, Erie, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, and New Orleans. For the competition,each student took a written spelling test of one hundred words, and then spelled four words aloud on stage. The total number ofspelling mistakes in both the written and verbal competitions determined the winning team.[1][5]

The Cleveland team won the competition with the fewest errors, followed by Pittsburgh in second place, New Orleans in thirdplace, and Erie, Pennsylvania in fourth. Marie C. Bolden, a thirteen-year-old black girl, was the only Cleveland speller with noerrors, so she was named the individual champion and received a gold medal.[6][4][7]

Even before the competition, some members of the all-white New Orleans team took offense at competing on the same stage withracially integrated teams such as Cleveland's. After Marie Bolden and the Cleveland team won the competition, New Orleansschool superintendent Warren Easton apologized to the people of New Orleans, promised that New Orleans students would notparticipate in any other contests in Northern states, and was censured by the New Orleans school board for allowing whitestudents to compete against a black speller.[6][8]

Also in New Orleans, after Marie Bolden's victory, the local black YMCA organized a spelling bee to be held in her honor.However, under pressure from mayor Martin Behrman due to high tensions "over race questions", the event was canceled.[6]

In the written portion of the competition, pronouncer Solomon Henry Clark gave an incorrect example for the word "capitol",causing many spellers to write it as "capital". After the second-place Pittsburgh team and others raised concerns, the spelling beeorganizers re-scored the written tests. After re-scoring, the teams kept their overall rankings, but Marie Bolden no longer had aperfect score, and two other girls on the Cleveland team did. Marie Bolden was still allowed to keep her gold medal and title aschampion.[1][4][5]

Competition

Controversy

References

TheSpellingChamp.com

1. Eaton, Sabrina (30 May 2017). "Cleveland girl's spelling victory created racial controversy, national headlines in1908" (https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2017/05/cleveland_was_center_of_spelli.html). cleveland.com.Retrieved 18 July 2019.

2. Stiehm, Jamie (30 May 2018). "A Cleveland Bee Heard Round the World" (https://www.creators.com/read/jamie-stiehm/05/18/a-cleveland-bee-heard-round-the-world). www.creators.com. Retrieved 23 July 2019.

3. Maguire, James (2006). American Bee: the National Spelling Bee and the culture of word nerds. Rodale. pp. 65–66. ISBN 1594862141.

4. Ackermann, Marsha E.; Black, Thomas K. (III) (2014). How Do You Spell Ruzevelt? A History of Spelling inAmerica Today and Yesterday. Archway Publishing. pp. 73–75. ISBN 9781480810921.

5. "The N. E. A. Spelling Match" (https://books.google.com/books?id=kf4oZlQpEOYC&pg=RA1-PA29). AmericanJournal of Education (via Google Books). Volume XLII (September): 29–31. 1908.

6. Karst, James (23 April 2017). "P-R-E-J-U-D-I-C-E and S-C-A-N-D-A-L at the 1908 national spelling bee" (https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/vintage/article_b888349d-43b9-556d-8568-f51aa774bbb3.html). NOLA.com.Retrieved 18 July 2019.

7. "Colored Girl Wins Big Spelling Bee". The New York Times (Vol. LVII, No. 18420). 30 June 1908. p. 7.

8. Greenlee, Cynthia R. (5 June 2017). "The Word Is 'Nemesis': The Fight to Integrate the National Spelling Bee" (https://longreads.com/2017/06/05/the-word-is-nemesis-the-fight-to-integrate-the-national-spelling-bee/). Longreads.Retrieved 30 September 2019.

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