Throughline

The First Department of Education


Published: 12 June 2025 at 08:00 Europe/London

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Episode notes

Whose job is it to educate Americans? Congress created the first Department of Education just after the Civil War as a way to help reunify a broken country. A year later, it was basically shut down. But the story of that first department's birth – and death – set the stage for everything that's come since.

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