Mathematics Teaching Apparatus, Boole Senior Blocks

From at least the nineteenth century, educators have thought that playing with specially designed blocks would give children a tangible sense of mathematical relationships. The San Diego, California, teacher Ethel Dummer Mintzer (1895-1938) designed this set of flat wooden blocks to give young children the experience of handling a few of the simplest geometrical shapes. A complete set would include one hundred forty-four blocks – right isosceles triangles in five sizes, squares in three sizes, rectangles in six sizes, and parallelograms in three sizes. Eighteen blocks are missing from this set. The blocks are arranged in two layers on specially printed square sheets of paper and stored in a box with two bases and two lids.

Also in the box are sixteen square paper sheets describing suggested uses of the blocks. Ideas include making patterns from given sets of blocks, representing equal fractions, rearranging blocks to form figures of equal area, and defining areas. Other sheets concern the Pythagorean theorem, a binomial expansion, and multiplying fractions. A mark on the first sheet reads: Copyright, 1933. Ethel Dummer Mintzer.

Mintzer named her blocks after Mary Everest Boole (1832-1916), a British educator also known as the wife of the logician George Boole and the mother of the geometer Alicia Boole Stott. A mark on the lids of the boxes reads: Boole Senior Blocks. Another mark reads: PATENT APPLIED FOR.

This particular set of blocks belonged to Carol B. McCamman, who taught mathematics at Coolidge High School in Washington, D.C. A sticker on one of the lids reads: CAROL V. McCAMMAN (/) 1901 Wyoming Ave., N.W., #54 (/) Washington, D. C. 20009.

The donor, Florence Fasanelli, taught mathematics at Sidwell Friends School in Washington. She was president of the D.C. Council of Teachers and McCamman a member. McCamman gave Fasanelli the Boole blocks in 1974 as a baby present for her daughter Antonia. Fasanelli believes McCamman may have received the blocks from Ethel Sturges Dummer (1866-1954), the mother of Ethel Dummer Mintzer. Dummer was a noted Chicago philanthropist, and an advocate of the use of Boole blocks.

It is not clear who actually manufactured the Boole blocks and for how long. Boole Blocks Senior are advertised with a variety of other wooden toys in a 1934 catalog of Holgate Brothers Company of Kane, Pennsylvania.

References:

Accession file.

Caroline Cushman Rockwell, The Holgate Play Year, Kane, Pa: Holgate Brothers Company, 1934, p. 13.

Karen Dee Ann Michalowicz, "Mary Everest Boole (1832-1916): An Erstwhile Pedagogist for Contemporary Times," Vita Mathematica, ed. Ronald Calinger, Washington, D.C.: Mathematical Association of America, 1996, pp. 291—299.

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