The Nebraska State Teachers' Association

The first session asked for a great deal. Meeting in Brownville's public school building, the teachers resolved in favor of a uniform system of textbooks, a state superintendent's office and yearly teachers' institutes. Judge O. B. Hewett spoke on "The Teacher's Work," and I. T. Goodnow of Manhattan, Kansas, was paid $30 for four addresses. The association met at Nebraska City in 1868 and Omaha in 1869, then came back to the Union School chapel in Brownville in August 1870, when a railroad gave teachers free passes. Today the association represents about 26,000 school faculty and staff.

What the plaque says

The Nebraska State Teachers' Association On October 16, 1867, the first meeting of the Nebraska State Teachers' Association was held on this site in the Brownville Union High School, at that time the largest free high school in Nebraska. Presiding over this meeting was Robert W. Furnas, one of Brownville's leading citizens, who would later serve as Nebraska's second governor (1873-75). During this pioneer time, there were concerns about the often primitive and low-quality schools. Fewer than half of Nebraska's children attended school, and there were virtually no standards for teacher qualification. In response to these needs, the fifty-six people who attended the two-day meeting created the NSTA "for the purpose of elevating the profession of teaching and promoting the interests of schools in Nebraska." That spirit of commitment to education lives today in the work of thousands of Nebraska teachers who daily rededicate their efforts to the future of children and the improvement of their profession. Since its Brownville beginnings in 1867 the organization, now known as the Nebraska State Education Association, continues with an unbroken history as Nebraska's oldest professional association. Nebraska State Education Association Brownville Board of Education Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brownville — steps away
  A Missouri River town of 1854 that bet on a railroad and lost, kept its arts through the decline, and now has Nebraska's oldest repertory theatre and a 1932 steam dredge on the bank.
• Indian Cave State Park — 13 mi
  Wooded Missouri River bluffs in the old Nemaha Half-Breed Reservation, with carvings of animals cut into a sandstone shelter, the ghost town of St. Deroin and miles of trail.
• Arbor Lodge State Historical Park — 23 mi
  J. Sterling Morton's estate in Nebraska City, a four-room house of 1855 grown to 52 rooms among the trees he planted, home of the man who proposed Arbor Day in 1872.

More markers nearby

• Brownville — steps away
• Muir House — 0.2 mi
• Lewis and Clark Campsite: July 15, 1804 — 0.4 mi
• Peru State College — 6.6 mi