SAM DINGMAN: As the school year draws to a close, a class of fourth-graders at Capitol Elementary School in Phoenix listened to a unique storytime.
ROBRT PELA: Steve Schumacher phoned me a couple of months ago. He'd been poking around the internet looking for a children's book about the founding of Phoenix. There are coloring books with historical facts and stories about parts of Arizona history, but nothing telling the story of the founding of the city.
He was calling to say he'd finally found one on eBay. I've known Schumacher for years, even before Mayor Kate Gallego made him the official historian for the city of Phoenix. Schumacher is a preservationist and a local history buff, and our paths have crossed many times. The book he found is called “Hay for Horses,” and not only was it written for a young audience, it was written and illustrated by children in 1950.
STEVE SCHUMACHER: I do not know of another children's book in existence about Phoenix history. I am the only person with the only copy of the only children's book about Phoenix, and I would love to be proven wrong.
PELA: The book, it turns out, was more a class project than anything else, a manuscript of a book that was never published. The eBay seller bought it at the annual VNSA Used Book sale in Phoenix.
SCHUMACHER: In 1950, there was an elementary school on the campus of ASU, which was Arizona State College at that time, and an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old did the illustrations and another couple of people got together with the text, and obviously the teacher did the typing or whatever.
PELA: Schumacher started working with local school administrators to bring the book to Phoenix schools.
STEVE SCHUMACHER: In my heart of hearts and my historian hat on, if we expect any of this to stick, it's gotta be with these kids. That's why I just love sitting in the back and watching these kids be engaged because they, that means it will last — even when I'm horizontal.
PELA: On one of the final days of the school year, KJZZ producer Athena Ankrah and I slipped into a classroom to hear “Hay for Horses” read to a group of fourth-graders at Capital Elementary School.
[SOUNDS OF STUDENTS FROM CLASSROOM]
ATHENA ANKRAH: Schumacher was accompanied by Dr. Sarah Galetti, the director of curriculum at Phoenix Elementary School District, and Michael Hansen, a learning coordinator who read to the kids.
MICHAEL HANSEN [READING]: I'm sure you think the story is about some horses on a farm, but no, it is not. It is really a story about a city, about the capital city of the state of Arizona. In the year 1866, 159 years ago, a farmer had a hay camp. The hay camp was near the place where the city of Phoenix now stands. It was along the banks of the Salt River. The farmer's name was John Y. T. Smith. Mr. Smith had promised to sell hay to the army men at Fort McDowell, 35 miles away.
ANKRAH: Right away, the fourth-graders were deeply engaged with this book written almost 80 years ago by kids around their same age.
MICHAEL HANSEN [ASKING STUDENTS]: What about McDowell, have we heard that name before?
FOURTH-GRADE STUDENT: That’s a street! I live there.
ANKRAH: The story continued.
HANSEN [READING]: The hay was wild. No man had ever sown the seed. This was wild hay. Hay was good food for horses at Fort McDowell. Some Native Americans ... people helped cut it.
ANKRAH: As we sat in the back of the room watching students hear the story of the founding of Phoenix, Robrt and I couldn't help but notice the irony. The text tells the story of how our city was founded by a trio of white men after rancher Jack Swilling noticed that the canal system could be used to provide water to a fledgling town. But, shouldn't the Native Americans who built those canals be more central to the story? It felt wrong to sit in a room full of kids of color hearing an almost all-white narrative. The book only touches on how the canals were built by Indigenous people, referred to as Indians in the text. It was 1950, and that word was still in use.
PELA: Hansen changed each reference to Indians to Native Americans as he read.
HANSEN [READING]: Mr. Swelling knew who had dug those ditches. He knew that many, many years ago some Native Americans had lived in the valley and they had dug ditches. They had made the water of the Salt River run into the ditches or canals.
PELA: The effort to bring the book to Phoenix schools is still in its infancy, so Schumacher says there's time to adjust how the book gets presented and discussed.
ANKRAH [ASKING STUDENTS]: Did you like the story? Did you enjoy it?
STUDENT: Yes! It mentioned our capital.
ANKRAH: And who knows? Maybe the kids of today will write their own histories of Phoenix that kids will get to hear 75 years from now.
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