Blackboards

=Blackboards: 1776-1860=

The first blackboard was used in a school in Philadelphia in 1809. Early blackboards were made from pine lumber and covered with a mixture of egg white and carbon from charred potatoes. Writing was done with chunks of chalk and then erased with cloth rags. When slate boards became available, teachers began using cylinders or white, soft chalk and a felt eraser. These blackboards and slate boards were laborious apparatuses, and the accompanying chalk dust was the bane of all teachers.