Is the chicken the class mascot or...lunch?

The young lady looks like she could be the daughter of the schoolmarm. Both, BTW, wear wedding bands.

A striking girl. I doubt she's a student teacher, though, at least one 'from away', since the girl standing just in front of the school door looks like her kid sister. Also, the short skirt implies she's still a teen and not a young woman.

The way the older girl is standing by the teacher strongly suggests that she is either an aid to that class, or a student teacher, learning the job.
As for the chicken...

"I don't care if the other kids think you're a sissy, you're going to look nice for the picture!!"

My grandmother was born in 1901 and I have many pictures of her and the coal mining town people. She told us that the setting up of the photo would take about 1/2 hour, so they had to stay still and not hold a smile. I have about 40 pictures of that era with no smiling faces.

I too grew up in the South in the early to mid 50's and like him had colorblind parents even though my mother had been raised in North Carolina. Once on a visit to her mother and sister while they went into a store I stayed outside. When they returned they saw me sitting with a black boy my age and just having a great time. When I told him I was from Texas he wanted to know if I had a horse.

When my sunt walked out she nearly fainted but she handled her surprise (and a little disappointment at what was taking place) fairly well. My mom on the other hand came over to say hi to my new friend. As I thought back on it years later I think my aunt was more afraid that one of her friends would see her nephew with a black boy rather than the act itself.

As a white woman who has raised three black children to adulthood, I have learned quite a bit about how children naturally see differences like skin color. They are aware of it, from a very young age. That was very strongly illustrated to me the day I got on a plane, holding my then 18 month old son, who is quite dark. We were living in a small town, at the time, which was 95% white, and he was the darkest person in town. Well, this lady came and sat down beside us, whose skin color was identical to his. He gasped, put his chubby little hand on her arm, looked at it for several seconds, then put it on mine, and back on hers. Then, he settled down in my lap again.

Children aren't color blind. They just don't think skin color has any bearing and who we love and who loves us, who our friends are, who our neighbors should be, etc.. If everyone could continue to see others through the eyes of a child, wouldn't the world be something?

Don't look any happier in this group photo.

The little guy in the first row, second to the right, looks like he's going to cry any moment now. I wish I could put my arms around him and help him over the bad patch.

The kid clutching his hat looks terrified!

Having lived in the South in a period of racial tension, please let me say that we kids were generally cordial to one another when at the ages of the kids shown in this charming photo.

As we grew older, some bought into that us-versus-them nonsense but many of us did not, regardless of what certain grownups might try to impose. I was lucky to have color-blind parents, but there were other grownups who weren't that way. Still, most of us kids were aware enough to know a friend when we had one, regardless of color. And, having lived in the North and West, too, I didn't see much difference in how the kids acted in those regions. Their parents were sometimes another, and ugly, story.

Not only is the little school integrated, but it's interesting to see the black and white girls holding hands. I don't know how common that was in the North in 1900, but it's unlikely there'd be much of that in the South, at least not until many decades later.

In both the Class Photo:1900 and the Little White School House: 1900, there is nary a smile. In fact, the children appear as one of them is about to be selected for sacrifice.

Were the conditions that dismal at the time?

These images have me so upset that I can't even joke about it.