Free School of Evanston
former alternative school in Evanston, IL, USA
The Free School of Evanston was an alternative school that existed in Evanston, Illinois,
United States from 1971 to 1976, for five school years.
Influences
The Free School was influenced by Summerhill School. At meetings, parents, students, and teachers were all equal, each having one vote. Tuition was based on a sliding scale percentage of parents' income. The school did not pursue educational accreditation.
Location
The school rented space at:
Student body
The school enrolled more than 100 students, aged 5–16, divided into lower, middle, and upper age groups. Most were from the Chicago suburbs, with a few from Chicago's inner city neighborhoods.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Free School of Evanston” as former alternative school in Evanston, IL, USA. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as former alternative school in Evanston, IL, USA. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5500061. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1971 and 1976.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
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- Expand the search: follow Free School of Evanston primary sources, Free School of Evanston archive and Free research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Free School of Evanston” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.