The Blackwell History of Education Museum and Research Collection was named after Ruth and Harold Blackwell in recognition of their generous support of the museum. Ruth Blackwell was a teacher in one-room schools in South Dakota during the 1930s and 1940s. Many of the museum's first books and artifacts were donated from Ruth's own sizable collection. Together with her husband Harold, a World War I veteran and lawyer, the Blackwells provided a significant endowment fund to the museum.
Today the Blackwell collection contains over 11,000 textbooks that were used in schools, some more than 400 years old, including hornbooks, battledores, primers, and readers as well as many other texts and reference materials. In addition, the collection contains slates, pens, inkwells, samplers, prints, student work, report cards, and a variety of other documents, as well as a sizable collection of oral histories and technology used for educational purposes. The Blackwell further boasts a permanent, life-size display of a dame school, which is a school where a woman would teach children their letters in her kitchen while she did housework.
The Blackwell also owns and operates the Milan Township District Number 83 Country School, which was originally built in the 19th century and rebuilt in 1900. Also called the Tysdal/Berg School, it was reconstructed on Northern Illinois University’s campus and rededicated in 1999, near the new Barsema Alumni and Visitors’ Center. Blackwell staff conduct living history and other programs for NIU, community and school groups in the school.
The Blackwell is currently involved in three major projects: the Prairie School Oral History Project, the Blackwell Mural Project, and the Blackwell Technology Collection Essays project.