William Albert Wirt

William Albert Wirt (January 21, 1874 – March 11, 1938) was a superintendent of schools in Gary, Indiana. Wirt developed the Gary Plan for the more efficient use of school facilities, a reform of the Progressive Movement that was widely adopted in over 200 cities by 1929.

Wirt was born in Markis, Indiana. He graduated from DePauw University and did postgraduate work at the University of Chicago. He taught high school mathematics in small towns in Indiana and was superintendent in Blufton Indiana, 1899–1907. His new methods at Blufton gained national attention and he then became superintendent in Gary.

Gary Plan

In 1907, Wirt became superintendent of schools in Gary and began implementing his educational values in the local schools. He initiated teacher hiring standards, designed school buildings, lengthened the school day, and organized the schools according to his ideals. The core of the schools' organization in Gary centered upon the platoon or work-study-play system and Americanizing the 63.4 percent of children with parents who were immigrants. The theory behind the Gary Plan was to accommodate children's shorter attention spans, and that long hours of quiet in the classroom were not tenable.

Above the primary grades, students were divided into two platoons—one platoon used the academic classrooms (which were deemphasized), while the second platoon was divided between the shops, nature studies, auditorium, gymnasium, and outdoor facilities split between girls and boys. In the following three years, however, the Gary system encountered resistance from students, parents, and labor leaders concerned that the plan emphasized vocational training over academic work and the fact that Gary's Plan was in predominantly Jewish areas. This opposition was a major factor in the defeat of New York Mayor John Purroy Mitchel in his bid for reelection in 1917.

Attack against the New Deal programs In addition to these concerns, William Wirt launched an attack upon Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal agenda, charging that the New Deal threatened American individualism by attempting government planning of the economy. He wrote pamphlets, articles, and addresses on the economy, particularly regarding the manipulation of the dollar to solve the economic crisis. Finally, Wirt accused the New Deal of being infiltrated by communists designing the collapse of the American system. His ideas appeared in his pamphlet America Must Lose by a “Planned Economy,” the Stepping-Stone to a Regimented State (1934).

The pamphlet made him the target of a libel suit.