author

National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice

Best known as the institutional co-author of a 1907 report on rifle training in American public schools, this board sat at the center of an early national push for civilian marksmanship. Its surviving book record offers a small but revealing window into Progressive Era ideas about education, preparedness, and public service.

1 Audiobook

A report on the feasibility and advisability of some policy to inaugurate a system of rifle practice throughout the public schools of the country

A report on the feasibility and advisability of some policy to inaugurate a system of rifle practice throughout the public schools of the country

by Ammon B. Critchfield, National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice, George Wood Wingate

About the author

The National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice was not an individual writer but a U.S. government body tied to the early history of organized civilian marksmanship in the United States. A Civilian Marksmanship Program history notes that the board was founded in February 1903, when Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt approved legislation creating both the NBPRP and the National Matches.

In book catalogs, the board is credited as a co-author of A report on the feasibility and advisability of some policy to inaugurate a system of rifle practice throughout the public schools of the country, alongside George Wood Wingate and Ammon B. Critchfield. Project Gutenberg and Open Library both list that report as the board's known book-length publication.

Because this is an institution rather than a person, there is no personal life story to tell in the usual sense. What makes it notable for readers today is the way its publication captures a moment when debates about schooling, citizenship, and military preparedness were being brought together in print.