Carl Frederick Kaestle (born March 27, 1940) is a Professor of Education, History, and Public Policy emeritus at Brown University.
[3] He was the original chair of its advisory board, which gathered academics and librarians interested in print culture from across UW–Madison's campus.
[3] In his 1983 Pillars of the Republic, Kaestle argued "... the eventual acceptance of state common-school systems was encouraged by Americans' commitment to republican government, by the dominance of native Protestant culture, and by the development of capitalism".
[6] In 1997, Kaestle married Elizabeth Hollander (née Lynes) (1939–2015),[7] the former commissioner of planning for the city of Chicago from 1983 until 1989, the first woman to serve in that post.
[8] David Tyack referred to Kaestle's Pillars of the Republic as "the best interpretation of antebellum school development written thus far.