^∗We wish to thank Peter Baskerville and Bruce Curtis for helpful criticisms of an earlier draft of this paper. We are also grateful to Lise Kreps and Louise Ledoux and especially Beth Light, who assisted with the gathering and entry of the quantitative data. Finally, we thank the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada for the generous financial support which made this study possible.

1. See, for example, Katz, Michael B., “From Voluntarism to Bureaucracy in American Education,” Sociology of Education (Summer 1971) and “The Emergence of Bureaucracy in Urban Education: The Boston Case, 1850–84,” History of Education Quarterly 8, 1–2 (Summer 1968, Fall 1968). Abbreviated vesions of these articles may be found in Katz, Michael, Class, Bureaucracy and Schools: The Illusion of Educational Change In America (New York, 1971); Tyack, David, “Bureaucracy and Common Schools: The Example of Portland, Oregon, 1851–1913,” American Quarterly, 19 (Fall 1967) and The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education (Cambridge, Mass. 1974). Related Canadian discussions include Prentice, Alison, The School Promoters: Education and Social Class in Mid-Nineteenth Century Upper Canada (Toronto, 1977); and essays in two collections on nineteenth century Canadian education: Katz, Michael and Mattingly, Paul H., eds., Education and Social Change: Themes from Ontario's Past (New York, 1975) and McDonald, Neil and Chaiton, Alf, eds., Egerton Ryerson and His Times (Toronto, 1978).Google Scholar

2. Gidney, R. D. and Lawr, D. A., “Bureaucracy vs. Community? The Origins of Bureaucratic Procedure in the Upper Canadian School System,” Journal of Social History 13, 3 (Spring 1980) and “Who Ran the Schools? Local Influence on Education Policy in Nineteenth Century Ontario,” Ontario History 72, 3 (September 1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Gidney, and Lawr, , “Bureaucracy vs. Community?” p. 454.Google Scholar

4. The focus on urban education has been particularly characteristics of the American literature, while Canadian historians have tended to focus on centralization at the provincial level. See the works of Katz, Michael B., Tyack, David, Gidney, R. D. and Lawr, D. A., above, cited, and Prentice, Alison, “The Public Instructor: Ryerson and the Role of the Public School Administrator,” in McDonald, and Chaiton, , eds., Egerton Ryerson and His Times. The rural records on which Gidney and Lawr's conclusions are chiefly based are to be found in an immense collection of incoming correspondence to the Ontario Department of Education, preserved in RG 2 (Education Records) C-6-C, Public Archieves of Ontario. The files date back to the creation of the Provincial Education Office in the 1840s and provide Ontario historians with a rich source of information on the attitudes and politics of the countless teachers, parents, school trustees, superintendent and interested citizens who wrote to provincial education authorities in Toronto.Google Scholar

5. Three studies focussing on kinds of schooling that existed outside the dominant or victorious model are Laqueur, Thomas W., “Working-Class Demand and the Growth of English Elementary Education, 1750–1850,” in Stone, Lawrence, ed., Schooling and Society: Studies in the History of Education (Baltimore and London, 1976): Frith, Simon, “Socialization and Rational Schooling: Elementary Education in Leeds before 1870,” in McCann, Phillip, ed., Popular Education and Socialization in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1977); and Leslie, Bruce, “Coming of Age in Urban America: The Socialist Alternative, 1900–1920,” Paper presented to the Comparative Urban History Conference, Guelph, Ontario 1982.Google Scholar

6. The exact number of independent schools cannot be determined because many of the private venture schools remain unaccounted for in government and school board records. But comments like: “There are in Montreal as many independent Catholic schools as there are under the control of the Commission” made by educational administrators at the end of the nineteenth century bring to light not only the existence but the importance of private schooling. U. Archambault à (no name given) le 23 octobre 1888, Archives de la Commission des Ecoles Catholiques de Montréal (hereafter ACECM).Google Scholar

7. This study of Montréal and Toronto schooling is part of a larger study of teachers in nineteenth century Quebec and Ontario. Findings on rural teachers in the two provinces are examined in Danylewycz, Marta, Light, Beth and Prentice, Alison, “The Evolution of the Sexual Division of Labour in Teaching: A Nineteenth Century Ontario and Quebec Case Study,” Social History/Histoire sociale, 16, 31 (Spring, 1983).Google Scholar

8. Previous studies examining the history of the division of labour in teaching by gender include: Prentice, Alison, “The Feminization of Teaching in British North America and Canada, 1845–1875,” Social History/Histoire sociale 8 (Fall, 1975); Bernard, Richard M. and Vinovskis, Maris A., “The Female School Teacher in Ante-Bellum Massachusetts,” Journal of Social History 10, 3 (Spring, 1977); Strober, Myra H. and Best, Laura, “The Female/Male Salary Differential in Public Schools: Some Lessons from San Francisco, 1879,” Economic Inquiry 17, 2 (April, 1979); Strober, Myra H. and Tyack, David, “Why Do Women Teach and Men Manage?” Signs 5, 3 (Spring, 1980); and Tyack, David B. and Strober, Myra H., “Jobs and Gender: A History of the Structuring of Educational Employment by Sex,” in Schmuck, Patricia and Charters, W. W., eds., Educational Policy and Management: Sex Differentials (San Diego, 1981).Google Scholar

9. For descriptions of the three wards under study see, Robert, Jean-Claude, “Montréal, 1821–1871: Aspects de l'urbanisation” (Thèse de doctorat, Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 1977); Bradbury, Bettina, “the Family Economy and Work in an Industrializing City: Montréal in the 1870s,” Historical Papers (Ottawa, 1979), pp. 73–77; Soucy-Roy, Carmen, “Le Quartier Ste. Marie, 1850–1900” (Thèse de Maîtrise, Université du Québec à Montréal, 1977.) Google Scholar

10. We are grateful to Susan Houston for information on the social composition of the wards. For a map showing the location of the four wards, see Goheen, Peter G., Victorian Toronto, 1850–1900. (Chicago, 1970) pp. 129–155.Google Scholar

11. A great many labels or titles for teachers appear on the census returns of both Montréal and Toronto. As our interest was not to look at every conceivable type of teacher, but to focus on those who might have taught in urban school systems or in schools comparable to the schools in such systems, some categories had to be excluded. Moreover, school boards in Montréal and Toronto presided over rather different types of schools, so the criteria for selecting the appropriate categories differed slightly for the two cities. We included in the study all the most general labels for teachers, such as teacher, common school teacher, schoolmistresses and school master (instituteur, institutrice, maîtresse, maître) as well as other less common ones such as drawing master. Excluded, in general, were those with labels like grammar school master, governess, superannuated teacher or professor of theology.Google Scholar

12. Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the Province of Québec (hereafter RSPIPQ), 1881–1882, pp. 158–161.Google Scholar

13. Information about the individual teachers employed by the board is to be found in teacher lists published in the Annual Report of the Superintendent of the Public Schools of the City of Toronto (hereafter ARSPSCT), which dates from 1859. The data on Toronto board teachers which follow were taken chiefly from the reports for 1861, 1871, and 1881.Google Scholar

14. Ages of Toronto Board female teachers linked to census: Google Scholar 19 and under 20–24 25–29 30 and over Google Scholar

15. Household status of Toronto Board female teachers linked to census: Google Scholar

16. ARSPSCT, 1860, p. 7.Google Scholar

17. ARSPSCT, 1861, p. 31.Google Scholar

18. ARSPSCT, 1861, pp. 77–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. ARSPSCT, 1882, Table E, “Comparative Statement of the City Solicitor … from 1844 to 1881, both inclusive”.Google Scholar

20. ARSPSCT, 1861, Table A, pp. 48–49. Prentice, , “The Feminization of Teaching “drew attention to the gap between male and female salaries and the evident widening of this gap in developing urban school systems in British North America and Canada during the third quarter of the nineteenth century. For a discussion of the same phenomenon in Massachusetts between 1834 and 1860, see Bernard, and Vinovskis, , “The Female School Teacher,” pp. 337–38.Google Scholar

21. ARSPSCT, 1881, Appendix C, pp. 9–15.Google Scholar

22. For a detailed discussion of the hierarchical structures and governing procedures of one women's religious teaching community see: Thérèse Lambert, c.n.d., Histoire de la Congrégation de Notre-Dame de Montréal, Vol. 10, 1855–1900, Tome 1 (Montréal, 1969), pp. 1–40. Tome 2, pp. 421–576, of this study provides an analysis of the relationships between the Congrégation of Notre Dame, the Montréal Catholic School Commission, and the provincial government. Correspondence exchanged between the Congrégation of Notre Dame and the Commission as well as copies of the relevant documents can be found in “Notes historiques concernant les Ecoles des Soeurs de la Congrégation de Notre Dame qui relèvent de la Commission Scolaire de la Ville de Montréal” cahier I, no. 302.300.1, Archieves de la Congrégation de Notre Dame (hereafter ACND).Google Scholar

23. For a breakdown of subsidies granted to the various schools under the Commission's control see, “Rapports Financíers de la Commission des Ecoles Catholiques de Montréal,” Vol. 1, 1867–1868 à 1891–1892, ACECM.Google Scholar

24. Descriptions and short historical accounts of the schools under the Commission's control are provided in Notice sur les écoles relevant du bureau des Commissaires catholiques romains de la cité de Montréal. (Montréal 1886). The difficulties women encountered because of the lack of appropriate educational facilities are frequently mentioned in the minutes of the meetings of the Catholic School Commission.Google Scholar

25. RSPIPQ, 1881–2, pp. 259–60. See also the analysis of women's salaries in Montréal in Danylewycz, Marta, “Sexes et classes sociales dans l'enseignment: le cas de Montréal à la fin du 19e Siècle,” in Dumont, Micheline and Fahmy-Eid, Nadia, eds., Maĩtresses de maison, maĩtresses d'école: Femmes, famille et éducation dans l'histoire du Québec. Google Scholar

26. The changing sex-ratio in the Montréal Catholic School Commission can be traced from the RSPIPQ. For figures for the 1912–13 school year see: “Rapports Financiers de la Commission des Ecoles Catholiques de Montréal,” Vol. 3, 1904–1905 à 1916–1917. ACECM.Google Scholar

27. The various queries and complaints sent to the commission by women teachers are recorded in the “Registre des Déliberations du Bureau des Commissaires d'Ecoles catholiques de Montréal,” Vol. 1, 1850–1875, Vol. 2, 1875–1887, ACECM.Google Scholar

28. Correspondence between the women principals and the Commissioners reproduced in Correspondance Archambault, cahiers A,B,C,D, and Correspondance générale, cahiers E,F, leaves one with the impression that the Commission dealt mainly with the principals. See also the decisions recorded in “Registre des Deliberations.” It was noted, for instance, on April 17, 1874 that “la demande de Mlle Lacasse ne peut être accordée, vu qu'il n'est pas dans les habitudes de ce Bureau d'engager les assistantes dans les écoles des filles.” (The request of Mlle Lacasse cannot be granted, since it is not the habit of this Commission to engage assistants for girls' schools.) Google Scholar

29. For a listing of salaries see the “Registre des Déliberations”. The careers of the leading male educators who taught for the commission are outlined in Nos Ecoles Laiques, 1846–1946. Album Souvenir, un siècle d'apostolat (Montréal, 1947) as well as in Notice sur les écoles administrées par la Commission des écoles Catholiques de Montréal (Montréal, 1915).Google Scholar

30. This point remains a speculative one until further research establishes more clearly the dates when separate boys' and girls' classes were abandoned in the various divisions and allows us to determine what happened to female principalships after 1881.Google Scholar

31. We are only too aware of the shifting and problematic nature of occupational terminology and the hazards of translating occupational categories into class or status categories or even into an entity as vague as “social background.” These hazards are compounded when women are the subjects of study since their social backgrounds must be deduced from the occupations of the parents, spouses or relatives with whom they behavior of women teachers, especially during the two World Wars, provides irrefutable evidence to chosen with the following considerations in mind: (1) professional and entrepreneurial: members of professional, economic and political elites; (2) white collar: admittedly an anachronism, but the best label, we felt, under which to group those individuals whose work probably required literacy or the ability to keep accounts, as distinguished from manual work or occupations requiring extended or higher education; (3) skilled and unskilled: workers who may have been the highly skilled elites of the working class yet, in this period, might also have been employed in factories, as well as the most poorly paid manual workers and casual labourers; (5) widows: a category of its own, since the occupations of the former spouses are unknown. A list of the occupations showing how they were classified under these categories is available from the authors.Google Scholar

32. In their study of ante-bellum Massachusetts, Bernard and Vinovskis found that 40.2% of the students attending two Massachusetts normal schools for women in 1859 listed fathers who were “artisans,” in contrast to 18.9% of students attending coeducational teacher training institutions in the same year. While their sample is very limited, this finding supports the Toronto and, especially, Montréal evidence of opportunity for working class girls in teaching. Bernard and Vinovskis also point out that differing social backgrounds of students attending female and coeducational normal schools may be a function of the schools' locations. Similarly the differences in the social backgrounds of Montréal and Toronto teachers may simply reflect the more industrial character of Montréal, compared to Toronto, during the period in question. On the social origins of nineteenth century British elementary school teachers and their implications for the professionalization of the occupation, see Bergen, Barry H., “Only a Schoolmaster: Gender, Class, and the Effort to Professionalize Elementary Teaching in England, 1870–1910,” History of Education Quarterly 22, 1 (Spring, 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33. For an analysis of the occupational background of women who joined the Congrégation of Notre Dame, Montreal's largest teaching order, see Danylewycz, Marta, “Taking the Veil in Montreal, 1840–1920: An Alternative to Marriage, Motherhood and Spinsterhood” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Toronto, 1981), chapter 3.Google Scholar

34. In Massachusetts, school authorities found that female school teachers left the occupation for higher wages in the textile mills. Bernard, and Vinovskis, , “The Female School Teacher,” p. 338. Roberts, Wayne, Feminism, Femininity and Class Consciousness Among Toronto Working Women, 1893–1914 (Toronto, 1976) has also pointed out that a common response among women to poor working conditions, in the face of limited opportunity for advancement, was to leave the labor force or to change jobs frequently. The behavior of women teachers, especially during the two World Wars, provides irrefutable evidence to substantiate his interpretation. It is common knowledge that during the war years there was an endemic shortage of teachers. This, of course, occurred because women, given the opportunity to work in better paying occupations, left the schoolroom. In focussing on the teachers who abandoned the profession, however, the small but important core of persisters should not be forgotten.Google Scholar

35. See Danylewycz, , “Taking the Veil in Montreal, 1840–1920”.Google Scholar

36. Cited in U.E. Archambault à Lucie Bibaud, le 14 mai, 1881, Correspondance générale, 1875 à 1909, ACECM. Three other schoolmistresses signed Bibaud's letter.Google Scholar

37. The possibility of a strike was discussed in DeCelles, A.D., “Les Maîtresses d'école en grève!” Journal de l'Instruction Publique, 2, 10 (Octobre, 1882): 299–300. The Journal was a Montréal based publication and from the discussions of the Montréal Catholic School Commission (recorded in “Registre des Déliberaions”) it is clear that the Montréal schoolmistresses were very much a part of the movement to reform the pension plan.Google Scholar

38. “Registre des Deliberations,” Vol. 1, le 19 Septembre, 1873 and le 3 Octobre, 1873 discusses the intervention of the parish priest on Mme. Montreuil's behalf; Vol. 2, le 26 Août, 1885 mentions petitions signed by ratepayers in support of schools administered by Mme. Desormeau.Google Scholar

39. The Women's Teacher's Association of Toronto was the nucleus from which the Ontario Women Teacher's Association ultimately developed. The founding of both organizations is described in Bryans, Wendy E., “Virtuous Women at Half the Price: The Feminization of the Teaching Force and Early Women Teacher Organizations in Ontario” (M.A. Thesis, University of Toronto, 1974). See also French, Doris, High Button Bootstraps: Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario, 1918–1968 (Toronto, 1968).Google Scholar

40. Census of Canada, 1880–81 (Ottawa, 1884), p. 302.Google Scholar

41. Nos Ecoles Laïques, pp. 31–33; see also the more detailed biography of Archambault in Audet, Louis-Philippe, “Urgel-Eugène Archambault (1834–1904),” Les Cahiers des Dix, no. 26 (Montréal, 1961), pp. 143–175 and a serialized study of his educational work by the same author in the following four volumes of Les Cahiers des Dix, nos. 27–30 (1962–1965).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42. Nos Ecoles Laïques, pp. 57–60; Bibaud, Athénaïs, “Nos Ecoles de Filles,” Revue Canadienne 2 (1911): 137–142.Google Scholar

43. A particularly revealing discussion of women's entry into nursing in the nineteenth century may be found in Wood, Ann Douglas, “The War Within a War: Women Nurses in the Union Army,” in Katz, Esther and Rapone, Anita, eds., Women's Experience in America: An Historical Anthology (New Brunswick and London, 1980). An interesting analysis of the gender relations fostered by bureaucratizing and feminizing school systems in the nineteenth century is offered by Grumet, Madeleine, “Pedagogy for Patriarchy: The Feminization of Teaching,” Interchange 12, 2–3 (1981).Google Scholar