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Women Who Were More than Men: Sex and Status in Freedmen's Teaching

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Jacqueline Jones
Jacqueline Jones*
Affiliation:
Wellesley College
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Extract

Historians of nineteenth-century common school reform have noted that the feminization of teaching meant expanded professional opportunities for women, but within a limited social and economic context. Schoolmen like Horace Mann seized on the rhetoric of popularizers of sentimental womanhood and declared that teachers should consider themselves mothers away-from-home. Writers and reformers alike emphasized women's nurturing qualities — gentleness, patience, and kindness with young children — and glorified the function of female “moral influence” in the purification of home and nation. But despite this inflated rhetoric, women teachers received less pay than their male counterparts, and they were denied positions of administrative authority in local and state school systems. Based on both “morality” and financial “efficiency,” the argument for female teachers was a powerful one; by the late Nineteenth Century (earlier in New England), women dominated the common school teaching force.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , Spring 1979 , pp. 47 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © 1979 by History of Education Society 

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References

Notes

1 For recent discussions of the feminization of teaching and its relation to common school reform in the Nineteenth Century, see Bernard, Richard and Vinovskis, Maris A., “The Female School Teacher in Antebellum Massachusetts,” Journal of Social History, 10 (March 1977): 332–345; Douglas, Ann, The Feminization of American Culture (New York, 1977), pp. 76, 166–7; Sklar, Kathryn K., Catharine Beecher: A Study in American Domesticity (New Haven, 1973), pp. 136, 173; Cott, Nancy, The Bonds of Womanhood: ‘Woman's Sphere’ in New England, 1780–1835 (New Haven, 1977), pp. 121–2; Katz, Michael B., The Irony of Early School Reform: Educational Innovation in Mid-Nineteenth Century Massachusetts (Boston, 1968), pp. 56–8, 193, 224; Wishy, Bernard, The Child and the Republic: The Dawn of Modern American Child Nurture (Philadelphia 1968), pp. 28–9, 72–3.Google Scholar Primary sources include Norton, Arthur O., ed., The First State Normal School in America: The Journals of Cyrus Peirce and Mary Swift (Cambridge, 1926), pp. 180–1, 246–250, 188. (Peirce observed: “Females are peculiarly adapted to teaching; they possess more patience and perserverence than the other sex…. ”/p. 87/). Dall, Caroline H., The College, The Market, and the Court, Or Women's Relation to Education, Labor, and Law (Boston, 1867), pp. 450–69; “The Woman's Rights Almanac for 1858 Containing Facts, Statistics, Arguments, Records of Progress and Proofs of Need of It,” pph. (Worchester, Mass., 1858), pp. 20–21.Google Scholar In 1860 the North Brookfield, Mass., School Committee summed up the convergence of “efficiency” and “suitability” in the form of female teachers: “In deference to the call for retrenchment so universal, but in entire consonance with our desire to conserve the interests of the school and the community, we have, during the year, made change from male to female teachers” (Annual Report of the School Committee of North Brookfield for 1859–60,” pph. in the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.).Google Scholar

2 Douglas, , Feminization, p. 76.Google Scholar

3 Bernard, and Vinovskis, , “The Female School Teacher,” pp. 333–337.Google Scholar

4 The Archives of the American Missionary Association include approximately one-half million leaves. The collection is located in the Amistad Research Center, Dillard University, New Orleans, La. It is available on microfilm. Documents are arranged chronologically, by state of origin.Google Scholar

5 For a collective biography of the Northern teachers who served in Georgia, see Jones, Jacqueline, “The ‘Great Opportunity’: Northern Teachers and the Georgia Freedmen, 1865–1873” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1976), pp. 18–82, Appendices A.B.C.D. The teachers' educational philosophy and pedagogical techniques, plus barriers to effective teaching in the South, are discussed in pp. 159–225.Google Scholar

6 “Right Kind of Teacher,” American Missionary 8 (June 1864): 14; “Teachers: Their Qualifications and Support,” American Missionary 10 (July 1866): 152; American Missionary Association, “Woman's Work for Lowly as Illustrated in the Work of the American Missionary Association Among the Freedmen” pph.(Boston: South Inquirer Press, 1874), passim; Douglas, , Feminization, p. 112; Fredrickson, George, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817–1914 (New York, 1971), pp. 113–7. The AMA's printed application form is included in the Association archives. Jan. 9, 1864, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

7 For the experienced teacher who chose to go south after the Civil War, altruism represented a considerable financial sacrifice. In Massachusetts, the average female teacher's monthly salary in 1865 was twenty-two dollars, seven above the AMA's standard (both figures included board expenses). Moreover, information on salary scales in Massachusetts towns during this period indicates that well-qualified, experienced women like the AMA teachers would have received more than that amount. Salaries probably averaged less in the Midwest, as they had during and before the war. Still, few teachers could have considered an increase in pay as a motivating factor in their decision to go to Georgia. Katz, , Irony of Early School Reform, p. 224. Local salary figures were compiled from miscellaneous school reports in the American Antiquarian Society library, Worcester, Mass.Google Scholar For statistical comparisons between salaries for male and female teachers in the North see also Bernard, and Vinovskis, , “The Female School Teacher,” p. 337 and “The Woman's Rights Almanac for 1858,” pp. 20–2.Google Scholar

8 “Men Wanted,” American Missionary 9 (Feb. 1865): 35; “Men Wanted,” American Missionary 8 (Jan. 1864): 11; Strieby, M.E. to Whipple, George, March 31, 1869, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

9 Sarah Burt referred to herself and her co-workers as the “children” of AMA District Secretary E.P. Smith in her letter to Smith, Nov. 10, 1867, AMA Archives. Letters cited originated in Georgia.Google Scholar

10 McPherson, James M., The Abolitionist Legacy: From Reconstruction to the NAACP (Princeton, N.J., 1975), pp. 148–50, 160, 163, 169, 171; Wolters, Raymond, “The Puritan Ethic and Black Education,” History of Education Quarterly 17 (Spring 1977): 66; Jones, , “‘Great Opportunity,”’ pp. 9–10, 41–4. As a result of my own research I have concluded that the “missionary spirit” was strong, even in the youngest teachers (cf. McPherson, Abolitionist Legacy, p. 165).Google Scholar For general discussions of female missionary work in the mid-Nineteenth-Century, see Cott, , Bonds of Womanhood, pp. 134–5, Douglas, , Feminization, pp. 106–7.Google Scholar

11 McPherson, , Abolitionist Legacy, pp. 152, 160.Google Scholar

12 Cott, , Bonds of Womanhood, pp. 104–1. The tension between self-assertion and submission inherent in mission work is also discussed in Douglas, Feminization, pp. 156, 166–7.Google Scholar

13 For correspondence related to the two cases see Snowden, Anna to Smith, E.P., Dec. 22, 1869, Francis, C.W. to Smith, E.P., Dec. 31, 1869, Ware, E.A. to Smith, E.P., Aug. 3, 1869, Francis, C.W. to Cravath, E.M., Oct. 28, 1869, Francis, C.W. to Smith, E.P., Oct. 27, 1869, Amy Williams, to Cravath, E.M., July 29, 1872, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

14 Amy Williams, to Cravath, E.M., July 29, 1872, Snowden, Anna to Smith, E.P., Dec. 22, 1869, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

15 Ware, E.A. to Smith, E.P., Aug. 31, 1869, Ware, E.A. to Smith, E.P., Oct. 20, 1869, Francis, C.W. to Smith, E.P., Oct. 27, 1869, Francis, C.W. to Cravath, E.M., Oct. 28, 1869, Francis, C.W. to Smith, E.P., Dec. 31, 1869, Ware, E.A. to Whiting, W.E., June 4, 1870, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

16 See the following letters sent by Shearman, Julia to AMA officials: Shearman, Julia to Smith, E.P., Nov., 1867, Shearman, Julia to Smith, E.P., March 14, 1867, Shearman, Julia to Smith, E.P., April 12, 1867, Shearman, Julia to Smith, E.P., Jan. 28, 1867, Shearman, Julia to Whiting, W.E., Feb. 6, 1867, Shearman, Julia to Smith, E.P., Jan. 24, 1867, Shearman, Julia to Smith, E.P., July 26, 1867, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

17 See for example Root, Maria to Smith, E.P., Feb. 12, 1870, Adlington, Ellen E. to Smith, E.P., July 2, 1869, Hosmer, Susan to Smith, E.P., Nov. 28, 1867, Hart, M.E. to Smith, E.P., May 16, 1870, Foote, Hattie to Smith, E.P., June 24, 1870, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

18 Ayer, Eliza T. to Whipple, George, Aug. 4, 1867, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

19 Hart, Mary to Pike, G.D., Nov. 25, 1870, Ludlow, Anna to Cravath, E.M., Dec. 27, 1873, Teachers' Petition to Smith, E.P., Jan. 18, 1869, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

20 Shearman, Julia to Whiting, W.E., Feb. 6, 1867. On the Savannah incident, see also Sharp, C.W. to Smith, E.P., Jan. 19, 1869, Sharp, C.W. to Smith, E.P., March 9, 1869, Sharp, C.W. to Smith, E.P., Dec. 10, 1868, Ware, E.A. to Smith, E.P., Nov. 24, 1868. For other teachers' evaluations of their own superintendents and principals see Brooks, Emma to Smith, E.P., Nov. 2, 1868, Ayres, Martha to Smith, E.P., July 6, 1868, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

21 Dimick, O.W. to Smith, E.P., March 10, 1868, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

22 For use of the term “family” as applied to mission home inmates, see Johnson, Abbie to Cravath, E.M., May 17, 1871, Stevens, Sarah A.G. to Cravath, E.M., Nov. 8, 1870, Wells, S.M. to Smith, E.P., April 17, 1869, Rockwell, John to Cravath, E.M., Dec. 29, 1871, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

23 For an indication of the superintendents' duties, see Martindale, C.S. to Whipple, George, Dec. 21, 1865, Dimick, O.W. to Whiting, W.E., Feb. 15, 1868, Henry Shepherd, J. to Smith, E.P., May 3, 1870, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

24 Smith, E.P. to Rockwell, John, July 25, 1866, Rockwell Scrapbook, John A., MS Collection, Amistad Research Center, Dillard University, New Orleans, Dimick, La. Sup't. O.W. assumed responsibility for the burial of a teacher, Armstrong, Mary J., in June of 1868. Dimick, O.W. to Whiting, W.E., June 13, 1868, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

25 Shearman, Julia to Smith, E.P., Dec. 13, 1867, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

26 Shearman, Julia to Smith, E.P., April 12, 1867, Ware, E.A. to Smith, E.P., June 16, 1869, Ware, E.A. to Smith, E.P., Nov. 24, 1868, Merrick, Caroline to Smith, E.P., Dec. 12, 1868, Johnson, Abbie W. to Cravath, E.M., May 12, 1871, Dimick, O.W. to Smith, E.P., Sept. 28, 1867, Dimick, O.W. to Smith, E.P., March 7, 1868, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

27 Eberhart, G.L. to Hunt, Samuel, Dec. 20, 1865, Eberhart, G.L. to Hunt, Samuel, Jan. 23, 1866, Russell, W.P. to Hunt, Samuel, June 8, 1866, Martindale, C.S. to Whipple, George, Dec. 21, 1865, Eberhart, G.L. to Hunt, Samuel, Jan. 23, 1866, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

28 Sharp, Helen B. to Smith, E.P., May 4, 1869, Sharp, Helen B. to Smith, E.P., May 17, 1869, Sharp, C.W. to Smith, E.P., Jan. 21, 1869, Sharp, C.W. to Smith, E.P., April 16, 1869, Sharp, C.W. to Smith, E.P., April 30, 1869, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

29 Shearman, Julia to Smith, E.P., March 17, 1867, Strieby, M.E. to Whipple, George, March 31, 1869, Ware, E.A. to Cravath, E.M., May 19, 1873, Shearman, Julia to Smith, E. P., May 29, AMA Archives. Shearman described Augusta Freedmen's Bureau Sup't. Eberhart, G.L. as “but about half a man“ and added that the other teachers agreed with her. Shearman, Julia to Smith, E.P., April 12, 1867, AMA Archives.Google Scholar

30 Brownlee, Fred, New Day Ascending (Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1946), p. 102 (letter from Liberty Co., Georgia, dated June 8, 1868). For a fuller discussion of the AMA pioneers, see Jones, , “‘Great Opportunity,”’ pp. 330–337.Google Scholar