Women Teachers in Nineteenth-Century New England: An Exhaustive Study of Employment, Socioeconomic Background, and Social Life

Nineteenth-Century Urban and Rural Employment Trends

• Throughout the nineteenth century ($1800$-$1899$), urban centers provided significantly more employment opportunities for women than rural communities.
• Large numbers of rural migrants sought work in New England cities such as Boston, Lowell, and Lynn.
• Urban employment sectors included:
  • Domestic service, which relied on an urban elite.
  • Textile employment, which was based in large-scale factories.
  • Shoe and garment manufacture, which utilized extensive outwork networks. While these sectors provided some rural opportunities, they primarily employed urban family labor and drew migrants and immigrants.
• In the middle decades of the nineteenth century ($1800$s), New England was still predominantly rural. In $1860$, only $36\%$ of New Englanders lived in cities with a population of $10,000$ or more.
• Despite the urban concentration of wage labor, rural women had access to certain employment avenues, most notably teaching in district schools.

The Growth and Demographics of the Teaching Profession

• Common schools offered expanding employment and increasing wages throughout the century for women who preferred remaining in the countryside over factory work in textiles or shoemaking.
• Teaching was a highly popular career path: one study suggests that up to $25\%$ of all native-born Massachusetts women in the pre-Civil War generation taught at some point.
• By $1870$, more than $20,000$ women were teaching across New England, making up almost $75\%$ of all teachers in the region.
• Teachers represented approximately $7\%$ of New England's wage-earning women in $1870$, though this varied by state:
  • In Vermont and Maine (least industrialized), teachers made up almost $13\%$ of the female labor force.
  • In Massachusetts and Rhode Island, teachers were only $5\%$ and $3\%$ of the female wage labor force, respectively.
• As manufacturing grew, the proportion of teachers among working women declined. By $1900$, meskipun the number of women teachers rose to over $34,000$, they represented less than $6\%$ of all New England working women.
• Teaching remained the leading professional occupation for women in $1900$.

Research Methodology and the New Hampshire Case Study

• This analysis utilizes annual school reports required by the state of New Hampshire starting in $1859$.
• Similar to the register books of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, these reports are superior to decennial censuses for tracing employment over time.
• Records provide wage data, performance reviews, and complete coverage of the state's teaching force.
• The study focused on a population of $449$ female teachers from the towns of Boscawen, Canterbury, and Lyndeborough between $1860$ and $1880$.
• Teaching was largely a rural phenomenon: in $1860$, $83\%$ of teachers nationwide were from rural areas, declining to $76\%$ by $1880$.

Representative Career Profiles: Lucelia Butters and Julia Dodge

• Lucelia Butters:
  • Taught two terms in District $9$ of Lyndeborough during the $1861$-$1862$ school year.
  • She was $16$ years old and well-prepared for her first attempt.
  • Earned $\$50$ for $19$ weeks of teaching.
  • Returning to her parents' farm in Wilmington, Massachusetts, after teaching, she taught once more in Lyndeborough in the summer of $1865$.
  • Married Lemuel Pope in October $1871$ and settled in Hingham, Massachusetts. By $1880$, she was a housekeeper with two children ($7$-year-old son, $6$-year-old daughter) while her husband was a storekeeper.
• Julia Dodge:
  • Daughter of Adoniram and Lucinda Dodge of Francestown.
  • Her father was a wealthy farmer with $\$2,500$ in real property and $\$700$ in personal property ($1860$ census).
  • Began teaching at age $17$ in a "union" school (districts from Lyndeborough and Francestown) earning $\$8$ a month for a $10$-week summer term.
  • Taught across Lyndeborough, Mont Vernon, Francestown, and New Boston for at least $31$ terms over $15$ years.
  • Earned an average of $\$50$ per year for $12$ weeks of work.
  • Amassed estimated career earnings of $\$750$ to $\$800$ before marrying John Carson in $1884$ at age $34$.

Socioeconomic Background and Background of Teachers

• Teachers usually began in their teens and stopped upon marriage. The average career duration was $5.6$ years.
• Over $61\%$ finished their teaching careers before age $25$.
• Only $8\%$ of those who married ever taught as married women or widows.
• Teachers predominantly came from farming families ($75\%$ of fathers linked in censuses were farmers).
• In rural New Hampshire, $80\%$ of teachers' fathers were farmers, compared to just under $60\%$ for the general male household head population.
• Similar trends existed in Massachusetts in $1859$, where $43\%$ of prospective teachers at normal schools came from farming families, even though only about one-third of the state was engaged in farming.
• Fathers of teachers were significantly wealthier than their neighbors:
  • Mean property for teachers' fathers in $1860$: over $\$4,300$.
  • Mean property for all male household heads: less than $\$2,400$.
  • This wealth gap is not explained by age, as teachers' fathers were slightly younger on average ($46.7$ years) than general household heads ($48.0$ years).
• Other rural working women (non-teachers) came from much poorer backgrounds, with a mean family property value of just under $\$1,800$.
• In $1880$, $75\%$ of teachers' fathers were farmers, whereas only $19\%$ of the fathers of other working women were farmers; $41\%$ of the latter were unskilled laborers.

Professional Environment and Public Scrutiny

• Teaching was considered a "service" occupation, subjecting women to intense public scrutiny or a "goldfish bowl" existence.
• Surveillance mechanisms included:
  • Initial examinations by local school committees.
  • "Boarding around": The practice of teachers living for short periods in the homes of various students' families (declined post-Civil War; Vermont outlawed it in $1864$).
  • Frequent classroom visits by parents and school committee members.
  • Final public examinations of students, which served as a test of the teacher's competence.
• Martha Osborne Barrett (East Woburn, MA) recorded a positive visit from committee members Drs. Youngman, Rickard, and Mr. Converse.
• Mary Metcalf (Hadley, MA) faced challenges including a "saucy" student's father and false rumors about her attending a ball in Whately until $5$ in the morning with George Marton.
• Public school reports provided detailed feedback. For example, a teacher in Warner named Lizzie H. Piper received praise, while a teacher in Francestown received a scathing report describing her school as "next to worthless."

Career Duration and the Impact of Marriage

• Teachers had the longest careers of nineteenth-century wage-earning women.
  • New Hampshire teachers avg: $5.6$ years ($6.7$ years if including other work).
  • Boston garment workers avg: $5.9$ years.
• Marriage was the single most influential factor on career length ($Table\,6.3$):
  • Single/Never-married women taught an average of $11.6$ years, leaving at age $32$.
  • Women who married taught an average of $4.5$ years, leaving by age $24$.
  • Factors like father's wealth or age at starting teaching had minimal impact (effects of less than $1.5$ years).
• Fully $30\%$ of teachers remained single for life, which is twice the rate of other occupational groups studied.
• Some women (over $10\%\%$) combined teaching with other jobs. A common trajectory was: Domestic Servant $\rightarrow$ Teacher $\rightarrow$ White-Collar worker or Needle Trades.
• For non-marrying women who combined careers, the average total employment spanned almost $23$ years ($7.8$ years teaching and $15.1$ years other work).

Comparative Economic Analysis of Earnings

• Despite high status, teaching paid poorly compared to other industries:
  • Avg Lyndeborough teacher earnings: $\$47$ per year.
  • Avg career earnings (adjusted for multiple towns): $\$133$.
• Comparison with other groups:
  • Lowell millhands ($1830s$): $\$140$ per year ($60$ cents/day for $240$ days).
  • Lowell millhands ($1860$): $\$136$ per year.
  • Lynn shoe stitchers (post-Civil War): weekly wages over $\$10$, double the weekly rate of teachers.
  • Boston garment workers ($1870$): $\$200$ per year ($4$ times the annual earnings of a teacher).
• Low earnings forced teachers to live with parents ($89\%$ lived at home; only $8\%$ were boarders according to census records).
• Even experienced older single teachers rarely headed their own households. Only $7$ out of $47$ single women teachers over the age of $30$ were enumerated as household heads.

Marriage, Residential Patterns, and Fertility Outcomes

• Teachers remained closer to home than other groups: $62\%$ stayed in their hometowns; only $22\%$ died in Massachusetts compared to $31\%$ of former millhands.
• Teachers married later than their peers:
  • Teachers avg marriage age: $26.3$ years.
  • Massachusetts avg marriage age: $23.8$ years.
  • Rural New Hampshire non-teachers avg marriage age: approximately $21$ years.
• Husbands of teachers were less likely to be farmers ($46\%\%$) compared to their fathers ($76\%\%$), with increases in white-collar workers ($30\%\%$) and skilled workers ($20\%\%$).
• Former teachers had significantly lower fertility:
  • Former teachers ($1880$ census): Avg $1.57$ children after $9$ years of marriage.
  • Married non-teachers of same age: Avg $2.22$ children.
  • Former Lowell millhands ($1850$ census): Avg $2.50$ children after $10$ years of marriage.
• Conclusion: While teachers occupied an elite position among working women, their employment afforded a precarious independence, and post-Civil War conditions actually signaled a deepening economic subordination and familial dependence for working women.