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Feminization of the Teaching Profession

Beginning with the common school movement in the late 1830s, teachers increasingly began to be recruited from the female population. This was in contrast to the colonial period and the postrevolutionary period when men dominated the profession. Women were teachers during this earlier period, but only at the lowest levels, as indicated by the titles given to teachers, including masters, tutors, governesses, and school dames.

Rationale for Bias

Women were recruited into the teaching profession—particularly very young women (often at the age of thirteen or fourteen)—because they were an inexpensive and malleable labor group who readily met the demands of a burgeoning school system. In many instances, teaching became a brief interlude in the lives of young women, one which took place prior to marriage and the bearing of children.

While young female teachers were clearly exploited by the society as a source of inexpensive and readily available labor, teaching, like nursing, provided access to education and respect from the community at a time when few professions were open to women. It was also a profession that was relatively easy to enter, typically requiring only a year or two of training at the high school level.

Women were often encouraged to enter the profession, since it was perceived by the larger society that teachers had a nurturing role. This point of view, which is largely taken for granted today, was not necessarily held by many people prior to the common school movement, when teachers were seen in a more authoritarian and dictatorial light.

Female teachers were significantly discriminated against compared to their male counterparts, a reality that has continued to some extent even into the present. Rarely was a woman made a school superintendent until well into the twentieth century. Salary discrimination based on gender was the norm. In 1880, the beginning salary for a female high school teacher in the United States was $850 a year; a male teacher received $2,000. Just as White male teachers made more money than White female teachers, White teachers made more money than Black teachers. Thus Black female teachers were particularly discriminated against.

Ebb and Flow of Men

During the Civil War, women teachers naturally outnumbered men, sixteen to one, as men went off to war and war-related industries. Since most women taught in elementary schools, these schools were not as disrupted by the war as were the high schools. By 1870, there were 123,000 women and 78,000 men teaching in the United States. Most of the men taught at the secondary level. It was perceived that women were more suited to teach in the primary grades, especially if a school was graded.

In the first survey of teachers, conducted in 1910, it was determined that the majority of teachers were

White women, and most of the women were the daughters of farmers and small businessmen. The female teacher was often one of the few role models of a “working woman” available for many young girls, who often followed their mothers, sisters, or other female relatives into the profession. Teaching was an “acceptable” job for many young women, until they got married. In fact, in St. Louis, Missouri, and other cities, as late as the mid-1940s, a female teacher had to resign if she got married. Teaching also provided economic independence and status to the women who chose not to get married or to be “dependent old maids,” living with their relatives.

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