The Social Class Origins of U.S. Teachers, 1860-1920

Journal of Social History

Volumn 45, Issue 4, 2012, Pages 908-935

  Sohn, Kitae ^a  

^a Kookmin University   (South Korea)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84871408971     PISSN: 00224529     EISSN: 15271897     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/jsh/shr121     Document Type: Article

References (37)

1. Geraldine J. Clifford, "Saints, Sinners, and People: A Position Paper on the Historiography of American Education," History of Education Quarterly 15 (1975): 262.
2. Joel Perlmann and Robert Margo, "Who Were America's Teachers? Toward a Social History and a Data Archive," Historical Methods 22 (1989): 71
3. This question presumes that teaching was a desirable occupation for women. Among many aspects of desirability, the aspect of pecuniary compensations should be one of the most important aspects. Because wages were much lower for female teachers compared with male teachers in the period of interest, one could be misled that teaching was not desirable for women. In addition, Perlmann and Margo surmise that "the wages offered to women teachers may not have been much higher than those of female domestics" in the early nineteenth century. See Joel Perlmann and Robert A. Margo, Women's Work? American Schoolteachers 1650-1920 (Chicago, IL, 2001): 32
4. However, this notion is far from the truth. Even when the education system was loosely organized and teaching did not require high levels of education in the first half of the nineteenth century, teaching in common school offered higher wages to female workers than other occupations. Variations in terms of employment notwithstanding, for example, female common school teachers in Lowell, MA were paid 3.5 dollars per week in 1837 compared with 2.75 dollars for textile workers in Chicopee, MA in 1832, or 3.25 dollars for female textile operatives in Lowell, MA in 1836
5. The wage gap is even larger compared with 0.34 dollars for palm-leaf hatmakers in Fitzwilliam, NH in 1830
6. Kim Tolley and Nancy Beadie, "Socioeconomic Incentives to Teach in New York and North Carolina: Toward a More Complex Model of Teacher Labor Markets, 1800-1850," History of Education Quarterly 46 (2006): 53
7. Of course, the above evidence does not concern the period of interest and is not representative of the country. However, even both issues are taken into account, "teaching was a good job" for women (original italics)
8. Susan B. Carter and Mark Prus, "The Labor Market and the American High School Girl 1890-1928," Journal of Economic History 42(1982): 166.
9. Lotus D. Coffman, The Social Composition of the Teaching Population (New York, 1911).
10. Clyde M. Hill, A Decade of Progress in Teacher Training (New York, 1927)
11. Mary L. Moffett, The Social Background and Activities of Teachers College Students (New York, 1929).
12. Sarah H. Gordon, "Smith College Students: The First Ten Classes, 1879-1888," History of Education Quarterly 15 (1975): 147-167
13. Eight out of 11 Smith students of class worked in school as teachers or administrators but only 13 out of 48 Smith students of class 1888 did so.1879
14. Richard M. Bernard and Maris A. Vinovskis, "The female school teacher in Anti-Bellum Massachusetts," Journal of Social History 10 (1977): 332-345.
15. Perlmann and Margo, "Who Were America's Teachers?," 68-70.
16. Willard S. Elsbree, The American Teacher: Evolution of a Profession in a Democracy (New York, ), Chap. 181939
17. Perlmann and Margo, Women's Work?, Chap. 1.
18. Robert W. Hodge, "The Measurement of Occupational Status," Social Science Research 10 (1981): 396-415
19. Keiko Nakao, "Review: Occupations and Stratification: Issue of Measurement," Contemporary Sociology 21 (1992): 658-662
20. Robert M. Hauser and John Robert Warren, "Socioeconomic Indexes for Occupations: A Review, Update, and Critique," Sociological Methodology 27 (1997): 177-298
21. Charles B. Nam, Comparison of Three Occupational Scales. Florida State University, Center for Demography and Population Health. Working Paper (Tallahassee, FL, 2000).
22. Otis D. Duncan, "A Socioeconomic Index for All Occupations," in Occupations and Social Status, ed. Albert J. Reiss Jr. et al. (New York, 1961): 139-161
23. Depending on one's point of view, Duncan's scores are regarded as not social class scores but socioeconomic scores or occupational prestige scores. Without being bogged down in the debate on concepts of Duncan's SEI, I reiterate that social class is measured by Duncan's SEI in this paper.
24. Sheila R. Klatzky and Robert W. Hodge, "A Canonical Correlation Analysis of Occupational Mobility," Journal of the American Statistical Association 66 (1971): 16-22.
25. A nuclear family referred to in this paper consists of father, mother, and children. There are other ways to define nuclear family, but this definition is used because it is usually considered the most immediate family unit. Slightly varying the definition does not change the substance of results.
26. Bernard and Vinovskis, "The Female School Teacher in Anti-Bellum Massachusetts," 336.
27. Coffman, The Social Composition of the Teaching Population, 73.
28. Samples of the general population are selected to be comparable to fathers of white female teachers. Specifically, the samples are restricted to white male household heads aged between 45 and 75 inclusive who lived in nongroup quarter households. Samples of regional populations are similarly selected for each region.
29. Jeffrey Williamson and Peter Lindert, American Inequality: A Macroeconomic History (New York, 1980).
30. One must not put much faith in figures for years of 1860 and because of their small sample sizes, but as far as patterns are concerned, the figures do not deviate much from the broad patterns.1870
31. The notion can be found in, for example, Polly Welts Kaufman, Women Teachers on the Frontier (New Haven, CT, 1984
32. Kathleen Weiler, Country Schoolwomen: Teaching in Rural California, 1850-1950 (Palo Alto, CA, 1998
33. Chris Enss, Frontier Teachers: Series of Heroic Women of the Old West (Guilford, CT, 2008).
34. Joseph A. Kershaw and Ronald N. McKean, Teacher Shortages and Salary Schedules (Santa Monica, CA, 1961)
35. Susan B. Carter, "Occupational Segregation, Teachers' Wages, and American Economic Growth," Journal of Economic History 46 (1986): 373-383.
36. The years of 1860 and 1870 are omitted because few observations are available. Other races are omitted because of their small sample sizes.
37. Maldwyn A. Jones, American Immigration. 2nd ed. (Chicago), chaps. 5, 8.1992