$/o, ^75- I -I* THE FEMALE TEACHER: THE BEGINNINGS OF TEACHING AS A "WOMAN'S PROFESSION" Jane Piirto Navarre A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 1977 Approved by Doctoral Committee I ¿V ©1977 Jane Piirto Navarre AU Eights Reserved PLEASE NOTE: Pri nt on many pages throughout the dissertation is broken, light and indistinct. Filmed as received. UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS. /C ABSTRACT This study examined the reasons for the feminization of the teaching profession in the United States in the nineteenth century, where, by the end of the century, 7 out of 10 teachers were women, when only 1 out of 10 had been at the beginning of the century. It focused on the influence of private seminaries and academies in the growth of the profession, before public normal schools were established. It also focused on schools in the state of Ohio, which was settled during the period of the academies, and which had, during the century, over two hundred of them. Chapter I. summarized the philosophy for educating women in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, beginning with Rousseau. The ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft, Hannah More, James Fordyce, Ben­ jamin Rush, and Noah Webster were discussed. Chapter II. viewed the contributions of three pioneers in women's education--Emma Willard, Catharine Beecher, and Mary Lyon. Their "innatist" and "antifeminist" philosophies, informed by their evangelical Christian views, were very influential in establishing how a "female teacher" should be. Chapter III. summarized school legislation history in Ohio, which made it possible for the seminaries and private colleges to flourish in the state. Chapter IV. narrowed the focus to two insti- « tutions in Ohio--Western Female Seminary (later Western College for Women) in Oxford, and Lake Erie Female Seminary (later Lake Erie College) in Painesville. These were Mary Lyon/Mount Holyoke "little sister" schools. Chapter V. discussed other seminaries in Ohio, most notably those in Granville and in Steubenville. Many primary materials were used in the study, including unpublished letters and diaries. One purpose of the study was to show what life was like in a female seminary in the 19th century. Another purpose was to show the influence of the clergy and the various evangelical churches on the development of the profes­ sion of the self-sacrificing, low paid, highly moral "female teacher. " The profession was viewed as a natural extension of a woman's innate nurturing nature, an extension of her domestic self. Teaching took women out of the home and into a respectable alternative to marriage and family. The unmarried woman could become a female teacher; she did not need to depend on the largesse of her male relatives; she could be self-supporting. She could teach school and use her superior moral influence in molding the children of the nation. She was a woman with a special mission. She became a respected member of her community and, though she was often conservative and evan­ gelical, anti-suffragist and pro-temperance, she had a great influence on the society, perhaps a greater influence than the more liberal feminists of the day. This Study is Dedicated, in Grateful Acknowledgement, to Lynn Piirto Waara my aunt, and a female teacher for many years // TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ................................................................... i Chapter I. THE PHILOSOPHY FOR THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN IN AMERICA IN THE LATE EIGHTEENTH AND EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURIES ....... 1 Rousseau ................ 2 Wo11stonecraft ............. 6 More . ...................................... 8 Fordyce . .. , , , . , . , . 16 Constantia . ... ..... 22 Rush ....... , . 24 Webster ................. 28 Hitchcock ................ 31 11. THE BEGINNING OF THE SEMINARY MOVEMENT: EMMA WILLARD, CATHARINE BEECHER, AND MARY LYON ................ 34 Emma Willard .36 Catharine Beecher ............ 49 Mary Lyon ................ 73 III. THE ACADEMY/SEMINARY MOVEMENT IN OHIO . .88 Sample Laws of Incorporation. ... , .93 List of Secondary Schools (Miller). 106 List of Secondary Schools (Boyd). 100 Commissioner’s Charts ......... 113 IV. MARY LYON IN OHIO........................ 123 Western Female Seminary ........ 123 Lake Erie Female Seminary ....... 145 V. CURRICULA, ORGANIZATION, AND LETTERS FROM OTHER SEMINARIES IN OHIO ....... 173 Granville Female Seminary . 176 Young Ladies' Institute . , . 181 Granville Female Academy . 186 Steubenville Female Seminary . 197 Methodology and Curricula . 211 EPILOGUE ............... ........................ 216 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................... 219 Primary Sources ....... » ...... 220 Se con da ry Sources . 229 APPENDI CES «I •. « 2 33 /A INTRODUCTION This study proposes to examine the development of the profession of "female teacher" in the United States, as it developed in the private seminaries in the mid-1800's, as an outgrowth and a modification of the philosophy for educating.women in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. This philosophy has variously been called "domesticity," "sentimental womanhood," "antifeminism," "innatism," "fascinating womanhood," and "total womanhood," and it had a great impact on the teaching profession, which developed as an extension and an expansion of the traditional sphere of women. At the beginning of the nineteenth century in America, approximately ten out of every 1Q0 teachers was a woman; by 1900, according to the Twelfth Census Report on Women In The Professions, 73 in every 100 teachers was a woman. This dramatic increase in the number of teachers points to an increase in educational opportunity for women during the nineteenth century. It also points to a change in attitudes about the appropriateness of teaching as a profession for women, for by the turn of the century, teaching had become a full-fledged"women’s profession," a respectable alternative for the unmarried woman. 11 This study examines the beginning of that change in society's attitudes towards a higher education for women. Most studies of teacher education in the nineteenth century have focused on thé establishment of the public normal schools. This study focuses on the female semin­ aries and academies, where teachers were educated before there were co-educational colleges and normal schools. Since these seminaries were private institutions, they have often been ignored or dismissed by researchers, but their impact on the development of the teaching profes­ sion cannot be overlooked. This study may begin, for researchers, a correction of that oversight. Most studies of the beginnings of the teaching pro­ fession in America focus on Massachusetts and New York, which are indeed important states in the history of education. However, the nineteenth century is unique in American history for the movement westward and for the tremendous influx of immigrants, as well as for the growth of industrialization. These immigrants often had to pass through Ohio, which holds the place of a national crossroads even today. In fact,, Ohio was "The West" at the beginning of the nineteenth century. From 1803 to 185Q, hundreds of private institutions were chartered in Ohio, and thousands of teachers were Ill trained. These teachers often journeyed farther west with the tides of migration, but they often went East, or stayed in Ohio to teach, also. This study focuses on the seminary movement in Ohio; first, because of Ohio's geographic and historical position; and second, because of Ohio’s school legislative history, which encouraged the development of private institutions. The "female teacher" was a respected person by the end of the century, largely because of the influence of church people and of the clergy. Clergymen were them­ selves among the most respected and well-educated indi­ viduals in the society, and they cast their influence upon the education of women, encouraging them to become teachers, as an extension of their basic nurturing natures The "schoolmarm," the "old maid" schoolteacher had, by the end of the nineteenth century, become an American stereotype, an image of moral rectitude and proper conduct As a result of their close connections to the (most- often) Protestant, evangelical churches, these ladies were viewed as veritable pillars of conservative virtue, and embodiments of the Christian ideals, while still being pitied for not being married, and sometimes scorned for their very propriety, Lucy Webb Hayes, the wife of Rutherford B. Hayes, attended Ohio Wesleyan Seminary in IV Delaware, Ohio, before she married. In one of her letters she described her "old maid" teacher, showing that the stereotype had already been established: Miss Jacobs and Mr. Nye » . have -determined to unite themselves in the holy bonds, or as my old teacher, Miss Baskerville says, are about to leap into the well of matrimony from which there is no escape. Miss B is an old maid-of uncertain age, though considerably past sixty, so we may allow her to speak in no very flattering terms of the act. She is emphatically a Man- 'hater. I have received much good advice from her, though this morning she advised me to catch some nice young Chillicothean, in order to settle her. , .1 The stereotypical "female teacher," besides giving good advice and being a "man hater," was self denying, often accepting little pay for her teaching. One of the reasons for the acceptance of female teachers into the schools was economic; they worked for less