ABSTRACT
In 1863, Agnes Walker of Springfield, Vermont, wrote to her friend Kate Foster, who resided in Walpole, New Hampshire: ‘I want to teach. Oh Kate, I am sold on teaching.’ Why Agnes Walker and many other nineteenth-century New England women became ‘sold on teaching’ is the central question considered in this article. Here I compare the image of the female schoolteacher popularised by the school reformers with female schoolteachers’ own descriptions of their motives and expectations. I found that nineteenth-century female schoolteachers’ aspirations differed from those attributed to them by the reformers. The women wanted to achieve economic independence and to continue their scholarly pursuits; they expressed little interest in mothering the children or inculcating them with morals. My findings suggest that the sex-typing of teaching had a limited impact on a nineteenth-century woman’s decision to become a schoolteacher.
