ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the place of teaching in women’s labor force participation from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. It explores the effects of women teachers’ experiences on their own fitness and readiness for political engagement. The chapter deals with speculations about the less visible role that former teachers may also have played in helping to turn public opinion in favor of expanding women’s rights and opportunities, as put forward by the multi-faceted political movement of organized feminism. The daughters of farmers and small businessmen were a majority of the nation’s teachers, but the largest proportions of the graduates of elite colleges who were employed were also included among those keeping the nations schools. In a nation where over ninety percent of the students were enrolled in public schools, women were two-thirds of all public school teachers in the United States in 1900.
