From Schoolmarms to Professional Educators & Activists: Women Teaching in Illinois

Class Description

During the colonial era and the early national period of the United States, teachers were typically white men. By the mid-nineteenth century, a public school system emerged in many states, and communities turned to young women to fill the growing need for teachers. At the turn of the century, nearly 80% of all teachers were women. Despite their growing majority, inequality was the standard, and deference to male authority was the expectation. Women earned significantly less money than their male counterparts and were rarely offered the better-paying administrative or high school teaching jobs. They also were subject to rigid gender-based codes of conduct. Societal and internalized assumptions about gender and race also complicated efforts to counter these inequities. Supplemented by the experiences of Illinois teachers from the mid-nineteenth century to the Great Depression, we’ll examine the erratic journey from compliant schoolmarms to professional educators and activists.

Tina Stewart Brakebill is a writer and former college history instructor. Her publications include the biographies of two extraordinary "ordinary" women. Her courses focus on how race, class, and gendered assumptions shaped American history. This will be her second class at the Newberry Library.

What to Expect

Format: In Person

Class Capacity: 18

Class Style: Mix of lecture and discussion; participation encouraged

Materials List

Recommended

• Instructor-Distributed Materials

First Reading

• Suggested Readings: This class has no required readings, but in the week before class, the instructor will provide a PDF (via email) with suggested supplemental primary and secondary source materials. We’ll touch on these materials in class (depending on time) but if you’d like to think ahead about how wider societal trends affected both educational systems and the experience of female teachers, then give them a look before class.

A Brief Syllabus

1. The Feminization of Teaching: Future Moms and Schoolmarms
2. Teaching as a Profession and the “Woman Peril”: Chicago Teachers Unite
3. From the “Woman Peril” to the Great Depression: Bloomington Teachers Learn to Stand for Their Rights

Cost and Registration

3 Sessions, $175 ($157.50 for Newberry members, seniors, and students). Learn about becoming a member.

We offer our classes at three different price options: Regular ($175), Community Supported ($160), and Sponsor ($185). Following the models of other institutions, we want to ensure that our classes are accessible to a wider audience while continuing to support our instructors. You may choose the price that best fits your situation when registering through Learning Stream.

To register multiple people for this class, please go through the course calendar in Learning Stream, our registration platform. When you select the course and register, you’ll be prompted to add another registrant.

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Call us at (312) 255-3700 or send us an email at adulteducation@newberry.org.

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