The study of teachers may well be a lens for fusing history of education's disparate perspectives, for teachers stand at the intersection of several of historiography's most dynamic currents. Teachers can be categorized as women, workers, professionals, citizens, and conveyers of values and ideas. Yet, until quite recently, teachers and their lives were absent from the writing of historians. This paper examines how and why several different waves of educational historiography have ignored the history of teachers. Ultimately, teachers as a subject of historical investigation were discovered at the crossroads of labor and women's history, but not before both perspectives were well established. Teacher unionism and teachers as a subject of feminist scholarship are discussed. Forty bibliographical references are included. (IAH)