This article will briefly narrate illustrative life stories of some of the 450 men and women who taught in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, between 1919 and 1949 and identify and explain how they employed these options to build occupational pathways. Taken together, these "microbiographies" show patterns in the life trajectories of ordinary people. They…

Progressive education is often examined through the lens of curricular theorists, educational historians, and the experience of practitioners. One perspective, infrequently found in the debate, has been the experiences of students educated under the progressive philosophy. The Southern author, Flannery O'Connor, who attended progressive schools on…

In "The Female Frontier" (1988), Glenda Riley notes that the typical historical account of life on the frontier puts men at the center of the experience. In contrast to a male frontier thesis, Riley posits that women played highly significant, though largely domestic, roles in the settling and development of the frontier, and that "their lives as…

Schools are public entities that reflect the inequalities of communities; inequalities in race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Public schools privilege males through power in leadership positions such as the principalship. This privilege is historically ingrained in the public school structure and invisible to stakeholders. This article…

In this essay, the author provides a critique of sources relevant to the feminization of teaching in the United States from the mid- to late-nineteenth century. Sources covering topics such as the American Civil War, labor market forces, increasing urbanization, educational reform, and regional differences, and how they affected the feminization…

As African American female Professors in the academy representing different socioeconomic backgrounds the authors explore the intersections of race and class in two Kansas City, Missouri schools from 1954-1974. They situate their stories within a brief description of the historical context of Kansas City and its struggle to integrate schools from…

Women pioneers and frontier teachers have been the subject of numerous books and articles. Generally, the portrait has been one of self-sacrifice, dedication to God, family and home, with little or no concern for personal needs or goals. Continuing with a premise that teachers in Indian Territory used religious sanctions and faced greater peril in…

The last few decades in America were marked with perceptible changes in educational and occupational opportunities for women, particularly with the passage of Title IX and a growing consensus towards more egalitarian values in our culture. A pro-male backlash, or recuperative masculinity, emerged in more recent years as an outgrowth of feminist…

Opening in 1837, Wesleyan Female Seminary became by 1855 one of the small number of colleges for women in the United States. The question is to what extent Wesleyan was a true college as that word was understood at the time, along with the wider issue of what constituted a college as the concept became transformed during the nineteenth century. In…

Mary Coombs Greenleaf sought to take her place among the many frontier teachers who preceded her in 1800s. However, her destination--Indian Territory--was distinctive from previous American frontiers in that it was the geographical solution to a long record of Indian eradication policy. Mary Greenleaf was fifty-six years old, having just lost her…

This article traces the history of Native American women clubs from 1899-1955. In its heyday in the early 1900s, the women's club movement attracted about two million participants nationwide. Excluded from higher education at the time, women were moved to create their own opportunities to learn, meeting regularly in small groups to study such…

There is no doubt that women had a role in progressive reform a century ago, despite their lack of vote. However, it may not be so clear what the nature of this reform effort was. This article suggests that women were highly organized in women's clubs that served as a major organ of change in society, and that they had a great impact on education…

In a Cleveland that was one of the most foreign of the country's cities, the Slovenian community struggled with the problem of maintaining its cultural ties while still adopting enough American customs to enable it to take advantage of the opportunities in a democratic, industrialized city. This article attempts to clarify some of the problems of…

The author profiles two nineteenth-century architects of children's minds and children's spaces. More than any other two Americans Henry Barnard and Catharine Beecher defined children's educational spaces--the home and the school--and successfully specified how those spaces were to be organized and furnished, who was to govern those spaces, what…

The name Alcott is familiar and associated with author Louisa May Alcott and Transcendental philosopher/educator Amos Bronson Alcott. Yet the literary world has come to know May Alcott not for the talented artist she was, but as Amy, the spoiled, artistic character in Louisa's novel "Little Women". May Alcott Nieriker is worthy of investigation,…