Education Takes a Front Row Seat

The Western frontier towns were badly lacking in education by failing to provide public education.  As late as the 1870s and 80s, only 40% of eligible students attended school in Oregon for instance, because the cost of $5 was just too much for most frontier families.

Teaching was viewed as the natural extension of mother hood and a highly respectable job for a pioneer woman.  Roughly 1/4 of all women had taught at some point in their lives, so when schools began on the frontier they were staffed by women.   The curriculum was English, Plain and Fancy Needlework, Painting and Drawing - the same subjects women themselves had been taught.

Women were paid 1/2 of what a man demanded and as the community matured men seldom were found in the teaching profession, yet education remained the key to civilization on the frontier.

Next time...The Life of a Teacher