Member Login | My Account | Guest Registry

Getting Started | Learning Center | Reference | Publications | Articles & Columns

Shaking Your Family Tree

June 4, 1998
The advice to "Go west, young man'' -- often attributed to Hoarce Greeley, but which actually first appeared in an editorial by John L. Soule in the Terre Haute Express in 1851 -- was also heeded by a virtually unnoticed group of women. Nearly 600 single women from northern New England and upper New York state, sponsored by the National Board of Popular Education, participated in the westward migration in the decade following 1846. It is estimated that probably close to a thousand single women teachers journeyed from the East to teach in the West and South before the Civil War. Even earlier, in the 1830s, 88 teachers from Zilpah Grant's Female Seminary in Ipswich, Mass., answered the call to start schools in the West and South. Grant established an association in 1835 to lend money to teachers who wish to train at Ipswich for teaching positions in the West. Her plan, combining specific training and financial aid with placement in the West, is said to have been a model for the National Board's program a decade later. It is not unusual for a genealogist to discover an ancestor who was a teacher "out West.'' Of course, "out West'' might have been Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, or Missouri in the early 19th century. Although the women sent by the National Board each pledged to teach for only two years in the West, a search revealing the subsequent lives of nearly 40 percent of the teachers shows that two-thirds of them made a permanent transition from East to West. A majority made homes in growing towns from Indiana west to the border of the Nebraska Territory, and a few became pioneer settlers of Oregon and California. Nearly 80 percent of the women teachers who have been traced married and became pioneer settlers. Those who remained single either continued to teach or worked in the developing social-service professions. Several of these pioneer teachers responded to the call to teach the newly freed men, women, and children in the South in the 1860s. The picture painted of the schoolmarm from the East -- moral, self-sacrificing, discreet, dedicated to the welfare of children, capable of bringing out the best in men, and unconcerned with personal goals or needs -- is, of course, a stereotype. Letters, reminiscences and a diary of a group of women teachers who traveled to teach on the western frontiers before the Civil War are extant, and these documents tell remarkable stories. Manuscripts pertaining to nearly 200 such women survive and are the basis of an engaging book called Women Teachers on the Frontier, by Polly Welts Kaufman. Published by Yale University Press in 1984, the book is one of those treasures family historians love to find. It is nicely illustrated with portraits of several of the teachers and includes maps and pictures of old schoolhouses. There also are lists of the women, when and where born, places they taught, names of their husbands, and when and where they died. Mainly, however, it is their letters and the diaries that fascinate. Frontier Press Bookstore, (800) 772-7559 (http://www.doit.com/frontier) had a few copies ($16) of this book at a recent national genealogical conference. However, you may be able to find copies at your local library or via Interlibrary Loan. (c) 1998, Los Angeles Times Syndicate Myra Vanderpool Gormley and Julie Case are co-editors of Missing Links, a free weekly genealogy e-zine. To subscribe, send your request to: Missing Links Newsletter Return to Myra Vanderpool Gormley Main Page Return to Columns Main Page
Copyright 1998, 1999, Ancestry.com Inc. and its subsidiaries. Terms and Conditions | Privacy Statement