Early Arizona Women
Teachers
Kelly Mines
At the end of the nineteenth century,
Arizona was not a state, merely a territory, with a fledgling government
and an even more rudimentary school system. Great distances separated people
and often the eight children required to start a school and hire a teacher
could not be gathered in an area. When they could, however, the teacher
was often in for a surprise. Holding school in old saloons, carrying water
to the schoolhouse every day, having to use turned over barrels for desks,
and being the sole caretaker of the schoolhouse were just a few of the
hardships faced by teachers. For women teachers, there were still more:
being paid less than male teachers, even though they were the majority,
being unable to keep her job if she married, and not being able to attain
higher positions such as superintendent or principal. Despite these conditions,
women actively and ably pursued careers in teaching, and often went beyond
the call of duty for their students and their community. By facing many
obstacles and overcoming them, the early women teachers of Arizona greatly
improved the status of Arizona schools and that of women everywhere.
In this period, the lot of teachers
was a much more expanded role in the community than that of present-day
teachers. Many teachers had to become translators when faced with the problem
of teaching children who knew little or no English. In the book, Portrait
of a Teacher: Mary Elizabeth Post and Something of the Times in Which She
Lived, Ruth Leedy Gordon explains that Mary Elizabeth Post, an early
schoolteacher in Yuma,learned Spanish simply to communicate with her students
(10). She also wrote recipes for her pupils’ mothers in Spanish and went
to their homes to show them how to cook new dishes (76). In their collection
of stories from the pioneer days in Arizona, Dust in Our Desks: Territory
Days to the Present in Arizona Schools, Alleen Pace, Margaret Ferry
and L.J. Evans recorded that in an Arizona town called Morenci, teachers
taught night classes for those who wanted to learn English, as well as
those who wanted to learn Spanish (29). The language barrier created a
lot more work for Arizona teachers, work that was not written in their
contracts, but they took on the task of learning another language and teaching
English to others without complaint.
There are many more examples
of early women teachers going beyond the limits of their job description
for the good of their students. For example, Sarah Marley, principal of
the Seventh Street School in Douglas during the Great Depression, would
cook soup every day for the school children, most of whom didn’t get breakfast
at home (Nilsen 56). Another example is Miss Neenah Johnson, who was remembered
by the famous Arizona writer and historian Sharlot Hall for convincing
her “anti-intellectual” father to allow her to have further education (Nilsen
20). Sharlot may not have become a great writer if it were not for a teacher
who, like so many others, cared about her pupils’ welfare outside of the
classroom as well as in.
Despite their tireless efforts
both in the classroom as well as out, women Arizona teachers were paid
less than male teachers, although the majority of teachers were female.
Though women fought for equal pay, it was a long time before they were
acknowledged. In 1900, male teachers received $81 a month while females
received $65. By the 1911-12 school year, men received $118 a month, and
women $82. In response to the women’s repeated requests for equal pay,
men’s pay dropped the following year, rather than women’s pay increasing.
However, by the 1919-20 school year, men’s pay was up to $165, while women’s
was only $119, despite the fact that there were 120 male teachers and 757
female teachers in Arizona (Nilsen 23).
Even as women began infiltrating
the higher ranks of the school system, they were still discriminated against
in salaries. An example of this is Bessie Kidd Best; who became Superintendent
of Schools for Coconino county in 1929. In Unbeatable Bessie: a Biography
of Bessie Kidd Best, Elinor Clemons Kyte states:
... when Bessie took office, her salary was $2,400 per year, and the Flagstaff
Superintendent of Schools was paid exactly double that amount. This was
a
standard figure for county superintendents’ salaries. Statewide in this
biennium, thirty-one male grade school superintendents and high school
principals
averaged $4,691. A lone woman in the same category earned $3,100. (67)
The belief system which perpetuated
this inequality in pay is the same one which kept married female teachers
from teaching in Arizona’s public schools: men were the sole breadwinners
of the family. Therefore, they were paid what was called the “living wage”,
enough to “take care of” their wives and families without any help from
the wife. For this reason, men had to be paid more, because it was assumed
that they had more responsibilities. When running for office, Bessie defined
herself as “widowed” rather than “divorced” because, “To be a widow suggested
that a woman must support herself and any children (as was Bessie’s case)
and it was easier to explain than divorced status, which was at this time
rather uncommon and generally frowned upon” (Kyte 97). This quote explains
that, unless a woman was a widow, or unmarried and supporting herself,
she was not to be in the workforce, because her husband would provide for
her.
This was not just an unspoken rule of conduct;
it was a law in Arizona. In her book, Ranch Schoolteacher, Eulalia
Bourne recalls the superintendent of Helvetia school in Tucson, where she
taught: “His regulations, handed down ex cathedra, were unassailable. Consider
his rule about the celibacy of women teachers. It was written into the
contracts. A girl got married, she got fired” (136). A woman’s gender could
not only influence her pay, but also her choices in life. However, there
was an alternative for those married women who still wanted to teach: travel
long distances in order to teach at rural schools. Lynda Dorsett remembers
that her grandmother, Nellie Raye Martin Sirrine, did just that:
She and my grandfather had a farm at Horne and McKillip in Mesa. Since
married women were not allowed to teach in the city schools, around 1918
she
commuted to work in Sacaton. Every Monday morning she would hitch two horses
to the family buggy, tuck her two younger children in, kiss her
eight-year-old and ten-year-old sons and her husband goodbye, and head
south for twenty miles, arriving in time to open Monday morning school.
(Nilsen 46).
This is a perfect example of the “lengths” to which women
Arizona teachers went to help others learn. Women teachers had many difficult
obstacles such as this one to overcome, and they did it not with complaint,
but with quiet perseverance and hard work. It was not until the 1933-34
school-year, when all of Arizona was experiencing a dearth of teachers,
that married women were finally allowed to teach (Kyte, 126).
Although their pay was still less
than that of men, as more and more teachers received higher education,
they did start holding higher offices. Many early teachers had no qualifications.
Eulalia Bourne stated as much in her book, Ranch Schoolteacher:
“At that time almost anybody who could read could become a teacher” (16).
However, as the doors of universities opened to women, teachers eagerly
attended college and earned degrees in teaching. When the superintendent
of Douglas died on an expedition into the Sonoran desert, Mrs. Anna Dyer
took his place as well as principal, thus becoming the first woman to hold
this position. She had also been the principal of Bisbee until she was
replaced by a man because the Bisbee School Board felt it was unacceptable
for a woman to be principal (Nilsen 41). Loise Bohringer, who received
her Bachelor of Science Degree in Teaching from Columbia University in
1911 and moved to Yuma, was later elected County School Superintendent
for Yuma. She was the first woman to hold public office in Arizona (Nilsen
37).
Mary Elizabeth Post, who was
one of Arizona’s first formally educated teachers, held the position of
principal of the Yuma school. She helped fight for gender equality by backing
female office-holders in Yuma, like Fanny Reese Pugh. When people in the
community objected to Fanny Pugh, being secretary of the Yuma Chamber of
Commerce, Miss Post firmly stood up for her. According to Gordon, “She
[Fanny Reese Pugh] was entirely capable of holding her own in any argument
over sex equality and was firmly backed by Miss Post, who could easily
offset the opposition as far as votes were concerned…” (Gordon 120). In
another instance, Miss Post made it her patriotic duty to haul every single
woman to the Yuma schoolhouse in a mudwagon so that they could vote in
the town’s elections. Miss Post wanted to make sure that the results of
the election did not turn Yuma into a “man’s town” by having all male officials.
So Miss Post brought the women, most of who did not know that they could
vote, in droves to vote for female candidates. “To these women, it was
the most perfectly natural thing in the world that this person who had
been teaching Americanism in many forms should take them to the polls for
the first time” (99). Miss Post is just one example of how women teachers
went beyond the walls of the schoolroom to advance the cause of women everywhere.
Although women teachers fought hard
to attain higher positions, the battle was not over when they got there.
In many ways, it was just beginning, as they learned that dealing with
the men in similar offices was often difficult and unproductive. For Bessie
Kidd Best, it was the Coconino County Board of Supervisors that often gave
her trouble. When it came to asking them for an increase in funds for the
schools, new equipment, or even a raise for her assistant, they were continually
uncooperative. Bessie often had to search through law books to find bylaws
and such which would force them to work with her. Once, after the county
budget for the Coconino school district had been finalized, one of the
supervisors and a Santa Fe tax agent wanted to cut the school budget. However,
Bessie argued that, according to Arizona law, once the budget is adopted,
it could not be changed. After a private meeting in the corner, the two
admitted, “I guess we can’t do that. She’s right…But no one ever questioned
us when we did this before” (Kyte 68). Although they sometimes had to get
creative, Arizona women teachers did what it took to get the job done,
and by doing so, they made the school system better.
Once in office, Arizona women teachers helped improve
the quality and number of Arizona’s schools, its teachers, and its students.
In 1920, Elsie Toles became the first woman to be elected Superintendent
of Public Instruction for the state. She is responsible for standardizing
and raising the requirements for teaching certification in Arizona, placing
county teacher institutes under direction of state office, and increasing
financial support of schools (Nilsen 47). Teacher Sarah Folsom, who served
as State Superintendent of Public Instruction from 1964-69, is responsible
for laying the groundwork which made kindergartens mandatory (Nilsen 114).
As Coconino County Superintendent, Bessie Kidd Best was elemental in the
formation of a library system for the public schools (Kyte 96). These are
just a few of Arizona’s women teachers who overcame the obstacles of their
position, as well as their gender, to make lasting, positive changes in
Arizona’s school system.
The teachers, pupils and women of Arizona today have
been greatly helped by the hardships which Arizona’s early women teachers
endured for their sake. By overcoming the obstacles of their harsh frontier
life, their gender, and their own education, they blazed a trail for future
women teachers to follow. Their hard work and perseverance laid groundwork
for other teachers to build on. In addition, the dedication of early Arizona
women teachers to their students and their community helped increase the
quality of life for both students and townspeople immeasurably. For all
their efforts in the face of adversity, they deserve the praise of Arizonians
and women everywhere.
Sources:
Bourne, Eulalia. Ranch Schoolteacher. Tucson:
U of Arizona Press, 1974.
Gordon, Ruth Leedy. Portrait of a Teacher: Mary Elizabeth
Post and Something of the Times in Which She Lived. Ed.
JanetGordon-Roach.
n.p.: Janet Gordon-Roach, David G. Gordon, and James H. Gordon, Jr., 1990.
Kyle, Elinor Clemons. Unbeatable Bessie: a Biography
of Bessie Kidd Best. Huntington, WV: Aegina Press, 1988.
Nilsen, Alleen Pace, Margaret Ferry, and L.J. Evans, eds.
Dust
in Our Desks: Territory Days to the Present in Arizona
SchoolsTempe:Arizona
State University Media Systems, 1985.
email me at: minesk@u.arizona.edu
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