Research Catalog
Schoolwomen of the prairies and plains : personal narratives from Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, 1860s-1920s
- Title
- Schoolwomen of the prairies and plains : personal narratives from Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, 1860s-1920s / Mary Hurlbut Cordier.
- Author
- Cordier, Mary Hurlbut, 1930-
- Publication
- Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, [1992]
Items in the Library & Off-site
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1 Item
| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book/Text | Use in library | LB2837 .C66 1992 | Off-site |
Details
- Description
- xi, 365 pages : illustrations; 24 cm
- Summary
- Soon after the open spaces of Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa were settled in the mid 1800s by immigrants from the eastern United States and Europe, county schools were established in the region. By the 1890s these states boasted the highest rates of literacy in the United States. This study examines the women teachers who were responsible for educating the prairie children. This lively book draws on diaries, journals, letters, oral histories, and numerous period photographs to illuminate the schoolwomen's lives. In large part they were natives of the region, often teenaged girls away from home for the first time. They taught under difficult circumstances and struggled to meet their students' needs. They also used all the means at their disposal - summer institutes, normal schools, and even reading programs by mail - to upgrade their own educational credentials. Part One of the book examines the establishment of schools, teacher education, and working and living conditions. Part Two offers the narratives of five women's lives, from short-term teachers to career professionals. Their accounts provide an important addition to the professional heritage of women teachers.
- Subject
- 1800-1899
- Women teachers > Middle West > Social conditions
- Education > Middle West > History > 19th century
- Women teachers > Iowa > Biography
- Women teachers > Kansas > Biography
- Women teachers > Nebraska > Biography
- Education
- Women teachers
- Women teachers > Social conditions
- Erlebnisbericht
- Lehrerin
- Women teachers > Social conditions
- Iowa
- Middle West
- Nebraska
- Mittlerer Westen
- Genre/Form
- collective biographies.
- Biographies
- History
- Biographies.
- Note
- With some primary material by Nancy Rebecca Higgins Gaddis, Missouri, 1862-1942 and others.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (p.341-354) and index.
- Contents
- Part I: The educational and historical setting: The schoolwomen of the prairies and plains, 1860s-1920s ; Educating the schoolwomen of the heartland ; The social and physical landscape of the schoolwomen's living conditions ; Teaching and learning in the schools of the prairies and plains -- Part II: Seeing the context, hearing the voice, introduction to five lives: "A sense of unity," Nancy Rebecca Higgins Gaddis, Missouri, 1862-1875; Nebraska, 1875-1942 ; "Greater usefulness in my calling," Sarah Jane Price, Ohio, 1841-1843; Indiana, 1843-1874; Iowa, 1874-1876; Nebraska, 1876-1920 ; "To be a teacher," Sarah Gillespie Huftalen, Iowa, 1885-1955 ; "Attaining my lifelong ambition," Bessie M. Tucker Gilmer, Nebraska, 1898-1992 ; "Teachers are leaders," Ethel Hale Russel, Nebraska, 1895-1916; Idaho, 1916-1917; Utah, 1917-1919; Iowa, 1919-1922; and Michigan, 1922- -- Epilogue: "They left their mark" -- Abbreviations.
- ISBN
- 0826313841
- 9780826313843
- LCCN
- 92000493
- OCLC
- ocm25786967
- 25786967
- SCSB-1964111
- Owning Institutions
- Princeton University Library