“Lady Teachers” and the Genteel Roots of Teacher Organization in Gilded Age Cities

Abstract

May the work of the L.T.A. go on ever upward and onward-gaining ground year by year; so that in future it will have its voice in the community, not low & sweet-but clear and resonant showing power and strength; may it gain that strength by increased membership, held together by strong bonds of love.Let us then be up and doing,With a heart for any fate;Still achieving, still pursuingLearn to labor and to wait.1Miss Ophelia S. Newell believed that teachers occupied a public office of unappreciated responsibility. As the secretary of the Lady Teachers' Association (LTA) in Boston, she penned these hopeful remarks as a coda to her 1875 annual report, borrowing the last stanza of a popular Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem. For Newell and her fellow teachers, “learn to labor and to wait” underscored their steadfast commitment to the schools. They founded the association attempting to bring women teachers “nearer together in sympathy and friendship and also for a mutual benefit in debate and parliamentary rules.” Frustrated with being “accused of a lack of enthusiasm in our profession,” they hoped such criticism could “be remedied by an organization of this kind.” Honing their debating skills represented one of the women's objectives, but they aspired to do more than polish their chances for professional advancement.