Women became increasingly associated with teaching in the mid-nineteenth century in the United States, but it is a mistake to point to this moment as the beginning of the "feminization" of teaching in America. The term "feminization" is misleading because it implies a smooth reassignment of teaching from the male "sphere" to the female "sphere." The gendering of teaching, however, was both contested and variable in this time period. This variability becomes particularly apparent when we look at individual women's choices to teach. Using a microhistorical approach, this dissertation examines the journals and letters of individual women in the attempt to appreciate the reasons why they specifically chose teaching over their other, admittedly limited options.

The women featured here chose teaching for a variety of reasons that fall along a spectrum between the "virtuous" sense of civic duty and the "selfish" desire to maintain their financial independence. If "virtue," defined here as a sense of civic duty, was associated with the female "sphere," then women who felt "called" to teach out of this sense of civic duty or mission were fulfilling their prescribed gender roles and teaching could be considered a feminine vocation. On the other hand, if women chose to teach out of their more mercenary desires to earn money, then teaching could be considered to have remained a masculine occupation. The women featured in this dissertation, however, taught for both reasons—sometimes simultaneously teaching to help others and themselves. Although this is merely one aspect of gendered definitions, the variability of the gendering of teaching problematizes the concept of "separate spheres" and demonstrates that gender must be seen as an unstable process rather than a set of immutable categories.