The Backstory: When teaching was tougher than being a nun

It’s never been easy to be a teacher, and yet their value is immeasurable. But imagine a time when teachers couldn’t date, dye their hair, go to a barber shop, or even enjoy a trip to an ice cream shop.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So can you imagine a job where your contract says
you can't date or be married, you can't hang out
at ice cream shops, and you have to bring the
fuel used to heat your own workplace. This episode was
suggested by Lieutenant Colonel Howard Berner, Beautiful Comano Island, Washington.
I'm Patty Steele. The challenges of being a teacher in
the good old days. That's next on the backstory. The

(00:27):
backstory is back. Everybody's back in school now, and we
all know that you really have to hand it to
people who devote their lives to teaching. It's a tough job.
But being a school teacher one hundred or one hundred
and fifty years ago was really no picnic in kind
of a whole different way. Today, the challenge is out
of control kids, but no way to discipline them without

(00:50):
fear of being attacked by parents, the school administration, or
even lawyer should somebody get litigious. But back in the
late eighteen hundreds and the early nineteen hundreds, it was
really intense. Now, first off, teachers in cities had a
huge number of immigrant kids coming in from all over
Europe and parts of Asia. The children spoke all different

(01:12):
languages rarely English, and they had been raised with really
different customs. Now Out in the countryside, rural teachers had
to deal with kids who missed school to help with
the harvest or do farm work, and they had to
figure out a way to make their drafty, one room
schoolhouses function well enough to be able to teach. But

(01:33):
it went further. While teachers were respected, just like today,
they were seriously underpaid. In those days, most teachers were
female because they weren't paid when school was out, and
most men wanted and had access to full time, better
paying jobs. So not only were they not paid well
at all, they also had a ton of responsibilities. The

(01:56):
standard teacher's contract from that time is going to blow
your mind. Here review the items teachers in places like
Comano Island, Washington and Williamson, Illinois, had to agree to
in eighteen seventy eight. It reads like this. Teachers will
fill the lamps with oil and clean the lamp chimney
each day. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water

(02:17):
and a bucket of coal for each day's sessions. Teachers
will make pins carefully for their students, whittling the nibs
the way each student likes. Sorry whittling nibs. What's that
about men? Teachers? And men only may take one evening
each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week

(02:37):
if they regularly go to church. So you go to church,
you can date more than once a week. Women. Teachers
who marry or engage in improper conduct will be fired
after ten hours in school each day, the teacher may
spend the remaining time. How much time do they spend
reading the Bible or other good books? Every teacher should lay,

(02:58):
aside from each day's pace, a goodly sum of earnings
for their retirement years, so they won't be a burden
on society later on. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor,
goes to pool halls, visits ice cream shops what or
gets shaved in a barber shop will be suspected of
bad intentions and dishonesty. How weird is that? And finally

(03:22):
it says the teacher who performs their labor faithfully and
without fault for five years will be given a pay
increase of twenty five cents per week. That's after five years.
Why was the PAESO crummy? Well, education wasn't compulsory and't
have to go to school, nor was it fully supported
by taxes in any state in the Union. Not much

(03:45):
different by nineteen oh five, when a contract in Franklin,
Iowa said, the teacher agrees to do all janitor work
without extra compensation, no holidays allowed. The pay thirty eight
bucks a month, which equals about a one thousand dollars
in today's money. Now, since there was no summer pay,
that would be three hundred and forty two dollars a

(04:06):
year in nineteen oh five, or about nine thousand dollars
a year in today's world. Not exactly a livable wage,
although teachers frequently lived with their parents or with somebody
who offered them room and board on the cheap if
they were from out of town. Then in nineteen fifteen,
the average contract read you will not marry during the

(04:27):
term of your contract. You are not to keep company
with men. You must be home between the hours of
eight pm and six am, unless attending a school function.
And once again, you may not loiter downtown in ice
cream stores. What do they have against ice cream? You
may not travel beyond the city limits without permission. You
may not ride in a carriage or automobile with any

(04:49):
man except your father or brother. You may not smoke cigarettes,
drink alcohol, or visit places where those activities take place.
You may not dress in right colors, and you must
wear at least two petticoats and skirts no more than
two inches above the ankle. You may, under no circumstances
dye your hair. Okay, I'm out on that one now. Finally,

(05:13):
you must sweep the classroom floor at least once a day,
scrub it at least once a week with hot soapy water,
clean the blackboards once a day, and start the fire
in the coal stove at seven am to have the
school warm by eight am. Now, when they had troublesome kids,
how did they discipline them? What was pretty common across
the country for teachers to use corporal punishment. They'd smack

(05:36):
the kids with a switch, cowhide, whip or a ruler
and get this, Sometimes they'd make kids kneel on sharp
objects or stretch out their arms while holding heavy books
and stay like that for as much as an hour
and a half. I'm betting that without dating, hair dye
and ice cream you can get pretty crouchy. So hopefully

(05:57):
they didn't take their frustrations out on the kids right.
What's interesting is that while teachers tended not to be
as well educated in those days, the school work children
were doing by eighth grade, when most ended their schooling
was at an academic level that's almost college level now.
In rural areas, one teacher taught all eight grades. The

(06:18):
kids would study reading, writing, math, history, geography, spelling, grammar
and penmanship, and depending on the school district, that also
study Latin and Greek poetry, art, history, astronomy, and anatomy.
Now here's the question. There was a whole lot of
discipline going on back then, not just for the kids,
but the teachers as well. Was that a good thing?

(06:40):
Do we need more of that now? Or did that
straight laced approach keep everyone, children and adults so constrained
and fearful that they couldn't make school a place of
joy and passionate discovery. I'd like to thank Lieutenant Colonel

(07:00):
Howard Berner of Comado Island, Washington for suggesting this fascinating story.
I hope you're enjoying the backstory with Patty Steele. Follow
or subscribe for free to get new episodes delivered automatically,
and feel free to DM me if you have a
story you'd like me to cover, as Lieutenant Colonel Berner did.
On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele.

(07:25):
I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia,
Premier Networks, the Elvis Durant Group, and Steel Trap Productions.
Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We
have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to
reach out to me with comments and even story suggestions
on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at

(07:47):
Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele.
The pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.