Revitalising teachers’ bodies: prescriptions for rest and teachers’ summer activities in the United States, 1880s–1930s

Abstract

Histories of teachers’ experiences in the United States between the 1880s and the 1930s argue that teaching restrained and often debilitated teachers’ bodies. The emerging theory of constraint is limited, however, because the historiography of American teachers focuses for the most part only on the months when school was in session. This examination of publications in which education leaders discussed how teachers should spend their summers and teachers’ memoirs, diaries, and letters, reveals a full quarter of the year during which the focus was on the rejuvenation of teachers’ bodies. As administrative efforts to control teachers’ bodies extended into the summer months, leaders expressed their concern by prescribing rest. The meaning of “rest”, however, soon evolved into reinvigoration through breathing fresh air and physical activity. Full of vitality, teachers’ own accounts reveal how their summer activities released them from the restraints of teaching. Rural teachers engaged in agricultural work and other outdoor activities, and urban teachers communed with nature and exercised in the open air. These activities had important gender ramifications: they allowed women to challenge boundaries by demonstrating the robustness of a “new woman” and men to reinforce boundaries by demonstrating rugged masculinity. In both cases, teachers used the summer months to revitalise bodies worn down by the physical restrictions of teaching, as administrators directed.

Keywords:

• United States teachers
• summer
• teachers’ summer activities
• teachers’ bodies

Notes

¹ See David Tyack, The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974); David Tyack and Elisabeth Hansot, Managers of Virtue: Public School Leadership in America, 1820–1980 (New York: Basic Books, 1982); Kathleen Weiler, Country Schoolwomen: Teaching in Rural California, 1850–1950 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998); Nancy Hoffman, Woman’s “True” Profession: Voices from the History of Teaching, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2003), 16; Kate Rousmaniere, City Teachers: Teaching and School Reform in Historical Perspective (New York: Teachers College Press, 1997); Jackie M. Blount, Fit to Teach: Same-Sex Desire, Gender, and School Work in the Twentieth Century (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2005); Geraldine J. Clifford, Those Good Gertrudes: A Social History of Women Teachers in America (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014); Victoria-Maria MacDonald, “The Paradox of Bureaucratization: New Views on Progressive Era Teachers and the Development of a Woman’s Profession,” History of Education Quarterly 39, no. 4 (Winter 1999): 427–53; Shaun Johnson, “The Woman Peril and Male Teachers in the Early Twentieth Century,” American Educational History Journal 35, no. 1 (2008): 146–67, 163. On male teachers, see also Geraldine Joncich Clifford, “Man/Woman/Teacher: Gender, Family, and Career in American Educational History,” in American Teachers: Histories of a Profession at Work, ed. Donald Warren (New York: Macmillan, 1989), 293–343.

² Addams quoted in Tyack, The One Best System, 259; Rousmaniere, City Teachers, chap. 4; Ruth Jacknow Markowitz, My Daughter, the Teacher: Jewish Teachers in the New York City Schools (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993), chap. 6; Kate Rousmaniere, “Those Who Can’t, Teach: The Disabling History of American Educators,” History of Education Quarterly 53, no. 1 (February 2013): 90–103; Jonna Perrillo, “Beyond ‘Progressive’ Reform: Bodies, Discipline, and the Construction of the Professional Teacher in Interwar America,” History of Education Quarterly 44, no. 3 (Fall 2004): 337–63, 342.

³ Kenneth M. Gold, School’s In: The History of Summer Education in American Public Schools (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), chap. 3.

⁴ Daniel T. Rogers, The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 1850–1920 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1974/1978), chap. 4, quotation on 96; Cindy S. Aron, Working At Play: A History of Vacations in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 33–40; David Strauss, “Toward a Consumer Culture: ‘Adirondack Murray’ and the Wilderness Vacation,” American Quarterly 39, no. 2 (Summer 1987): 277. On health concerns, see also Martha H. Verburgge, Able-Bodied Womanhood: Personal Health and Social Change in Nineteenth-Century Boston (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).

⁵ Gold, School’s In, 97, 98.

⁶ In 1900, 74% of teachers throughout the United States were women. The percentage was highest (85%) in the Northeast and lowest (67%) in the South. John L. Rury, “Who Became Teachers? The Social Characteristics of Teachers in American History,” in Warren, ed., American Teachers, 25. While Clifford stresses that “Between 1620 and 1945 far more American wives (including mothers) taught school … than generally recognized”, she also acknowledges that as late as 1930, 80% of women teachers in the US were single. Clifford, Those Good Gertrudes, 124, 126.

⁷ Strauss, “Toward a Consumer Culture”.

⁸ On conceptions of women’s frailty and the rise of outdoor exercise in the interest of health, see Verburgge, Able-Bodied Womanhood. On the new woman and the Gibson girl, see Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989/1997), 147. On masculinity, see Michael S. Kimmel, Manhood in America: A Cultural History, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), part 2.

⁹ William A. Mowry, Recollections of a New England Educator, 1838–1908 (New York: Silver, Burdett and Company, 1908), 237; “The National Educational Association,” The Iowa Normal Monthly (hereafter INM) 13, no. 11 (June–July 1890): 445. On the middle classes and vacationing, see Rogers, The Work Ethic, chap. 4; Aron, Working At Play.

¹⁰ At the turn of the twentieth century, the majority of teachers hailed from lower- or lower-middle-class, often rural, backgrounds. Rury, “Who Became Teachers?,” 29. For a discussion of the relationship between teachers’ class status and their summer activities, see Christine A. Ogren, “Out-of-Class Project: American Teachers’ Summertime Activities, 1880s–1930s,” History of Education Quarterly 56, no. 1 (February 2016): 8–35.

¹¹ W.F. Barr, “The Summer School,” INM 20, no. 10 (May 1897): 421; James Lawrey, “The Summer School,” INM 20, nos 11–12 (June–July 1897): 450; Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the National Education Association (National Education Association, 1907–22); The Journal of the National Education Association (hereafter JNEA) 12–23 (1923–34); “The Summer Vacation,” JNEA 10, no. 6 (June 1921): 108.

¹² See, for example, The Intelligence 21, no. 5 (March 1, 1901); 21, no. 9 (May 1, 1901); 21, no. 10 (May 15, 1901); 22, no. 9 (May 1, 1902); 22, no. 10 (May 15, 1902); 23, no. 8 (April 15, 1903); quotations from 20, no. 13 (September 1, 1900): 493; 23, no. 10 (May 15, 1903): 369; Hammond plan quoted in W.C. Ruediger, “Baiting Teachers,” School and Society 17 (March 24, 1923): 331. On Hammond and similar plans, see also Lucy N. Brickhouse, “Leaves of Absence for Study and Travel,” The Fourth Yearbook of the Department of Classroom Teachers (Washington, DC: National Education Association, 1923), 140. On teachers and travel, see Robert Gough, “What I Did on my Summer Vacation: The Significance of Tourism for American Teachers, 1919–1940,” Journal of Tourism History 3, no. 3 (November 2011): 267–87. On tourism and social class, see Marguerite S. Shaffer, See America First: Tourism and National Identity, 1880–1940 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001). By the early twentieth century, middle-class African Americans – presumably including teachers – found ways to travel both in the US and internationally. See Mark S. Foster, “In the Face of ‘Jim Crow’: Prosperous Blacks and Vacations, Travel and Outdoor Leisure, 1890–1945,” The Journal of Negro History 84, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 130–49.

¹³ “What Shall We Do with the Long Vacation?” INM 1, no. 12 (July 1878): 360–1; H.W. Compton, “Open Letters: The Teacher’s Vacation,” The Century: A Popular Quarterly 36, no. 4 (August 1888): 636; Elizabeth K. Matthews, “Vacation,” INM 20, no. 1 (August 1896): 14; Lawrey, “The Summer School,” 451; Mae Traller, “Spring Fever,” JNEA 15, no. 6 (June 1926): 168. On the role of the wilderness in middle-class vacationing, see Strauss, “Toward a Consumer Culture,” 272, 275; Aron, Working At Play, 156.

¹⁴ “Country Retreat for Teachers,” INM 22, no. 5 (December 1898): 190–3; “Recreation for Teachers,” The American School Board Journal 21, no. 2 (August 1900): n.p. (last page); “Rest Farm for Teachers,” INM 31, nos 11–12 (June–July 1908): 597–8.

¹⁵ Strauss, “Toward a Consumer Culture,” 277–8; Aron, Working At Play, 177.

¹⁶ “Chautauqua and the Teachers,” The Chautauquan Weekly 1, no. 43 (June 20, 1907): 1, Oliver Archives Center, Chautauqua, NY; “A Happy Vacation,” INM 34, nos 11–12 (June–July 1911): 482–3.

¹⁷ Henry S. Curtis, Recreation for Teachers, or The Teacher’s Leisure Time (New York: Macmillan, 1918), ix, 4, 55, 184, 185, 186; Blanche Howell, “Creative Resting,” High Points in the Work of the High Schools of New York City 14, no. 7 (September 1932): 42–3.

¹⁸ Mowry, Recollections of a New England Educator, 238, 237; “The Chautauqua Institution,” The Intelligence 21, no. 5 (March 1, 1901): 197; The Intelligence 23, no. 8 (April 15, 1903): 315; Midland Schools 35, no. 7 (March 1921): 236; 20, no. 4 (December 1905), 157; Margaret M. Alltucker, “Adding Refreshment to Our Pails,” JNEA 14, no. 3 (March 1925): 79.

¹⁹ Editorial, The Maryland School Journal 6, no. 10 (June 1880): 394; F.B. Gault, “Greeting from Colorado to Iowa Teachers,” INM 12, no. 10 (May 1888): 403; Julia A. Shourek, “The Wonderland of Washington,” JNEA 16, no. 6 (June 1927): 183–4; “Trails of the High Sierras,” JNEA 20, no. 5 (May 1931): 157; “The Joys of the Open Road,” JNEA 21, no. 5 (May 1932): 168.

²⁰ The Intelligence 22, no. 9 (May 1, 1902): 356; Midland Schools 10, no. 7 (March 1896): 247; JNEA 17, no. 1 (January 1928): A-21; W.E. Watt, “Touring in Europe,” The Intelligence 21, no. 9 (May 1, 1901): 353–4; “Yellowstone Park Waterfalls,” INM 20, no. 3 (October 1896): 116; James D. Landsdowne, “Yellowstone National Park,” JNEA 16, no. 5 (May 1927): 145; Stephen T. Mather, “Glimpses of the National Parks,” JNEA 12, no. 3 (March 1923): 85–9, 89.

²¹ National Education Association, Report of the Committee on Teachers’ Salaries and Cost of Living (Ann Arbor, MI: National Education Association, 1913), 240.

²² For a detailed discussion of teachers’ summer activities beyond “rest”, see Ogren, “Out-of-Class Project”.

²³ Philip Gerber, ed., Bachelor Bess: The Homesteading Letters of Elizabeth Corey, 1909–1919 (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1990), 134–5; Ruby M. Dresselhouse Diary, August 7–13, 1928, Special Collections, Monroe C. Gutman Library, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA; Gertrude Black La Due Diaries, June 22–July 31, 1901, June 3–August 29, 1902, June 2–July 23, 1903, Gertrude Black La Due and Family Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St Paul, MN.

²⁴ Gerber, ed., Bachelor Bess, 193, 358.

²⁵ Gertrude Black La Due Diaries, April 13, 1904, May 2, 1904, May 17, 1904; Ruby M. Dresselhouse Diary, August 9, 1928, August 10, 1928, August 13, 1928; Gerber, ed., Bachelor Bess, 147, 356.

²⁶ B.H. Meyer Papers, June 5, 1886, July 4, 1886, August 24, 1886, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, Madison, WI; Willard E. Givens, biographical data and transcript of interview with Paul Hopper, 1968, Office of the Executive Secretary, Box 614, Records of the National Education Association, Special Collections Research Center, Gelman Library, The George Washington University, Washington, DC; NEA, Report, 94.

²⁷ NEA, Report, 240; Barbara Schatte to John Nolen, May 31, 1894, June 12, 1894; John Nolen to Barbara Schatte, August 20, 1894, September 20, 1894, May 30, 1895, July 20, 1894, Nolen Family Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. John Nolen would go on to become a distinguished and well-known landscape architect and city planner.

²⁸ Schatte to Nolen, July 9–18, 1894, August 4, 1894; Nolen to Schatte, August 6, 1894; Schatte to Nolen, August 12, 1894, August 26, 1894, Nolen Family Papers.

²⁹ Lillian Herrick Chapman Diaries, 1898–1904, quotations from June 20, 1899, July 25, 1899, August 6, 1899, August 17, 1899, August 15, 1901, Papers of the Herrick-Chapman Family, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

³⁰ Lillian Herrick Chapman Diaries, 1898–1904, quotations from July 4, 1900, July 20, 1900, July 29, 1900, August 27, 1900, July 5, 1901, July 23, 1901, July 3, 1902, July 25, 1902, Papers of the Herrick-Chapman Family.

³¹ Margaret Ann Cruikshank, “Notes on the Yellowstone Park” (1883), Visitors, Vertical File Collection, Yellowstone National Park Research Library, Gardiner, MT; Margaret Ann Cruikshank, ed. Lee H. Whittlesay, “A Lady’s Trip to Yellowstone, 1883,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 39 (Winter 1989): 2–15; Margarete Bohle to family, May 30, 1935, June 12, 1935, June 20, 1935, August 11, 1940, Box 1, Margarete Bohle Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, WI.

³² Beatrice E. Cramer Memoir and Diary, Box 1, Special Collections, Monroe C. Gutman Library, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA.

³³ Paul H. Hanus, Adventuring in Education (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1937), 71–7.

³⁴ Anna Mills Johnston, “A Trip to Mt. Whitney in 1878,” Mt. Whitney Club Journal 1, no. 1 (May 1902): 18; Fay Fuller, “A Trip to the Summit,” Every Sunday, August 23, 1890, reprinted in Island in the Sky: Pioneering Accounts of Mount Rainier, 1833–1894 (Seattle: The Mountaineers, 1987), 137; Helen M. Gompertz, “A Tramp to Mt. Lyell,” Sierra Club Bulletin 1 (May 1894): 140; Polly Welts Kaufman, National Parks and the Woman’s Voice: A History (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press), 15, 20–2; Weiler, Country Schoolwomen, 132.