Single Lady Cousins
All School Teachers and Two Genealogists
Due to the nature of this story, none of those profiled here are direct ancestors. Featured are several cousins, all single women who worked as teachers. Two of them were also amateur genealogists, one of whom was the major genealogist for the families of Andover, Massachusetts.
For the first 200 years of New England, the majority of teachers were young men. This began to change in the early- to mid-1800’s when growing numbers of teachers were women, until the teaching of young children became almost entirely a female occupation. There was a corresponding change in educational culture. The early Puritans were focused on the innate sinfulness of all persons including young children. By the 19th century, there was a developing sense of the role of nurturing in education. This shift in education occurred around the time Horace Mann proposed educational reforms that resulted in schools being universal, free, and not affiliated with religious groups.
One factor in the feminization of the teaching profession was economics. Here is an excerpt from a Littleton, Massachusetts school committee. Basically, women did it better and would work for a pittance.
"God seems to have made woman peculiarly suited to guide and develop the infant mind, and it seems...very poor policy to pay a man 20 or 22 dollars a month, for teaching children the ABCs, when a female could do the work more successfully at one third of the price." -- Littleton School Committee, Littleton, Massachusetts, 1849
Not all women teachers were single women, but many of them seem to have been. Women were drawn to teaching as it was one of the few opportunities for them to establish an independent life. It also provided them an opportunity to participate in the world of ideas and they seemed to relish opportunities to participate in summer workshops.
Abigail Abbott (1816-1892) – 2nd cousin 5 times removed
Abigail was the eighth oldest of ten children of Jeremiah Abbott and Eunice Blanchard. She was born in Wilton, New Hampshire. She worked as a teacher for her whole adult life, first in several communities in New Hampshire but for many years at a private school in Andover, Massachusetts.
Edith M. Abbott (1869-1910) – 4th cousin 3 times removed
Edith was one of the many “double Abbotts” in our extended family tree. She was the only child of John Abbott and Betsey Abbott. John and Betsey were from two separate Abbott lines and so were not related. Her parents were married for 15 years before Edith was born and then her father died when she was seven years old. Edith’s mother remarried to a man 30 years her senior and she had no more children. Edith worked as a teacher in Douglas, Massachusetts and remained living with her mother until her mother died in 1902. After that, Edith lived as a boarder in a small boarding house. The date of her death is not certain but was after 1910.
Charlotte Helen Abbott (1844-1921) – 4th cousin 4 times removed [pictured on the left]
Charlotte Helen was the oldest of three children of Henry Russell Abbott and Lydia Liscombe. She was born and lived her entire life in Andover, Massachusetts. She was a member of the first graduating class of Punchard High School in 1859. She worked as a teacher and a dressmaker. But her real love was the genealogy of the families of Andover. She completed typewritten manuscripts documenting 200 Andover families and these are held in an archive at Memorial Hall Library in Andover and are available online. She wrote a genealogy column for the Andover Townsman for 25 years. Her typewritten family histories contain many anecdotes and reflect her intimate knowledge of the community. Also, note the outfit; she did work as a dressmaker but perhaps she saved her best work for her customers.
Florence Lunde Abbott (1874-1946) – 1st cousin 3 times removed
Florence was the third oldest of five children of William Otis Abbott and Mary Helen Campbell. She was born in Manchester, New Hampshire and lived there her entire life. William Otis Abbott was a younger brother of our ancestor Justin Edwards Abbott who served in the Civil War. In the census record for 1940, Florence was the head of household living with her younger sister Frances. Florence worked as a primary teacher at the Wilson School in Manchester. Frances worked as a secretary.
Emily Tappan Marsh (1885-1976) – 1st cousin 2 times removed
Last, but not least, cousin Emily. Cousin Emily was the younger of two daughters of Franklin Marsh and Mary “Ella” Tappan. Emily was born and reared in Rahway, New Jersey. In 1900, her older sister Lucretia died suddenly at age 16. It is not known how this may have impacted Emily. She did remain living with her parents until their deaths. She continued to live in the family home until her death. She worked as a teacher in the public schools. She was also the keeper of the family genealogy and wrote that she had a very large amount of information on the family that she did not include with what she sent out to us. Alas, that seems to be lost forever.
Sources:
PBS Series. Only a teacher. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/onlyateacher/about.html