Back to School--in the 1840s and 1850s

As students and teachers hesitantly return to school, in person and online, I’ve been thinking about my favorite 19th-century teacher, Julia Wilbur.

She taught for 14 years in and around Rochester, NY, mostly in public schools. Several times she tried to set up her own “select” (i.e., private) schools. She was not one of those born teachers, eager to reach young minds, but she did have glimmers of hope when she felt she had connected with some of her students. She recognized that teaching was one of the only avenues open to her as an occupation, although she spoke out against wage inequality.

Becoming a Teacher

The 50 years of Julia Wilbur’s diary begin on May 1, 1844, when she goes to the Reynolds Arcade in downtown Rochester to qualify as a teacher:

Reynolds Arcade, 1851, where Julia Wilbur faced her inquisitors 7 years earlier.

The morning gloriously bright. The air soft & delicious, loaded with the fragrance of a thousand blooming orchards, which the genial atmosphere of an early spring has decked with uncommon beauty, but not withstanding nature is so lovely, I could not half appreciate its beauties for owing to peculiar circumstances I passed them almost unheeded. My mind perplexed, dreading I know not what. I could not enjoy the morning for at 8 o’clock A.M. I was on my way to the Arcade with the intention of presenting myself before the board of Education of the City of R. which board consists of some half-dozen members, three of whom were assembled in the Office of the Superintendent. Well those gentlemen (Mr M.S.C & Dr. F) after satisfying themselves that I had really seen the inside of various treatises on various subjects & having ascertained that I did know how many letters there are in the Alphabet, that I did not know that E has the sound of short I in yes; that I did know that St. Helena belongs to the English ….I was dismissed with a certificate testifying to my ability for taking charge of the Sen. Female Department in the City of R. for one month.

Well, before these fatiguing preliminaries were fairly concluded, I began almost to regret that I had undertaken the enterprise seeing that it would require a long process to arrange matters even tolerably. But now having determined to enter the school (but for a trifling compensation, it being generally supposed that teachers can live on air, though glad would we be could we always have a sufficient quantity of that). I felt more at ease & thought I might as well resign myself to a dog’s life with a good grace & with every appearance of Contentment…..

She had little formal schooling herself, although “normal schools” to train teachers were just coming into being.Free public education without having to pay a school fee was also a new phenomenon, championed by Horace Mann and the Common School Movement.

A Teacher’s CV

According to History of the Public Schools of Rochester, New York, 1813-1935, individual schools had operated for several decades, but in 1841, a school system with five wards (2 commissioners per ward) was organized, a superintendent hired, budget drawn up, and schools scattered across the wards. The city’s small Black population was required to attend a single segregated school no matter where they lived. (Black parents succeeded in integrating the schools about a decade later.)

Julia’s first few weeks as a new teacher were tough. Figuring out how to manage large classes with fluid attendance challenged her. But she persevered.

In 1852, she recorded the various places she taught—

[1844] Teaching in Rochester in No. 12. Continued there 4 yrs., vacations excepted or until the Spring of ‘48.

Remained home till the Spring of 1849. In the summer of this year had a select school for 3 month on Court St. Rochester [her attempt to integrate it with the daughter of Frederick Douglass failed]

In October of the same year, went to Somerset & remained with sister E [Elizabeth] teaching a family school until the following April 1850.

The summer of 1850 was spent at home.

In September of 1850, commenced teaching in No. 13 Rochester. Continued in this School till the last of June 1851. Spent July & August visiting Eastern friends, after which went to Michigan & disposed of 3 weeks more.

The time from Oct. about the 12th till April 1852 was spent in Lockport with sister A [Angeline] teaching a select school.

Then the last 8 years of my life have passed….

She must have gone in and added the subsequent milestones at a later date:

From May 1852 till July 1852 taught in No. 4 Rochester. At home until Sept.

From Sept. 18th 1852 until July 1855, taught in No. 5 in Rochester.

From Sept. 1855 until April 1858 taught in No. Eleven in Rochester.

A Teacher Takes Action

Besides speaking her mind to her fellow teachers and administrators (and, or course, in her diary), two actions stand out to me in her teaching career.

In April 1849, she decided to start a small private school with five “scholars.” She commented, “rather dull business but a prospect of it being better.” It was perhaps already floundering when in June, she and her sister called at the home of Frederick Douglass. The education of his daughter must have come up, because on June 18, she wrote, “Rec’d R. Douglass this morning as a scholar. Expecting several others to leave but they have not yet.”

A week later, “two of my redhaired scholars have left, though quite reluctantly on their part. But the parents’ prejudice could not be overcome…”

At first, Julia thought the school would succeed, but it was not to be. July 20, 1849: “I have concluded to bring this flourishing institution to a terminus next week for in reality it continued to be a serious detriment as far as pecuniary affairs are concerned….”

It was another five years or so before that Black parents successfully pushed integration in the Rochester schools. But even that was earlier than in most places.

In 1857, Julia attended the annual meeting of the New York State Teachers Association. (Needless to say, most teachers were women but the officers were all men.) She proposed two resolutions—the first to recognize the wage gap between women and men and the second “Resolved, there is no reason, if a woman performs it [her job] equally as well, why she should not be paid equally as much.” Her resolution failed, but it was covered in the newspapers.

As she wrote in her diary, “The spirit moved me & this was my first speaking in public. A spicy time.”