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Tempest on the Hudson: The Struggle for “Equal Pay for Equal Work” in the New York City Public Schools, 1907–1911

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Robert E. Doherty
Robert E. Doherty*
Affiliation:
Cornell University
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Extract

Since the civil war there have been more women than men public school teachers. Before then, with the exception of the so-called infant or dame schools, “keeping school” was thought to be properly a masculine enterprise. The war changed that. Between 1860–1895, male teachers, most of whom were unable to buy their way out of the draft, were conscripted by the thousands. Few men returned to the schools when the booming economy of the late 1860's and early 1870's brought them employment opportunities at significantly higher wages than school officials were able or willing to match. In some states the percentage of male teachers declined by more than 20 percent during the war period alone. In 1870 the percentage of female teachers in U.S. public schools was 61.3 percent. This percentage dropped slightly during the next decade, but then climbed steadily until the mid 1930s when it reached approximately 80 percent. The ratios of men and women teachers were highly uneven between the states, however. Utah, for example, had 65 percent female teachers in 1935, while Vermont had 90 percent. Since 1964 the percentage of women teachers has hovered around 65 percent.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , Winter 1979 , pp. 413 - 434
Copyright
Copyright © 1980 by History of Education Society 

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References

Notes

1 Elsbree, Willard. The American Teacher (New York, 1939), pp. 17–31.Google Scholar

2 Monroe, Paul, (ed.) Cyclopedia of Education (New York, 1913), Vol. 5, p. 513; National Education Association, Progress and Problems in Equal Pay for Equal Work (Washington, D.C. 1939), p. 20.Google Scholar

3 See National Education Association Summary of Selected Statistics on Workforce Characteristics, mimeograph, 1976, p. 9.Google Scholar

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8 The Grounds of Opposition to the White Bill, The Association of Men Teachers and Principals of the City of New York, 1907, p. 19.Google Scholar

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10 The teacher salary schedules, which evidently remained unchanged from 1900–1912, are contained in Sec. 65 of the By-Laws of the Board of Education of the City of New York, 1911, pp. 121–127. A review of the “want ad” section of the New York Times for the month of June 1907, leads one to conclude that early elementary female teachers at the entry level received about the same salary as women who worked in offices. Most jobs advertised for women bookkeepers, for example, were in the $12.00 to $15.00 range, $600 to $750 for a 50-week work year. Of course teachers required more training (two years of normal school), but they had longer summer vacations and were practically guaranteed automatic incremental salary increases.Google Scholar

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55 New York Times (May 12, 1909) 16:1.Google Scholar

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58 1911 N.Y. Laws Ch. 902.Google Scholar

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65 1924 N.Y. Laws Ch. 614. A less than exhausting search of the pertinent state statues leads one to believe that New York was one of the first states to provide equal pay for men and women teachers similarly situated. Although Texas provided for equal pay for all those “performing public service” of the “same kind, grade, and quantity” as early as 1919, the law was not specifically directed at teachers; they were beneficiaries of a law covering all public servants. California mandated equal pay in 1929, Illinois in 1959 and Wisconsin in 1961 provided for equal pay in state-wide antidiscrimination statutes. Tex. Civ. Stat. Art. 6825 (1963), Calif. School Code §5.730 (West Supp. 1976), Ill. Ann. Stat. Ch. 122 §§10–20.7 (Smith-Hurd 1976–1977 Pocket Part), Ore. Rev. Stat. §342.970 (1975), 43 Pa. Stat. Ann. §336.3 (1964).Google Scholar

66 1947 N.Y. Laws Ch. 778. Under the minimum schedules legislated at that time, the starting salary for a teacher in districts of less than 100,000 students would be no less than $2,000; between 10,000 and 1,100,000 students, $2,200; over 1,000,000 students, $2,500.Google Scholar

67 The Public and the Schools, no. 457 (January 1947): 2.Google Scholar

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70 Heim, John and Perl, Lewis, The Educational Production Function: Implications for Educational Manpower Policy (Ithaca, N.Y. 1974), p. 30.Google Scholar