A Field of Great Promise: Teachers' Migration to the Urban Far West, 1890–1930

Abstract

In 1901, Miss M. C. French contacted Hawai‘i's superintendent and inquired about teaching positions in the islands. “As the prospect for a principalship seems possible only upon removal by death and that at an extreme age in most of the middle west towns,” she wrote, “I look to the west as a field of great promise.” Not only, in French's estimation, did teaching positions in the West offer opportunities for career advancement, but she also observed, “the west remunerates well for modern school work.” French's letter of application indicated that she had normal school training and teaching experience totaling nine years in Chicago, Salt Lake, and Des Moines, the last under future Seattle Superintendent Frank Cooper. She highlighted skills in “geography, language, and grammar.” In closing her application, she remarked, “My strong point has seemed to be discipline, which however is a natural, not acquired, talent.”