‘If I Only Wore a Coat and Pants’: Gender and Power in the Making of an American Public High School, 1847–1851

Abstract

Using Hartford Public High School as a case study, this article analyses how women teachers in the nineteenth century used their ties to the community and their success in the classroom to influence the decision‐making structure of a co‐educational institution. While women teachers are not usually considered a powerful constituency, Hartford Public High School affords a unique opportunity to re‐evaluate the meaning of educational politics from a gendered perspective. Based on manuscript sources for teachers who worked at the school, this examination reveals not only the gendered allocation of power in nineteenth‐century high schools, but also the active role of committed women teachers in contesting that power.