I took History 3510: The History of Childhood and Education in hopes that it would afford me valuable knowledge that would help me understand the history of the career I hope to pursue.

One of the topics I was most interested in learning about was the history of women in the profession of teaching. For the last few years, I have developed a passion for women’s literature and women’s history, so naturally, this was a subject that caught my attention. I believe that as a young women planning on becoming a teacher, it is beneficial to understand how the profession as we know it came to be. It is easy to take for granted how we know things to be in the 21st century; however, I knew that with research, I would learn that many changes have taken place to result in how teaching is perceived today.

All of this being said, I chose to do my research paper on the history of women in the teaching profession, primarily focusing on how the ideology of separate spheres influenced the experiences of women in the late-19th and early-20th centuries.