Call Her a Citizen: Progressive-Era Activist and Educator Anna Pennybacker

Chapter Two. 1880–1900: Called to Teach

15 Chapter Two anna hardwicke felt called to the teaching profession from a young age and frequently expressed gratitude for the calling. “I entered the Sam Houston Normal Institute,” she would later write, “because it offered the best opportunity to continue my education and to give me preparation for the profession I had most wanted to follow, that of teaching.” Because she considered “any child fortunate who has a strong bent in any one direction,” she counted this calling one of her blessings.1 Anna was fortuitous not only for having a strong bent in a particular direction, but a strong bent for the teaching profession in particular. The years during which she prepared for and engaged in her teaching career were years of immense growth for the profession. Between 1870 and 1900, the number of teachers in the United States increased 300 percent, as the student population doubled. The rapid increase brought career opportunities for women that they could find in few other professions at the time, as the ratio of female teachers increased from two-thirds to almost three-quarters of the profession.2 Although the feminization of the profession provided desired occupational opportunity for women, it was driven largely by financial inequities. School boards could hire female teachers for a little more than half what a male teacher would be paid. Female teachers’ advancement opportunities also were distinctly limited in as much as many male teachers were channeled into administrative roles from which women largely were excluded.3 Thus the profession offered both new opportunities as well as limitations to the women rushing to join it. In Texas, as in other areas of the United States, educational leaders debated the roles and value of women teachers. Some of these arguments have a contemporary ring, as they stress the necessity of a gender balance 1880–1900 Called to Teach call her a citizen 16 in the field. Male teachers of the 1800s surely felt threatened by the onslaught of women into the profession, in part because they worried about the effects on professionalization and pay. Articles in the Texas School Journal during the 1880s and 1890s stressed fair hiring based on an applicant’s qualifications. However, fair hiring practices were advocated not to support women entering the field, but in defense of males purportedly being overlooked for teaching positions. The belief that women in particular benefited from nepotism and a political spoils system when it came to teaching positions, whether true or not, was widespread.4 The status of Anna’s relationship with Percy Pennybacker upon graduation in 1880 remains unclear. They were not yet engaged. However, shortly after graduation, both left Huntsville for Bryan, Texas. There Anna became a teacher, and Percy was employed as superintendent of the fledgling public school system. For Anna, this position may have been a sharp disappointment and evidence of the gender discrimination she would face most of her career. She had been considered for a teaching position at shni, but was passed over for the position, purportedly because of her youth—she was just nineteen at the time. Perhaps this reason was accurate; however, youth and inexperience were often used as excuses for not hiring females in leadership roles in education.5 If she was disappointed with her teaching position, she apparently never revealed this feeling, although she is on record as having been sorely disappointed about not getting the position at shni. In later years, however, she would view the events as having been for the best. EARLY YEARS IN A NEW CAREER The City Free Graded Schools of Bryan were newly established when Anna Hardwicke and Percy Pennybacker arrived. As Percy assumed the superintendency, he faced public resistance because some members of the community opposed public schools supported by taxation. Public school systems had not gained universal acceptance in Texas by the 1880s and the imposition of a system by Radical Republicans in the post–Civil War years had created especially bitter resistance among some Texans. Opposition largely focused on whether educational expenses should be carried through property tax revenue. The state had set aside some of its land for public schools, and many Texans believed that revenue from that land should be sufficient to fund schools. Other Texans rejected the idea of state support for schools altogether, believing that education of children was the responsibility of individual families.6 1880–1900: Called to Teach 17 However...