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Women's Opportunities For Education Along The Battle Road.

Minute Man National Historical Park

What opportunities for education were available to women and girls in Concord, Lincoln, and Lexington, either provided by the town or in households? What opportunities for public roles were available, in the churches, town meetings, etc.? Did these opportunities differ for women of color, free or enslaved?

Alyssa Kariofyllis, M.A., 2016 Scholar in the Park Minute Man National Historic Park


Women had few public opportunities available to them before the Revolutionary War. While boys were taught reading, writing, and arithmetic to prepare them for managing a farm, keeping a shop, or training at Harvard, girls were taught to read for religious purposes. Depending on a family’s wealth, girls might also be taught to write and do simple math. These skills were not intended to allow women to begin extensive educational careers. Rather, they were supposed to help prepare them for marriage and motherhood, where they would need to be helpful partners to their husbands and moral instructors to their children.

Literacy in New England expanded significantly during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In 1647, the Massachusetts General Court passed a law that required towns to provide schools for its citizens, though their focus was on free, male, white children. All towns with fifty or more families needed to hire a schoolmaster to teach children to read, write, and cipher. Towns of one hundred or more families were responsible for opening a grammar school.1 Lemuel Shattuck cited an order from 1680 requiring that a list be compiled of all children and youth in Concord who were unable to “read perfectly in English tongue.” Simon Davis, the constable, replied that he was unable to locate any children unable to read.2 Another frequently cited example of Concord’s high literacy rates is a 1736 gravestone. When Mary Brooks of Concord died at eleven years old, her parents chose to memorialize her with the headstone inscription of, “She was very Excellent for Reading and Soberness.”3 This memorial suggests, first, that Mary had been educated in her youth. Secondly, it shows that she had shown promise as a young woman, whose education did not affect the submission and constant religious reflection expected of eighteenth-century women. 4

Lexington was also responsible for keeping schools. It seems they neglected this task for the first half of the eighteenth century, as they were fined for choosing not to keep any in 1718. Historian Mary Fuhrer suggests that the town usually kept its grammar school in the center district, though they occasionally used the “moving” school system that Concord utilized throughout the eighteenth century. Fuhrer also found that women’s schools were held in the early iterations of school districts rather than in the school house on the town common.5

Though the school system underwent many changes during the eighteenth century, Concord’s town records demonstrate that town officials were attentive to the educational needs of the community. For much of the 1770s, there were seven areas were students could go to learn. These societies, as they were called, were Center, East, Corner, Darby, Barrett, Groton Road, and Butterick. These spaces became Concord’s official school districts in the 1780s.6 Selectmen decided to maintain these “moving schools” rather than pay to hold a grammar school in the town’s center. This decision made it possible for children from the outer regions of Concord to attend classes when they were available. Schools were kept infrequently. While some payments note that the schoolmaster or mistress was being paid for a year’s work, others cite just six or ten weeks in one location.7 Curricula, account books, and rosters from this period do not survive. Payments recorded by the town treasurers demonstrate that schools were indeed kept throughout the 1770s. These records also show that some women had been educated in their youth because women were paid for their time spent teaching as adults.8

Secondary literature shows that young boys and girls began their education at home. Mothers were responsible for teaching their children basic skills until they were old enough to attend a local school managed by the selectmen, a dame school in a woman’s private home, or a boarding school in a larger city, like Boston. The town of Concord made over one hundred payments to both residents and non-residents for keeping school in the 1770s. Seventy-five payments went to men. Another eighteen went to women.9 Some men, like Joseph Buttrick, Joseph Hunt, and Amos Wright, were paid multiple times.10 Records do not show any woman being paid twice for keeping school. Many of the payments for women’s work were not given directly to them. Instead, records show that husbands and fathers often collected the sums on behalf of their wives and daughters.11 These payments were also distinctly lower than the wages paid to men. Ruth Wheeler suggests that schoolmasters would have received £1.1.0 per week.12 Yet, in March of 1776, Samuel Clerk’s wife was paid £1.1.0 for keeping school on Blood’s Farm for the year 1775.13 Joann Early Levin contends that this was a result of a Massachusetts law that required that all schoolmasters be college educated. Since women did not fall within the jurisdiction of the law, they were able to teach with less experience, often relying on what they had learned in the district schools. However, this opportunity also guaranteed that schoolmistresses would not be considered equals to their male counterparts in terms of the rate of pay they received.14

Lincoln also provided a moving school system for its citizens. Between 1772 and 1779, the town paid twenty nine people for keeping school. Of the twenty nine payments, twelve payments were for teaching completed by women. Schools were kept in the east, south, north, and middle parts of town. The highest payment to a woman went to Sarah Brooks, who had kept a school for eight weeks and boarded herself in 1780. For this, she received £42. She was paid three other times for keeping school. The next highest amount was paid to her father for her keeping school two months and included payment to him for delivering a load of wood to the school house. 15 Hannah Munroe was also paid multiple times for keeping school. Her highest payment was £24 for keeping school two months in the middle of town and two months in the east school house in 1779. 16 This was the third time she had been paid for keeping school. She received £3.14.8 in 1774 for keeping school sixteen weeks beginning in June of 1773 and another £3.19.4 in 1774 for keeping school seventeen weeks in 1774.17 The next most frequent payments for keeping school went to Moses Brown and Joseph Mason, who were each paid twice.18 Six other women were paid for keeping school. The prevalence of women paid for teaching as well as recurring payments to women for keeping school suggest their importance to Lincoln’s educational systems. Though men appear to have dominated teaching in Concord, women played an important role in educating Lincoln’s youth.

While records do not show children from Concord, Lincoln, or Lexington attending boarding schools elsewhere, advertisements for schools in Boston suggest that students throughout colonial North America did travel from far distances to be educated in the town. Men and women alike offered to board boys and girls while they attended school in the metropolitan center. Since the local schools in Concord were funded by local taxes and donations, only wealthy residents would have been able to send their children twenty miles away to be schooled in reading, writing, and math. Boys learning outside of Concord, Lincoln, and Lexington would also have the option to learn foreign languages, like Latin, Greek, or French, and bookkeeping. Girls attending boarding schools kept by women were taught more ornamental skills like needlework, painting, and singing.19 There are not surviving rosters for schools in either Boston or in Concord, Lexington, and Lincoln, so there is no physical evidence that children from the neighboring towns traveled to Boston to be educated.

A woman’s education did not guarantee that she would be invited to participate publicly. Participation in local politics at town meetings was available only to Concord men over the age of twenty-one who owned property. Political participation was not determined by a man’s level of education. Some votes, such as the election for the province’s governor, stipulated that only property-holding men over twenty-one were eligible to vote.20 Petitions to insert specific articles into a meetings agenda or to call a special session could only be submitted by any ten townsmen.21 Gender trumped wealth in town meetings. Wealthy widows who owned property were still barred from participating.22 If women attended town meetings, their presence was not included in official town records. As Mary Fuhrer suggests, women were granted membership in a town in other ways. Officially belonging to a town required citizens to have been born there or to have paid taxes for a certain period of time. Being a member meant that the town could not warn those persons out of the town, forcing them to relocate and find aid from elsewhere. Members of a town were also supposed to be cared for or assisted by the town’s selectmen if they fell on hard times.23 Furthermore, Fuhrer finds that women were indeed included in town affairs because they were paid to teach school, board resident poor or schoolmasters, assist in funeral preparations, or care for the sick.24

The narrative surrounding women’s education changed after the Revolutionary War ended. The republican experiment relied upon a well-informed citizenry. Furthermore, the nature of commerce changed to rely more heavily on cash than bartering. The new cash economy required marketplace participants to know how to read, write, and do basic sums. Since many women were required to purchase provisions for their homes, women also needed to know how to handle money. Mothers became increasingly more important to the maintenance of the republic. They were tasked with educating future generations of sensible citizens. Yet, as Linda Kerber notes, this expectation was at odds with the idea that an educated woman was a threat to family stability.25 Despite this conflict, educating young women became a widely supported and mainstream idea in the early republic.26 The utility of their scholarship became a widely debated issue, as men and women alike wondered whether it was necessary for women to possess such ornamental skills. Margaret Nash suggests that men’s and women’s curricula were quite similar and only differed in gendered vocational subjects, like navigation or needlework.27 Even if curricula for men and women were similar, the social value of a woman’s education remained significantly lower than the value of a man’s.

Enslaved people of color in Concord did not have the same opportunities to learn. Owners of enslaved persons decided whether or not they would teach their slaves to read or write. Despite the fact that Concord had a relatively small enslaved population, residents still feared slave insurrection. This fear likely contributed to their decision not to educate their slaves. Elise Lemire shows the stark contrast between the educational opportunities for whites and blacks. Concord residents William and Phoebe Emerson took ownership of the orphaned daughter of Concord slave, Phyllis. The child was named for her mother and was close in age to William and Phoebe’s children, Phoebe, William, and Hannah. Letters and diary entries by William Emerson show that he closely monitored the intellectual development of his children. Conversely, William told Phyllis only to “be a good girl.” As the Emerson children learned to read, write, and sew, Phyllis was to learn how to serve the Emerson’s obediently.28 While we know that some slaves were able to read and write, the source of their education is difficult to trace. Education for people of color became a contested issue after the Revolution. As public schooling for white children became more widespread, white opposition to African American education expanded.29

People of color, both free and enslaved, were unable to participate in town meetings. Men and women of color were held to a different set of laws that excluded them from owning property. Some have suggested that people of color could not own property or vote in Concord until 1881.30 However, we know that black men owned property before the 1880s. Even the few men of color, like Brister Freeman, who held property in Concord had to fight their entire lives to prove they had the right to do so.31 Peter Robbins purchased the Robbins house in the 1830s but sold it to Daniel Shattuck seven years later. Peter Hutchinson would purchase the home from Shattuck in 1852.32 Since white women were not allowed to own property because of the law of coverture, women of color were doubly excluded from landowning.

Although we do not have rosters, account books, or other sources listing who attended which school, other sources suggest women were educated in increasing numbers throughout the eighteenth century. Advertisements, payments to women keeping school, greater numbers of women administering estates and writings wills, and the growing debates around women’s education demonstrate that more New England women were educated in throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries than they had been at the middle of the eighteenth century.33 Concord’s town papers and newspaper advertisements for the greater Boston area suggest that women were indeed educated. Furthermore, the records of their payment suggest that women’s education was not merely ornamental and did indeed translate into practical skills that allowed them to participate publicly in their communities.

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Last updated: October 20, 2021