The Teacherage

When public schools started in the mid 1800s only single women were allowed to teach. If they married they gave up their teaching career to stay home with their family. At first a teacher only had to finish HS and take the teaching exam later there were three exams to pass to become a teacher. By the 1920s however teachers were required to have a teaching degree.  They were usually educated at a "State Normal School"  which later became teaching colleges like Sam Houston State and Texas State University.

It was considered improper for a single woman to live outside her parent's or a family member's house, so the commuity provided a place for for the teacher to live with one of the community's families. They were paid very little so having housing  provided was almost a neccessity. In 1940 in Pratt Kansas a teacher made $500 for the year and if the school's money ran short they might not get paid in May. It was paid over the nine months of the school year and they teacher had to find a summer job to hold them over until school started again.

As schools changed from the one room school house and started using many teachers the community would build dorm like housing for all of the teachers to live together. This practice continued into the mid-20th century. Before my mother married she lived in teacherages in Kansas and Oklahoma. Once in Kansas when she taught in a very small school the superintendent had an apartment in his attic for the teacher. That was where she lived--she "took her meals" with the family.

This is a diagram (from my mother's description) of the teacherage

she lived in during WWII in Pratt, Kansas.

In LaMarque, where I attended school , there was a teacherage until about 1960.  In the early 1900s the entire school grades 1 to 12 was housed in one building.  Across the street was the teacherage.   The teacherage later became the LaMarque Independent School District's Administration Building.  The building that had once housed all the grades later became Lamar Elmentary.

In West Texas today some of the very snall rural districts still provide housing for their teachers.  It may no longer be called a teacherage but the concept is the same.





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