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This book addresses the impact of women on education, an area historians have largely ignored, by bringing together a wide range of essays by feminist historians. An introduction entitled "The Historiography of Women Teachers: A Retrospect" is followed by three sections. The first, "Women Teaching in the Private Sphere," includes: "Schoolmistresses and Headmistresses: Elites and Education in Nineteenth-Century England"; "'Mere Accomplishments?' Melbourne's Early Ladies' Schools Reconsidered"; and "'The Poor Widow, the Ignoramus and the Humbug': An Examination of Rhetoric and Reality in Victoria's 1905 Act for the Registration of Teachers and Schools." Section 2, "Women Teaching in the Public Sphere," consists of four chapters: "'Daughters into Teachers: Educational and Demographic Influences on the Transformation of Teaching into 'Women's Work' in America"; "Teachers' Work: Changing Patterns and Perceptions in the Emerging School Systems of Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Central Canada"; "Mary Helena Stark: The Troubles of a Nineteenth-Century State School Teacher"; "Feminists in Teaching: The National Union of Women Teachers 1920-1945"; and "'I Am Ready To Be of Assistance When I Can': Lottie Bowron and Rural Women Teachers in British Columbia." The final section, "Women Teaching in Higher Education," includes: "Here was Fellowship: A Social Portrait of Academic Women at Wellesley College, 1895-1920"; and "Scholarly Passion: Two Persons Who Caught It." A bibliography offers further resources. (LL)