Female teachers in Germany for most of the 19th century professionally were restricted to private contexts: as governesses, in private schools for so-called 'higher daughters' ('höhere Töchter') or in private households. In fact, there was a long tradition for women as governesses who were responsible for preparing daughters from families who could afford an education for their female off-spring for a life as an educated, well-behaved housewife and mother. Making conversation in French and English was seen as one of the main skills that was expected from girls with such a 'proper' education. So this is what a majority of the female teachers had to have on offer. Yet, when it came to teaching in state contexts, in particular in secondary schools, women were long denied formal access, let alone with career options and salaries comparable to their male colleagues. By formal acts like, for example, the 'Lehrerinnenzölibat' (the ban on marriage for female teachers) or informal yet often public discussions about the suitability of women for the pedagogical profession in general, male stakeholders tried to keep the privilege of state secondary school careers to themselves. Yet when towards the end of the 19th century teachers for living languages were desperately needed due to curricular reforms, the floodgates opened and women eventually had to be admitted as state school secondary teachers. Thus for women, teaching – in particular living languages – in 19th century Germany was not just a pedagogical act, but always a political statement. To illustrate this hypothesis, the paper will look at the conditions under which female (language) teachers in 19th century Germany were educated and worked, at their everyday lifes and at exemplary biographies.
