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² Hospital bills, December 1936 and January 1937; Funeral Director's Invoice, 2 February 1937; file 79, carton 2, Keyes-McIntire-Voorheis-Clark Family Papers, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (hereafter Keyes papers).Google Scholar

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⁴ Single women of the same generation as Sarah McComb (1845–1937), such as Addams, Jane (1860–1935), Florence Kelley (1859–1932), and Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919), collectively mark a new generation of female independence. Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906), also a single woman, belonged to an older generation of women leaders who mostly followed traditional patterns of marriage and children. Cemetery card, file 79, carton 2, Keyes papers; James, Edward T., James, Janet Wilson, Boyer, Paul S., eds., Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1971).Google Scholar

⁵ The National American Woman Suffrage Association raised $30,000 to provide Shaw an annual retirement income of $3,200 ($267 per month) beginning in 1916 when she was sixty-eight years old. Harper, Ida H., ed., History of Woman Suffrage, Volume 5: 1900–1920 (New York: Arno Press, 1969), 458; Trisha Franzen, “Singular Leadership: Anna Howard Shaw, Single Women and the US Woman Suffrage Movement,” Women's History Review 17, no. 3 (July 2008): 421.Google Scholar

⁶ Riley, Glenda, Inventing the American Woman: A Perspective on Women's History (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson Press, 1987), 167. The pay differential between female and male teachers varied by region and position, with high school teachers, principals, and superintendents—male-dominated positions—earning higher salaries than elementary teachers. See Joel Perlmann and Robert Margo, Women's Work? American Schoolteachers, 1650–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).Google Scholar

⁷ Blount, Jackie M., Destined to Rule the Schools: Women and the Superintendency, 1873–1995 (New York: State University of New York Press, 1998), 92.Google Scholar

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¹¹ Kathleen Underwood finds over two-thirds of Colorado State Normal School female graduates in the 1890s came from small towns of less than 5,000 people. Most graduates remained in Colorado, with one-third returning to their small hometowns to teach. She also concludes that teaching gave these women the opportunity to postpone or forego marriage altogether. Underwood, “The Pace of Their Own Lives,” 519–21.Google Scholar

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¹³ Whitehead, Kay and Thorpe, Stephen, “The Function of Age and the History of Women's Work: The Career of an Australian Teacher, 1907–1947,” Gender & History 16, no. 1 (April 2004): 686–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁴ According to Whitehead, by the late nineteenth century in Australia, “the term ‘new woman’ had been coined to describe this cohort of well-educated, socially and economically independent single women.” Kay Whitehead, The New Women Teachers Come Along: Transforming Teaching in the Nineteenth Century (Sydney: Australian and New Zealand History of Education Society Monograph Series, 2003), 71.Google Scholar

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¹⁷ Kaufman, , Women Teachers on the Frontier, 39–40, Appendix D, 230–53.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Weiler, , Country Schoolwomen, 147–8.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Ibid., 127.Google Scholar

²⁰ Drawing on Alice Kessler-Harris's insight about the role of biography in history, this article views Sarah's life “not as a subject to be studied for its own sake, but as evidence that could provide a different path into the past.” Jean Quataert and Leigh Ann Wheeler describe Kessler-Harris's observation of “‘see[ing] through” an individual life as a window on larger historical questions. David Nasaw similarly reminds historians that biography “is no longer restricted to the lives of the rich, powerful, famous, and infamous,” but can also focus on the “unknown” whose stories offer a “fruitful approach to re-examining, and perhaps reconfiguring,” categories of analysis “as they interact at the level of the individual.” Alice Kessler-Harris, “AHR Roundtable: Why Biography?” American Historical Review 114, no. 3 (June 2009): 626; Jean Quataert and Leigh Ann Wheeler, eds., “Editorial Note: Individual Lives: Windows on Women's History,” Journal of Women's History 24, no. 3 (Fall 2012): 7; Nasaw, David, “AHR Roundtable: Historians and Biography—Introduction,” American Historical Review 114, no. 3 (June 2009): 576.Google Scholar

²¹ In historicizing the ideas of economic fairness and documenting how these ideas changed over time, Kessler-Harris argues that the social and legal constructs of workplace fairness limited women's access to full citizenship. She identifies the need for economic citizenship, which she defines as the “achievement of an independent and relatively autonomous status that marks self-respect and provides access to the full play of power and influence that defines participation in a democratic society.” Women may have had access to work and the ability to support themselves, but economic citizenship “does not end there.” It also requires “customary and legal acknowledgment of person-hood” with “all that implies” for the “distribution of resources.” Alice Kessler-Harris, In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in 20th Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 12–13.Google Scholar

²² Cemetery card, file 79, carton 2, Keyes papers. Years and locations of teaching positions from Sarah McComb, “Record of Teaching,” file 95, carton 2, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

²³ Ogren, The American State Normal School, 195–8.Google Scholar

²⁴ Although there is no indication that McComb followed the path of a missionary teacher, there is a history of women missionaries going abroad to teach. Ogren, The American State Normal School, 198.Google Scholar

²⁵ Sarah noted in her diary on board the Granada that Jack “gave me a copy of ‘Burn's poems” and that she had spent “most of the time” with him while at sea. Many poems and letters from Jack also attest to an egalitarian spirit of endearment and passion typical of a companionate union. Sarah McComb, Diary, 18 April 1880, in author's possession; McComb, Jack to Sarah Voorheis, 18 August 1880, file 35, carton 1; Jack McComb to Sarah Voorheis McComb, 7 January 1883, carton 1; Marriage license, 30 January 1882, Alameda county, California, file 96, carton 2, Keyes Papers. See also Davis, Rebecca L., “‘No Marriage at All, but Simple Harlotry': The Companionate Marriage Controversy,” Journal of American History 94, no. 4 (March 2008): 1137–63.Google Scholar

²⁶ McComb, , “Record of Teaching.”Google Scholar

²⁷ The University of Michigan admitted women in 1870 and although many studied in professions such as medicine, dentistry, and pharmacy, “the vast majority of trained women” became teachers. Ruth Bordin, Women at Michigan: The “Dangerous Experiment,” 1870s to the Present (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 21.Google Scholar

²⁸ It is not clear how Sarah financed her education, but she likely benefited from her proximity to family in her home state and she also taught school in several Michigan towns during that time. Certificates of graduation and high school credits, file 114; McComb, “Record of Teaching;” Keyes papers.Google Scholar

²⁹ At the time of Sarah's enrollment at the University of Michigan, the state had one state normal school in Ypsilanti, founded in 1853. It became a state normal college in 1899, five years after Sarah's graduation from the University of Michigan. Ypsilanti was unique for its courses in modern languages, in addition to preparatory courses typical of a normal school. The University of Michigan, however, had a champion for women in higher education in its president, James Angell, which may have contributed to Sarah's decision to enroll there, at the university level, instead of the normal school. Ogren, The American State Normal School, 88, 221; Bordin, Women at Michigan, 20.Google Scholar

³⁰ Weiler, , Country Schoolwomen, 51.Google Scholar

³¹ “University of Michigan Teachers Certificate,” file 87, carton 2, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

³² Nancy Beadie, “Toward a History of Education Markets in the United States: An Introduction,” Social Science History 32, no. 1 (2008): 47–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³³ Wyoming Territory also enacted a pay equity law but this did not necessarily ensure equal pay. Also, since the profession was increasingly dominated by women, wages for both women and men remained low. Glenda Riley, The Female Frontier: A Comparative View of Women on the Prairie and the Plains (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988), 122–3; Weiler, Country Schoolwomen, 39, 153; Rankin, Charles E., “Teaching: Opportunity and Limitation for Wyoming Women,” Western Historical Quarterly 21, no. 2 (May 1990): 153, 158.Google Scholar

³⁴ Jones, A. W., Principal of Public Schools, letter of reference, 1896, file 94, carton 2, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

³⁵ Smith, J. W., Co. Supt., Letter of Reference, 1908, file 94, carton 2, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

³⁶ Voorheis, Mrs. (mother) to Sarah Voorheis McComb, 14 May 1899, carton 1, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

³⁷ “Who's Who in ‘94,” University of Michigan Alumni, n.d., circa 1920s, file 113, carton 2, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

³⁸ Scott, Elva, Jewel on the Yukon: Eagle City (Eagle City, AK: Eagle Historical Society and Museums, 1997), 73; Scott, Elva, Historic Eagle and If's[sic] People (Eagle City, AK: Eagle Historical Society and Museums, 1993), 114–5.Google Scholar

³⁹ The School Board also allocated $15 per month for a school janitor, no small gesture to Sarah's middle-class status. Her successor for the 1904–1905 school year, Miss Lois Adams, was listed in Eagle City records as “teacher and janitor” for the same pay they had allocated to Sarah. Elva Scott, Eagle Schools Eighty Years, 1901–1981: Alaska Educational Systems in Action at Eagle, Alaska (Eagle City, AK: Eagle Historical Society and Museums, 1981), 18–24.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ McComb, Sarah to Voorheis, Jennie (sister) and Mother, Eagle, Alaska, 20 December 1900, file 36, carton 1, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Alaska established a dual system of education by 1900 whereby white children attended “Territorial schools,” while “native” children attended underfunded schools run by the U.S. Bureau of Education. Frank Golder was a white man who spent three years teaching Aleuts in Unga, Alaska, at about the same time Sarah taught in Eagle City. Elva Scott, Eagle Schools Eighty Years, 13; Allen Wachhold, “Frank Golder as an Alaskan Teacher: 1899–1902,” Alaska Journal 9 (1979): 38–42.Google Scholar

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⁴³ The U.S. Army established a presence in Alaska following the purchase of the territory from Russia in 1867. Gold discoveries in the 1890s intensified the military's presence in the Alaskan interior. Army posts included Fort Egbert in Eagle City, completed in 1899 shortly before Sarah's arrival. Scott, Jewel on the Yukon. Google Scholar

⁴⁴ McComb, Sarah to Voorheis, Jennie (sister) and Mother, Eagle, Alaska, 20 December 1900, file 36, carton 1, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Letters of reference from Hinsdale, B. A., Professor, University of Michigan, 3 April 1894, file 94; Jones, A. W., Principal of Public Schools, Newaygo, Michigan, 1896, file 94; Common Schools of the State of Washington, Stevens County, 14 October 1912, file 88; School Board, Eagle, Alaska, 22 June 1903, file 94; carton 2, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Ransom, Roger and Sutch, Richard, “The Labor of Older Americans: Retirement of Men On and Off the Job, 1870–1937,” Journal of Economic History 46, no. 1 (March 1986): 1–30; Ransom, Roger and Sutch, Richard, “The Impact of Aging on the Employment of Men in American Working-Class Communities at the End of the Nineteenth Century,” in Aging in the Past: Demography, Society, and Old Age, eds. Kertzer, David I. and Laslett, Peter (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 303–5; Smith, Daniel Scott, “Life Course, Norms, and the Family System of Older Americans in 1900,” Journal of Family History 4, no. 2 (Fall 1979): 285–98.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Teaching positions were located in Sonoma, Lake, Shasta, Mariposa, Modesto, Ruth, and Colusa counties. McComb, “Record of Teaching.” A printed calling card identified Sarah as a teacher of “High School Branches” and “Modern Languages.” n.d., file 106, carton 2, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ McComb, , “Record of Teaching.”Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Epstein, , Facing Old Age, 189.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ “An act to provide for the payment of retirement salaries to public school teachers of this state,” Statutes of California 1913, Chapter 694: Fortieth Session of the California Legislature (Sacramento: Chief Clerk of the Assembly, 1913), 1427.Google Scholar

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⁵³ California State Department of Education, 1927 Edition of Circular of Information Regarding Teachers’ Retirement Salary Law, file 77, carton 2, Keyes Papers.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ The cost of shipping textbooks to Eagle City from the contiguous states, for example, involved paying a local businessman a “warrant of $150” to purchase and ship the goods while on a business trip “outside.” Scott, Historic Eagle, 114–5.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Cordier, , Schoolwomen of the Prairies and Plains, 183; Chris Enss, Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West (Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2008).Google Scholar

⁵⁶ McComb, Sarah to Voorheis, Jennie (sister) and Mother, Eagle, Alaska, 20 December 1900, file 36, carton 1, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Ibid.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Bargo, Michael identifies the laundry business as one of many entrepreneurial efforts by women in the West. Michael Bargo, “Women's Occupations in the West in 1870,” Journal of the West 32, no. 1 (January 1993): 30–45.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ McComb, Sarah to Voorheis, Jennie (sister) and Mother, Eagle City, Alaska, 20 December 1900, file 36, carton 1, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Ibid.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Ibid.Google Scholar

⁶² It is not clear why Sarah gave up her laundry business, but she may not have fully accounted for the hard labor and the costs involved, including two other employees. She also likely faced stiff competition from other proprietors, such as Anna Malm, a Finnish immigrant recorded in a local history as the owner of “Arctic Laundry,” which she operated soon after her arrival in Eagle in 1898. Scott, Jewel on the Yukon, 46.Google Scholar

⁶³ McComb, Sarah to Voorheis, Jennie (sister), en route to Cuba, 20 December 1903, file 36, carton 1, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ For more on the Cuban land market, see Carmen Diana Deere, “Here Come the Yankees! The Rise and Decline of United States Colonies in Cuba, 1898–1930,” The Hispanic American Historical Review, 78, no. 4 (November 1998): 686–94; Santamarina, Juan C., “The Cuba Company and the Expansion of American Business in Cuba, 1898–1915,” The Business History Review, 74, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 41–83.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ McComb, Sarah to Jennie Voorheis (sister), en route to Cuba, 20 December 1903, file 36, carton 1, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Ibid.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Although many American investors anticipated U.S. military protection for their investments in Cuba, they never saw it materialize as such. Santamarina, “The Cuba Company.”Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Deere, , “Here Come the Yankees!” 729–65.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ McComb, Sarah to Voorheis, Jennie (sister), Cuba, 25 December 1903, file 36, carton 1, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Ibid.Google Scholar

⁷¹ McComb, Sarah to Voorheis, Jennie (sister), Cuba, 13 January [circa 1904], file 36, carton 1, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

⁷² Ibid.Google Scholar

⁷³ Contract for Deed, 3 March 1917, file 79, carton 2, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Reply from Mr. Harris, Monterey, written on letter Sarah McComb wrote to him in 1932, file 36, carton 1, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ It is not clear how or when Sarah acquired this property. “Last Will and Testament of Sarah E.V. McComb,” 17 February 1928, file 93, carton 2, Keyes papers; Booklet from Central National Bank, Oakland, file 78, carton 2, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

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⁸⁰ Frances Voorheis to Sarah McComb, 31 January 1919, carton 1, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

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⁸² Teaching experience in California listed in “Affidavit of Applicant for Life Diploma,” 8 September 1924, file 84, carton 2, Keyes Papers.Google Scholar

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⁸⁴ Gibbons, , interview by author. Edward may have resented the fact that Sarah's husband had not provided for his widow, that Sarah had married for love not economic security, that she had pursued individual interests and travel outside the norms of traditional womanhood, or some combination of these challenges to traditional patriarchal order.Google Scholar

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⁸⁷ McComb, , Diary (poems written in handwriting of her old age on scraps of paper, inserted in Diary, undated), in author's possession.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Letter of certification from Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 30 August 1882, carton 1; Horoscope chart from the “Rathill's Academy of Occult Sciences,” New York, addressed to Mrs. Sarah E. V. McComb, Eagle, Alaska, file 91, carton 2, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ Little Notebook, n.d. [circa 1936], file 97, carton 2, Keyes papers.Google Scholar

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