Article 4: The Portrait of Women Teachers in Indian Territory: The Story of Meta Chestnutt Sager, 1863-1948

Women pioneers and frontier teachers have been the subject of numerous books and articles. Generally, the portrait has been one of self-sacrifice, dedication to God, family and home, with little or no concern for personal needs or goals. In comparison, Polly Welts Kaufman’s Women Teachers of the Frontier (1984), contrasts stereotypical portrayals of the pioneer teacher in prescriptive literature to the diaries and correspondence of actual women who taught on the frontier. She found that frontier teaching afforded women the opportunity to realize their dreams for autonomy, adventure, personal fulfillment and recognition that belied stereotypical views of women teachers. Using diaries, correspondence and memoirs, Cesar and Smith (2007) extended the comparison to nineteenth century women teachers migrating to Indian Territory and found support for Kaufman’s findings. In both studies, the authority of God, replaced the authority of family and this gave these women the courage to pursue personal and professional ambitions. Cesar and Smith concluded that women who came to Indian Territory risked more danger to their physical safety from travel, disease and from Indian wars with the United States, than did those in Kaufman’s study. Continuing with this premise that teachers in Indian Territory used religious sanctions and faced greater peril in order to find personal fulfillment, the authors looked at the papers of Meta Chestnutt Sager who left North Carolina to found a school in Indian Territory that would eventually grow to collegiate status.