This book includes materials by and about rural women who taught school from the colonial period to the early 1940s when consolidation closed many one-room schools. Chapter 1 discusses the motivation for searching and compiling a book of resources related to rural women teachers. Chapter 2 explains the origins of the term "schoolmothering"; briefly describes the careers of Emma Willard, Mary Lyon, and Catharine Beecher, who were considered the first role models for woman rural teachers; describes recruitment of women to fill teaching positions in country schools; and outlines the development of teacher training programs. This chapter lists 143 books representing different perspectives of the rural woman teacher in educational history. Chapter 3 addresses reasons why women chose a teaching career, the qualifications for becoming a teacher, and regional variations in the schoolteacher image. This chapter includes an annotated bibliography of 195 resources that contain letters, diaries, and journals of rural women teachers. Chapter 4 describes the teaching duties and daily schedules of Amish women teachers, presenting a picture of one-room school education that has changed very little over the past 150 years. This chapter includes an annotated bibliography of 40 resources related to Amish education. Chapter 5 examines stereotypes found in fiction, portraying rural women teachers as unmarried, pious, possessing high moral standards, thrifty, independent, and unbending in educational training. Supporting this section are a list of 29 sources written about women from a feminist perspective and an annotated bibliography of 45 sources depicting rural women teachers in fiction. The last chapter includes a state-by-state list of libraries and historical societies that maintain materials or collections about rural women teachers, a list of dissertations related to rural women teachers, and the names and addresses of organizations that are interested in rural education and rural women teachers. Includes illustrations and author and subject indexes. (LP)