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Kate Kennedy
As women slowly settled in San Francisco after the Gold Rush they worked in the jobs open to them. This mostly meant domestic service: keeping house, washing, cooking and tending for children of the well-to-do. Soon after the city created a public school system, women were admitted to the ranks of teachers. Of the city’s seventy two teachers in 1860, fifty seven were women. Irish immigrant Kate Kennedy was promoted from teacher to principal in 1867. She discovered male principals were paid more than she was for the same work. Irish-American politicians helped her agitate for a state law guaranteeing "equal pay for equal work."
Photo courtesy San Francisco Public Library.