Women have worked in lighthouses for as long as there have been lighthouses, usually toiling alongside her husband the lighthouse keeper, who was the one who got paid for it. But there have been quite a few women who were totally in charge of lighthouses, like Harriet Colfax, who worked her lighthouse for more than 40 years, Mary Ryan, who kept a diary of her work and misery, and Ida Lewis, who saved numerous lives.
But most of her counterparts lived and died in obscurity. Lighthousekeeping was one of few jobs available to women in the 18th and 19th centuries, provided they inherited the post from a husband, father, or other male family member. “The lighthouse service thought the easiest thing to do would be to let the widows take over, because they were so familiar with the operation,” says DeWire. The actual job remained the same. “What really struck me was that they immediately took a reduction in pay, because they were women,” she says. They were also not permitted to wear the brass-buttoned lighthouse keeper uniforms, introduced in the 1880s. “That’s why I always called them ‘keepers in skirts.’”
Today, there is only one lighthouse keeper who is a woman. That would be Sally Snowman, who cannot wait to get back to her duties at Boston Light. Read about her life and those of other women lighthouse keepers at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: US Coast Guard)