Wherever people settled together -- in remote lumber camps, hotels, private camps, or towns -- opportunities existed for women to work outside their homes. Many jobs were seasonal. Adirondack women worked outside the home because they had to or because they wanted extra spending money. Young single women often worked and saved to purchase clothing and household articles in anticipation of an eventual marriage.

Rosannah Wheelock had mixed feelings about going out to work. On March 30, 1857, she wrote: "I expect I have got to teach school again this summer, although I dislike it so much but I cannot do heavy work if I stay at home, and think I will feel better to be earning something myself . . . whatever I do I will try to make as pleasant as possible."

The variety of jobs available to women working outside the home was fairly circumscribed in Victorian America, and few Adirondack women ventured outside the home. Most worked at jobs such as domestic work, cooking, and running lodgings which required little special training beyond homemaking skills. The most common professional occupation was that of schoolteacher - which was typical in the United States as a whole.