In 18th century Sweden, the Lutheran church expected that all people, women and men, young and old, should be able to read the word of God themselves. However, this ambition was not achieved without difficulty. Many parishes lacked both schoolmasters and school buildings. These parishes had to rely on their own inventiveness to spread reading ability among their inhabitants. One solution was to employ several teachers, which in sparsely populated parishes was a suitable solution. In this paper, I will present findings from three parishes in the diocese of Västerås, where women played an important role in the teaching campaign. Who were these women? What exactly did they teach? These are some of the questions this paper will address, using a wide range of sources from the Gender and Work-project at Uppsala University.