The unsung partner: The educational work and philosophy of Alice Chipman Dewey

Alice Chipman Dewey (September 7, 1858--July 14, 1927) was a pioneering educator, a courageous woman and the vital partner of John Dewey. She helped to change fundamental attitudes and approaches to elementary education in the United States as the co-founder and principal of the well-known Laboratory School at the University of Chicago. In addition to playing a seminal role in the history of progressive education, Alice Dewey was also a member of America's first generation of women college graduates, a teacher, a social activist, an international spokeswoman for education, and a leader for woman suffrage.; Despite these accomplishments, Alice Dewey has long languished in the shadow of her famous husband---the philosopher and progressive educator John Dewey. No biography of her has ever been written, and she has been virtually neglected in the historical literature on progressive education.; This thesis provides new details and insights into the educational work and philosophy of Alice Chipman Dewey. It considers this work in the context of her life experiences, which were varied and colorful. Orphaned as a young child, Alice Chipman was raised on the Michigan frontier by her freethinking grandparents. She developed her own beliefs as a young woman in her mid-twenties at the University of Michigan as an undergraduate majoring in philosophy. In Ann Arbor, she met and fell in love with John Dewey, who lived in the same off-campus boarding house as she did. A professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan, John Dewey was nonetheless one year younger than Alice. Alice and John Dewey married and eventually raised seven children, employing some unorthodox parenting practices. After co-founding and running the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago for eight years, Alice Dewey and John Dewey lived and worked together in New York City, Europe, China and Japan.; Histories of turn-of-the-century United States schooling, biographies of John Dewey, and other related accounts are incomplete without understanding Alice Dewey's crucial work as an innovative educator and social activist.