ELLA FLAGG YOUNG (1845-1918)

The youngest of three children, Ella was born in Buffalo to parents of Scottish descent. Because she was regarded as a frail child, she was not sent to school, so instead, she taught herself to read. She read everything that she could find which was noted by her parents who finally let her attend school.  By the time she was thirteen the family had moved to Chicago where she entered the Normal Department of the Chicago High School at the age of fifteen. Two years later she graduated and began her teaching career.  The middle and latter part of the nineteenth century was a time when the various states were trying to develop school systems based on the latest European pedagogical principles. For the next twenty-five years, Young experienced many of these aspects as Chicago struggled to develop schools that were more pedagogically scientific and less steeped in rote memory learning.  She started as a primary and grade school teacher; then she was appointed as: assistant principal teacher, student teacher supervisor, high school math teacher, and elementary school principal before becoming a district superintendent in 1887.

Realizing the need for more formal education, Young began as a part time student at the University of Chicago where a new department that included the study of pedagogy was opened under the direction of John Dewey.  She and Dewey developed a close scholarly relationship.  He regarded her as the wisest person in school matters with whom he had come in contact. Coming out of a Hegelian/ Kantian philosophical tradition, Young was able to bring educational applications to many of his ideas. She graduated with her PhD in 1901 and joined the faculty. By 1902 William James noted the University of Chicago had a new school of pragmatic thought under the direction of John Dewey.  The philosophy was developed in a series of decennial publications by the University of Chicago Press.  Young had several articles in the Contributions to Education series ("Ethics in the School," " Some Types of Educational Theory," and "Scientific Method in Education,"). Her dissertation was published as, Isolation in the Schools, and was soon to be regarded as a "Bible" by the newly formed, mostly female, Chicago Teachers Federation led by Margaret Haley, a staunch suffragist. 

Political strife surrounded the administration of Dewey's lab school under the direction of his wife, and Young ended up leaving the University. She ultimately accepted the principalship of the Chicago Normal School in 1907, before becoming Superintendent of Chicago Schools in 1909. In 1910 she was elected as  the first woman president of the NEA—and organization that was dominated by large city superintendents and university presidents such as Columbia University's, Nicholas Murray Butler, and that had a history of not granting full membership status to women teachers.

By 1912 Illinois granted suffrage to women, and newspapers attributed this victory to Ella Flagg Young, Jane Addams and social reformer, Julia Lathrop. However, school board politics were encroaching on Young's administration.  The board wanted more administrative control, such as choosing textbooks from companies in which some members had a vested interest. She survived these political machinations, by 1915 at the age of seventy, she was ready to retire.

Young moved to Los Angeles with the intention of writing a book. She co-edited a reading series with Walter Taylor Field, a children's author. Published by Ginn and Company it became known as the Young and Field Literary Readers.  She continued to attend NEA meetings and support the cause of women everywhere. She had always encouraged women to set their goals high, believing that they could realize their aspirations.  Her influence was more by example and less by the speeches she gave.  In 1917 when the United States entered the war, Young went to work selling war bonds to support the effort. During the fall of 1918, she contacted the Spanish strain of influenza, but instead of going to bed, she continued on her tour selling bonds with one of the liberty loan committees. She developed pneumonia, but would not rest until She delivered the funds to the Treasury Department, and died shortly afterward from pneumonia. Treasury Secretary, William McAdoo announced that she died in the service of her country.  Many tributes were made to Young including one by Jane Addams who said that Young "had more general intelligence and character" than any other woman that she knew (Chicago Tribune, 28 October 1918). Others said that had she been a man, she would have been a general, headed up a large corporation or served as governor. Her life was testimony to what women might accomplish. She was a light at a time when male domination often darkened the path for women seeking higher professional attainment.

Jackie M. Blount, Fit to Teach: Same Sex Desire, Gender and School Work in the Twentieth Century. Daniel L. Duke, Series ed. Buffalo: SUNY Press, 2004.

John T. McManis, Ella Flagg Young and a Half-Century of the Chicago Public Schools. Chicago:  A. C. McClurg & Co., 1916.

Maxine Seller, ed. Women Educators in the United States. Buffalo: SUNY Press, 1994.

Joan K. Smith, Ella Flagg Young: Portrait of a Leader.  Ames, IA:  Iowa State University Research Foundation/Educational Studies Press, 1979.

L. Glenn Smith, and Joan K. Smith, eds. Lives in Education. NY: St. Martins Press, 1993.

Dictionaries and Encyclopedias.

Dictionary of American Biography, 1936.

Encyclopedia of Early Childhood Education. NY: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1992.

History of Chicago Women Encyclopedia. Chicago: Chicago Area Women's History and the Center for Research on Women and Gender, 1998.

Notable American Women, 1972.

Unpublished Theses and Dissertations.

Rosemary Donatelli, "The Contributions of Ella Flagg Young to the Educational Enterprise." Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1971.

Joseph Reim, "The Contributions to Education of Ella Flagg Young." M. E. thesis, Chicago Teachers College, 1940.