Throughout her work
as an academic, educator, social activist, and public servant, Deborah
Partridge Wolfe (December 22, 1916–September 3, 2004) taught respect
for all people and tried to inspire in her students a willingness
to recognize the equality of each individual.
Wolfe received her bachelor’s degree in social studies education
from Jersey City State Teachers College and her master’s degree in
teacher and rural education from Teachers College, Columbia University.
While taking courses, she taught night adult education and spent
two summers teaching the children of migrant workers on the eastern
shore of Maryland.
After graduating from Teachers College, Wolfe joined the faculty
of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. During her 12 years there, she
established and served as principal of two laboratory schools, worked
as a supervising teacher, and headed up the Department of Elementary
Education. She received her Ed.D. degree during a leave of absence
from Tuskegee Institute. Upon her return, Wolfe became the first
female faculty member of the school with an earned doctorate. She
founded and served as director of the school’s graduate program in
education.
Wolfe left Tuskegee Institute in 1950 to become a faculty member
at Queens College, City University of New York at which she taught
until her retirement in 1984. Throughout the 1950s and ‘60s, Wolfe
also held visiting lecturer positions at Grambling College, New York
University, Fordham University, University of Michigan, Teachers
College, Texas College, University of Illinois, and Wayne State University.
From 1962 to 1965, Wolfe served as Education Chief of the U.S. House
of Representatives’ Committee on Education and Labor chaired by Adam
Clayton Powell.
Wolfe belonged to and actively participated in over 70 programs,
societies, and organizations. Her membership in Kappa Delta Pi particularly
was distinguished. Initiated by William Chandler Bagley in 1938,
Wolfe served as chapter counselor at Queens College for 20 years
and, at the time of her death, was the oldest living member of the
Society. Other groups in which she was involved include the Association
for Supervision and Curriculum Development, the League of Women Voters,
Lisle Fellowship Board, the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People, the National Alliance of Black School Educators,
the New Jersey Board of Higher Education, the New Jersey Board of
Education, and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority.
Through her activities, Wolfe achieved many “firsts” for an African-American
female. She became the first African-American woman to be named a
fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
to become a member and later chair of the New Jersey State Board
of Higher Education, and to serve as a member of the Educational
Foundation and Laureate Counselor of Kappa Delta Pi. She was the
only African-American member of Seton Hall University Board of Regents,
the advisory board to Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College, the
Coordinating Council on Education for New Jersey, and the board of
the American Association of University Women. In appreciation for
her lifelong commitment to education, institutions awarded Wolfe
more than 26 honorary doctorates. She was named to the Laureate Chapter
of Kappa Delta Pi in 1988. A high school in Macon County, Alabama
and a dormitory at Trenton State College in New Jersey were named
in her honor.
Reflecting on how her gender affected her career, Wolfe posited that
if she had been a man, she might have been a minister first and a
teacher second. As it happened, she became a teacher first and a
preacher later in life. While teaching at Queens, Wolfe studied theology
at Union Theological Seminary and was ordained to the Christian ministry
in 1970 and served as Associate Pastor of the First Baptist Church
in Cranford, New Jersey. In her retirement, she taught feminist theology
as a visiting scholar and lecturer at Princeton Theological Seminary.
She was the first woman elected President of the New Jersey Convention
of Progressive Baptists and served as Parliamentarian for the Progressive
National Baptist Convention. Wolfe enjoyed her “career” as mother
and grandmother, spending time with her son and grandchildren.
Wolfe published more than 65 journal articles and contributed to
and edited all the writings associated with educational legislation
passed by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education
and Labor from 1962–1965. Wolfe’s scholarly writings consistently
focused on curriculum issues related to democracy and education,
specifically addressing rural education, culturally deprived children,
migrant workers, human relations, and social justice.
Throughout her career, Wolfe argued that the basic and abiding moral
purpose of democracy is respect for the individual human being and
recognition of the equality of each person regardless of race, creed,
gender, or social class. She expressed concern that the culture of
schools reflected the controlling ideas, values, and sentiments of
middle-class European-American society and overlooked the needs of
migrant children, rural students, inner-city African-American students,
and other disadvantaged or disenfranchised groups. She asserted that
education should serve as the great equalizer in society and recommended
culturally relevant curricular approaches designed to address the
needs of all students, to teach democracy, and to improve the equality
and quality of education.
When asked to reflect on her own contributions to education, Wolfe
summed up her career by saying:
My legacy to education? Well, that’s hard
to put into words. It’s rather like writing your epitaph.
. . . I would certainly hope they would believe that here
is a woman who gave her all to education in the fullest sense
of the word . . . who attempted to empower every individual
to the point that they understand their strengths and weaknesses
and are willing to share themselves with others—a teacher
who was concerned with each individual with whom she interacted,
recognizing that no two are alike. It is important to study
each person carefully, be hesitant about over-generalizing,
and allow each individual to grow in new directions. That
I was a woman who knew and enjoyed a wide range of ideas
and areas of human knowledge. And above all, that I was a
woman who loved and truly cared about people, and who believed
strongly ‘of one blood God made all to dwell on the face
of the earth.’ I’d go to the end of the earth to help people
understand that color, race, creed, and formal conditions
of servitude are only superficial. We are one.
Contributed by: Stephanie van Hover,
University of Virginia
References
van Hover, S. D. 2001. Deborah Partridge Wolfe’s contributions
to social education. Ph.D. diss. University of Florida, Gainsville.
van Hover, S. D. 2003. Deborah Partridge Wolfe and education for
democracy. Theory and Research in Social Education 31(1):
105–31.
van Hover, S. D. 2002. Deborah Partridge Wolfe. In Building a
Legacy: Women in Social Education 1784–1984, ed. M. S. Crocco
and O. L. Davis, 133–34. Washington, DC: National Council for the
Social Studies.
