author
Alice Chipman Dewey
1858–1927
A thoughtful reformer who helped shape progressive education, she worked as a teacher, principal, and advocate for women’s rights. Her life and writing open a window onto the social and educational debates of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
1 Audiobook
Letters from China and Japan
by John Dewey, Alice Chipman Dewey
About the author
Alice Chipman Dewey was an American educator, philosopher, and feminist born in Fenton, Michigan, in 1858. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 1886, part of an early generation of women earning degrees there, and she went on to build a life centered on education, public thought, and reform.
She is closely connected with the rise of progressive education and played an important role in the University of Chicago Laboratory School, where she worked not just as a supporter but as a teacher, curriculum developer, and principal. Scholars and archives that revisit her legacy emphasize that her work has often been overshadowed by that of her husband, philosopher John Dewey, even though she was an important thinker and organizer in her own right.
Beyond the classroom, she was active in feminist and social causes, including women’s suffrage, and later took an interest in the experiences of Chinese students in the United States after traveling in China from 1918 to 1920. She died in New York City in 1927, leaving behind a legacy that is still being more fully recognized.