Leading Adult Educators

Sarah Smurr commented on: Group 3 and Group 4. 

Jennifer Warrner commented on Group 1 and Group 3. 

For this assignment:

Sarah Smurr and Jennifer Warrner collaborated on the section about Dr. Rachel DuBois.

Nina Monstwillo and Carrie Clymer collaborated on the section about Madam C.J. Walker.

Leading Adult Educators: Dr. Rachel DuBois and Madam C.J. Walker

Dr. Rachel DuBois and Madam C.J. Walker are two examples of female professionals who contributed to the field of adult education. DuBois and Walker had varied backgrounds and worked in different industries, but both women made significant contributions during their lives.

Dr. Rachel DuBois

Dr. Rachel DuBois was an educator, author, lecturer, and organizational leader who focused her work on pacifism, diversity and improvement of racial and ethnic relations.  She also was an innovator for female contributions to the field and a progressive thinker ahead of her time.    

DuBois was born Rachel Davis in 1892 into a Quaker farming family in New Jersey.  The Quaker religion had strong beliefs about diversity and equality and believed that all persons have worth regardless of their gender, race, age, nationality, religion, or sexual orientation (Robinson, 2009). These Quaker beliefs impacted her education and life’s work. At a time when few women went to college, DuBois graduated from Bucknell University in June 1914 with a degree in natural sciences. In 1915, she married Nathan Steward DuBois.  With few career options for women with degrees in natural science, DuBois accepted a position as a teacher (Totten & Peterson, 2007, p. 101).  DuBois eventually earned her doctorate at Columbia University and taught there as well as at New York University (Lambert, 1993).

DuBois’ philosophical perspective began from her religion and childhood experiences.  Her Quaker beliefs taught her to “see God in every man,” and she spent her childhood doing just that by playing with Italian and black hired hands (Lal, 2014, p. 18).  She even said that these experiences shaped her lifelong interest in interracial/intercultural relationships.  The Great War was the next building block to her perspective.  She became a pacifist and, guided again by her religion, looked for ways to take action and end the tensions differences cause (Lal, 2014, p. 18).  She saw those tensions reflected in the United States in urban, mostly black schools and developed her perspective there.  To really make in-roads in differences, she did not believe in the melting pot but instead in what she called “cultural democracy” (Lal, 2014, p. 20).   To reduce prejudice, she strove to create “satisfying experiences” in the classroom by focusing on three tenets: emotional, situational, and intellectual.  Intellectual is to teach students about the reality of the experiences of and the valuable contributions of other cultures. Emotional is to make other cultures fun.  She would give the students tangible experiences like food and festivals to make a personal connection of enjoyment to those cultural activities.  Finally, she developed ways for students to meet and interact with other cultures to put a face to that culture in a small scale way (Lal, 2014, p. 20).  The last piece of her perspective is the two-ness of being an American born child of an immigrant.  On one hand, students tend to try to shed their culture of origin to be more “American.”  On the other hand, shared minority experiences of discrimination form a bridge between minority groups.  Her solution of cultural democracy is to accept that all cultures have positive contributions and that basically reality is chosen, not right or wrong.  The structure of society is constantly changing and adapting.  One way to do that is to incorporate the benefits of having so many cultures in one country and embrace all of them equally (Lal, 2014, p. 21).  Hence, her life’s work was in pursuit of this idealistic but reasonable goal based on social psychology.  

DuBois made significant contributions to both organizations and thought.  She founded the following: the Inter-Cultural Education Workshop, Fellowship Farm, Workshop for Cultural Democracy, Livingroom Gatherings and the Atlanta Dialogue Center (Lambert, 1993).  Many of these were for educators to learn the approach as well as to conduct research to find “best practices” for the kinds of questions to ask to enhance tolerance and critical reflection of personal beliefs (Immigration History, 2004).  She also developed group conversations, which use common experiences to create meaningful interactions that reduce hostility and promote understanding.  For the U.S. Department of Education, she did a radio show called “Americans All, Immigrants All” in 1940 and worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Margaret Mead (Lambert, 1993).   Dewey would applaud her progressivism.  Everyone else should applaud her unending faith in humanity and complete optimism about all cultures.   

It is difficult to find overt articles discussing her impact, but she definitely has made many ripples in the field of adult education.  One very common structure of adult learning is discussion.  Sharing experiences for mutual analysis and digestion is a cornerstone of many adult education programs.  Additionally, people continue to strive for minority education and valuation.  This movement seems to be gaining traction lately, both with race and economics.  By working in New York City, she had an ideal population to develop solutions for the tensions that permeate American culture.  Although idealistic, she based her approach on real people making strides in deeply polarized populations; scientifically she has validity.  Finally, she seems to have developed a sort of feminine solution that could be inspirational as a role model for what women can accomplish and the worth of feminine contributions. Hopefully, policy makers will read her ideas and see the wisdom and value her approach could give to this society. 

As far as adult education, DuBois’ approach to social problems is immensely applicable today.  People are so polarized in this society from politics, religion, region, gender, education, and even sports teams.  Somehow it has become a society where people tell each other not to talk about religion and politics because it causes passionate disagreements.   That is the heart of the problem.  Without meaningful dialogue, people cannot build tolerance.  Agreeing to disagree and not engage is not the same thing.  Tolerance is being able to interact with people with whom there may be significant differences but to then see their rights and their humanity as part of the same community rather than apart from each other.  It is fascinating to read about ideas that could be incredibly useful for the turmoil Americans continue to face that has only been exacerbated from not having those conversations. 

Madam C.J. Walker

Madam C.J. Walker was a business woman and philanthropist that became one of the first self-made African American women millionaires. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove on December 23, 1876 in Delta, Louisiana to former slaves and died on May 25, 1919 in Irvington, New York. In the early 1870s as a black female child in Louisiana, she did not have the opportunity to attend school.  At the young age of seven, Walker was orphaned and began working in the cotton fields. When she was fourteen, she married her first husband, Moses McWilliams, and had one daughter named A’Lelia. After the death of her first husband, she moved to St. Louis, Missouri where several of her brothers had become barbers. In St. Louis, Walker worked as a laundress and received help learning how to read and write through a group of women at her church (Walker, 2012).  While in St. Louis, Walker began to lose her hair as a result of the lack of plumbing in early 1900s American homes. During the World’s Fair in St. Louis in 1904, Walker found “The Great Wonderful Hair Grower,” a product developed by Annie Turnbo.  This hair supplement made a significant difference with Walker’s hair, and within a year, she began to sell Turnbo’s product as a local agent (Gates, 2013).  Shortly after becoming a local agent for Turnbo, Walker started dating Charles Joseph Walker who was a salesman from St. Louis.

Trying to make a career for herself, Walker moved to Denver in 1905 to step away from her boss.  Charles Walker followed her to Denver where they were married in 1906, and Sarah Breedlove officially changed her name to Madam C.J. Walker. She developed a product to grow hair and called it “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower.”  Walker then founded the Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company as a way to “sell her treatment, and her door-to-door saleswomen because familiar figures in the black communities of the U.S. and Caribbean” (Britannica, 2012). In 1910, Walker decided to move her company to Indianapolis, Indiana where she also established a laboratory and a beauty school.  

Over the years and after proving herself to be an enterprising young woman, Walker continued to work on her education by hiring a private tutor (Walker, 2012).  Considering that Walker continued to show an interest in enhancing her own education throughout her life, it makes sense that along with the success of her business, she provided educational opportunities for other women.  After her time in Denver, she founded Lelia College in Pittsburg, “which offered a course in her methods” (Indiana, 2014). 

Walker not only focused on business opportunities, but worked on creating educational opportunities which might not have been available to African Americans. As Walker continued to build her business, she also worked on establishing the Madame C.J. Walker School of Beauty Culture throughout the country.  Other than domestic or manual labor jobs, this was at a time in history when black women would have had very limited career options.

As part of her beauty schools, Walker worked on creating knowledgeable agents who could sell her products. However, it is also noted that “the function of the Walker agents throughout the country was not merely to sell Walker products, but to educate customers in hygiene and in the value of good personal appearance” (Indiana, 2014).  To keep her agents loyal to her company, Walker offered incentives for agents who promoted the company’s values.  Walker stated, “I am not merely satisfied in making money for myself” (Gates, 2013).  In addition to her work with her agents, Walker established the National Negro Cosmetics Manufacturers Association in 1917.  

Throughout her successful career, Walker demonstrated an understanding of her position of leadership.  Walker began public speaking and used this opportunity to build confidence, encourage education, and create opportunities for civil rights activism of those around her.  Madam Walker was an active philanthropist whose financial contributions often included the beneficiaries of African American educational foundations such as Mary McLeod Bethune’s Daytona Educational and Industrial School for Negro Girls in Florida and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Indiana, 2014).

            Walker’s success shows how one person can have a significant impact on a large number of people.  With her products, she recognized a problem, developed a solution, and then shared the solution with others. That solution led to monetary success for Walker but also to careers, training, and learning opportunities for other women. Her success as an adult educator can serve as motivation for other adult educators. A simple idea for an adult education program or opportunity can be successful and can have a far reaching impact.

Photograph of Madam C.J. Walker’s students:

Photograph of graduates of the Walker School of Beauty Culture in St. Louis:

Table 1. Summary of Leading Adult Educators

	Rachel DuBois	Madam C.J. Walker
Time Period	1892-1993	1876-1919
Background	Pacifism, diversity, and racial and ethnic relations	Diversity, business woman and entrepreneur, promoted education for women and minorities
Profile	Married, earned Bachelors at Bucknell University and a doctorate at Columbia, worked as a teacher and professor	Married twice, one daughter No formal education, but sought informal education opportunities
Contributions	Founded the Inter-cultural Education Workshop, Fellowship Farm, Livingroom Gatherings and the Atlanta Dialogue Center Developed Group Conversations Worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Margaret Mead	Entrepreneur of hair products and cosmetics Founded the Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company Founded Lelia College in Pittsburg Established training programs, the Madame C.J. Walker School of Beauty Culture, and the National Negro Cosmetics Manufacturers Association
Impact	Discussions Minority education and valuation Role model for women	Leader Created employment opportunities for women, particularly African American women Realized the importance of learning, training, and continuous education Philanthropist
Implications	Importance of meaningful dialogues and tolerance of others’ opinions	No idea is too small A simple idea can lead to success and can impact a large number of people Training and continuous learning are important

References

Bundles, A. (n.d.).  Madam C.J. Walker: A brief biographical essay.  Retrieved from

http://www.madamcjwalker.com/bios/madam-c-j-walker/

Gates, Jr., H. (2013, June 24). Madam Walker, the first black American woman to be a self-

made millionaire. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-

rivers-to-cross/history/100-amazing-facts/madam-walker-the-first-black-american-woman-to-be-a-self-made-millionaire/

Immigration History Research Center (2004).  Bureau for Intercultural Education,
records, ca. 1940-1960.  University of Minnesota.  Retrieved from http://www.ihrc.umn.edu/research/vitrage/all/bo/GENbie.htm

Indiana Historical Society. (2014). Madam C.J. Walker (1867 - 1919) Papers, 1910 - 1980 [Data

file].  Retrieved from http://www.indianahistory.org/our-collections/collection-guides/madam-cj-walker-papers.pdf/?searchterm=Madame%20C.J.%20WalkerWalker,%20Madam%20C.J.

Lal, S. (2004, May). 1930s multiculturalism: Rachel Davis DuBois and the Bureau for Intercultural Education.  The Radical Teacher, 69, 18-22.  Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20710241?seq=5

Lambert, B. (1993, April 2). Rachel D. DuBois, 101, educator who promoted value of diversity.

The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/02/obituaries/rachel-d-dubois-101-educator-who-promoted-value-of-diversity.html

Robinson, B.A. (2009). Quaker beliefs and practices. Retrieved from

http://www.religioustolerance.org/quaker2.htm

Totten, S. & Pedersen, J.E. (2007). Addressing social issues in the classroom and beyond: The

pedagogical efforts of pioneers in the field. Charlotte: NC: IAP.

Walker, Madam C.J. (2012). In Britannica concise encyclopedia. Retrieved from

http://proxy.bsu.edu/login?url=http://search.credoreference.com.proxy.bsu.edu/content/entry/ebconcise/walker_madam_c_j/0