Madeline Stratton Morris

Madeline Stratton Morris
Born
Madeline Robinson

August 14, 1906
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
DiedDecember 26, 2007 (age 101)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Other namesMadeline Morgan
Occupation(s)Educator, community leader

Madeline Robinson Morgan Stratton Morris (August 14, 1906 – December 26, 2007) was an American educator and community leader, based in Chicago. In the 1940s, she created the first Black history curriculum adopted by a large American school district, and published two textbooks for the subject.

Early life and education

Robinson was born in Chicago, the daughter of John Henry Robinson and Estella Mae Dixon Robinson. She graduated from Englewood High School and trained for a teaching career at Chicago Normal College, earning her certificate in 1929. She earned a bachelor's degree from Northwestern University in 1936, and a master's degree in education in 1941, also from Northwestern. She pursued further studies at the University of Chicago.[1][2][3] She was a member of Phi Delta Kappa, and received the sorority's first national Achievement Award in 1944.[4]

Career

Morgan taught in the Chicago Public Schools system from 1933 until she retired in 1968.[5] In 1942, she introduced her first "Supplementary Units for a Course in Social Studies," curriculum prepared for covering Black history in American history classes.[6][7] They were the first such course materials used in a major American city's schools.[3] Carter G. Woodson praised her work.[8][9] She also worked on mandatory lessons to build intercultural and interracial cooperation.[1][10] Stratton was nominated for the 1943 Spingarn Medal for this work.[11] "It is the duty of education to give to youth the knowledge of achievement of persons of all races, creeds and color," she said in 1944. "If books fail in this respect, they are inadequate."[8] In 1945, her work was an impetus for a state law allowing Black history as a classroom subject in Illinois public schools.[3] From 1958 to 1960 she was a member of the Human Rights Committee of the Chicago Board of Education.[1] She wrote two textbooks, Strides Forward and Negroes Who Helped Build America.[12]

From 1946 to 1948, Stratton was president of Chicago's chapter of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW). In 1947, she was named to the NCNW's national honor roll of twelve outstanding women, alongside Ingrid Bergman, Marian Anderson, Selma Burke, and Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit.[13] She was invited to the White House for a civil rights conference in 1966. After she retired from school work, she taught education and history courses at the post-secondary level, at Triton College, Mayfair College, Chicago State University, and Governors State University. In 1980, she was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention.[1] In 2003, she gave an oral history interview to "The HistoryMakers" project.[2]

Publications

  • "Teaching Negro History in Chicago Public Schools" (1943)[14]
  • "Chicago School Curriculum Includes Negro Achievements" (1944)[15]
  • "Chicago Schools Teach Negro History" (1944)[16]
  • Negroes Who Helped Build America (1965)[17]
  • Strides Forward: Afro-American Biographies (1973)[18]

Personal life

Robinson married three times. She was married to Thomas Morgan from 1926 to 1943; they divorced. She was married to educator Samuel B. Stratton from 1946 to 1972, when he died. She was married to Walter Morris from 1981 to 1983, when he died. She died in 2007, at the age of 101, at her Chicago home.[19][20] Her papers are in the collection of the Chicago Public Library.[1] A biography of Morris was published in 2022.[21][22] She was also a prominent figure in Ian Rocksborough-Smith's Black Public History in Chicago (2018), and her photograph appears on the book's cover.[23]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Madeline Stratton Morris Papers". Chicago Public Library. Retrieved 2025-02-23.
  2. ^ a b "Madeline Stratton Morris's Biography". The HistoryMakers. Retrieved 2025-02-24.
  3. ^ a b c Thompson, Jenny (2024-02-24). "How Evanston began celebrating Black History Month". Evanston RoundTable. Retrieved 2025-02-24.
  4. ^ "Kappa Honor Medal Goes to Mrs. Morgan". The Afro-American. 1944-02-26. p. 11. Retrieved 2025-02-24 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ "MTS : Artifacts: Madeline Stratton Morris Papers". Mapping the Stacks: A Guide to Black Chicago's Hidden Archives; University of Chicago. Retrieved 2025-02-24.
  6. ^ Hines, Michael (2022-02-04). "First Person: Madeline Morgan's pioneering vision to teach Black history in schools". Chalkbeat. Retrieved 2025-02-24.
  7. ^ "Teaching Negroes' Contribution to U.S. Culture is Advocated". The St. Louis Argus. 1944-11-03. p. 1. Retrieved 2025-02-24 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ a b "Luncheon Honors Negro Achievement Course Co-sponsors". Evening star. 1944-02-20. p. 10. Retrieved 2025-02-24 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ "Chicago Goes Forward with Madeline R. Morgan". Negro History Bulletin. 6 (5): 112–118. 1943. ISSN 0028-2529 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ Dennis, Ashley D. (May 2022). ""The Intellectual Emancipation of the Negro": Madeline Morgan and the Mandatory Black History Curriculum in Chicago during World War II". History of Education Quarterly. 62 (2): 136–160. doi:10.1017/heq.2022.2. ISSN 0018-2680.
  11. ^ "A Fundamental Attack on Prejudice". New Pittsburgh Courier. 1943-06-26. p. 6. Retrieved 2025-02-24 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ Snow, Charlotte (December 1999). "Coming of Age: Ten Chicagoans Master the Art of Growing Older". University of Chicago Magazine.
  13. ^ "NCNW Releases Honor Roll, 1947". The Black Dispatch. 1947-02-15. p. 6. Retrieved 2025-02-24 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ^ Morgan, Madlline R. (1943). "Teaching Negro History in Chicago Public Schools". Negro History Bulletin. 7 (3): 57–67. ISSN 0028-2529.
  15. ^ Morgan, Madeline R. (1944). "Chicago School Curriculum Includes Negro Achievements". The Journal of Negro Education. 13 (1): 120–123. ISSN 0022-2984.
  16. ^ Morgan, Madeline R. (1944). "Chicago Schools Teach Negro History". The Elementary English Review. 21 (3): 105–110. ISSN 0888-1030.
  17. ^ Office, Library of Congress Copyright (1968). Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third Series: 1965: January-June. Copyright Office, Library of Congress. p. 900.
  18. ^ Stratton, Madeline Robinson (1973). Strides Forward: Afro-American Biographies. Ginn. ISBN 978-0-663-24750-9.
  19. ^ "In Memoriam". Northwestern Magazine. Summer 2008.
  20. ^ Green, Mary (2008-01-01). "Put black studies in schools". Chicago Tribune. pp. 2–5. Retrieved 2025-02-24 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. ^ Hines, Michael (2022). A worthy piece of work: the untold story of Madeline Morgan and the fight for Black history in schools. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0-8070-0742-6.
  22. ^ Klonsky, Susan (2023). Hines, Michael (ed.). "A Worthy Piece of Work: The Untold Story of Madeline Morgan and the Fight for Black History in Schools". The Radical Teacher (125): 68–70. ISSN 0191-4847.
  23. ^ Rocksborough-Smith, Ian (2018). Black public history in Chicago: civil rights activism from World War II to the cold war. The New Black Studies series. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-04166-2.
  • Hines, Michael, "The Blackboard and the Colorline: Madeline Morgan and the Alternative Black Curriculum in Chicago Schools 1941-1945" (Ph.D. dissertation, Loyola University Chicago, 2017).
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