John Dewey

In 1884, John Dewey met Harriet Alice Chipman, a former teacher and a student of philosophy at the University of Michigan. Although they started talking about marriage by March 1885, they waited for another year and got married after Harriet’s graduation in 1886.

The couple had six children. In spite of having a growing family, Harriet Alice supported her husband in every endeavor, acting as the principal of the elementary school he established in Chicago. She died in 1927.

On December 11, 1946, Dewey married Estella Roberta Lowitz Grant, a widow and a long time friend, whom he had first met while working at Oily City, Pennsylvania. They remained married until his death in 1952.

John Dewey was born on October 20, 1859 in Burlington, Vermont. His father, Archibald Sprague Dewey, left his grocery business during the Civil War to become a quartermaster in the Vermont Regiment. Afterwards, he opened a tobacco shop, running it successfully to provide his family with financial security and comfort.

His mother, Lucina Artemisia nee Rich, was almost twenty years younger than her husband. Daughter of a wealthy farmer, she was a devout Calvinist, possessing a stern sense of morality. She was stricter with her children than her easy going husband and made sure that they have college education.

John was born third of his parents four sons. Among his three brothers, the eldest, John Archibald Dewey, died in infancy. The second, Davis Rich Dewey, was elder to him by one and half years, while the fourth, Charles Miner Dewey, was younger by another one and half years.

Apart from his own siblings, John also had a cousin from his mother’s side, John Parker Rich, residing with them. Two years older to John Dewey, he was almost a brother to him.

John, like his brothers, had his early education at the Burlington public school, where children from all kinds of families, rich and poor, came to study. Some of them were old colonists while others were new immigrants. This enabled him to have a wide exposure from an early age.

In 1884, John Dewey Dewey began his career as an assistant professor of philosophy and psychology at the University of Michigan. He had received the position on the recommendation of his doctoral guide, George Sylvester Morris, who had in the same year returned to Michigan as the chairman of the philosophy department.

His years at the University of Michigan were quite productive. During this period, he published his first two books, ‘Psychology’ (1887), and ‘Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding’ (1888).

In 1888, he left University of Michigan to join the University of Minnesota as the Professor of Philosophy. But when Morris died in March 1889, he returned to the University of Michigan to take up the position so far held by Morris.

Initially, he had been more interested in the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. But possibly in 1890, on reading ‘Principles of Psychology’ by William James, he became interested in experimental philosophy, as advanced by William James and G. Stanley Hall.

He then started working with his junior colleagues, James Hayden Tufts and George Herbert Mead, trying to reformulate psychology. His student. James Rowland Angell, also joined the group in this endeavor.

In 1894, Dewey left University of Michigan to take up position at the newly founded University of Chicago. Tufts was already there. He now invited Mead and Angell to join him, thus forming the so called ‘Chicago Group’ of psychology.

Also, in 1894, Dewey established University Elementary School, an experimental primary school at the University of Chicago, with his wife, Harriet, as its principal. His main intension was to test his educational theories, which he had formed after extensive study of child psychology.

In 1896, he established his second school in the Hyde Park neighbourhood of Chicago. Known as the University of Chicago Laboratory School, it began as a progressive educational institution that went from nursery school to 12th grade.

Also, in 1896, while working on what was later dubbed as ‘functional psychology’, Dewey published .his one of his seminal works. Entitled ‘The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology’, it laid the foundation for American functional psychology.

In 1899, he had another important work, ‘The School and Society: Being Three Lectures’, published. It was his first work on education and created the foundation for his later works on the same subject.