Mary Godfrey

Last updated
Mary E. Godfrey
Born(1913-07-03)July 3, 1913
Charlotte Court House, VA, USA
Died30 April 2007
State College, PA, USA
NationalityAmerican
OccupationArt educator

Mary Emmeline Godfrey (3 July 1913 - 30 April 2007) [1] was an artist and art educator who became the first full-time African-American faculty member at Penn State University. She was hired in 1957 and served as an assistant professor of art education until her retirement in 1979. [2]

Contents

Godfrey earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Pratt Institute and a master's degree from Columbia University, and worked as the assistant state supervisor of art education for the Virginia Department of Education. In 1957, Dr. Viktor Lowenfeld, head of the newly formed Department of Art Education, College of Education, at The Pennsylvania State University, hired Godfrey as assistant professor of art education.

She served for 22 years, teaching courses in elementary and secondary art education, supervision, the history of art education, and introduction to crafts. She researched the design of art classrooms, studying Pennsylvania art education laboratories, art rooms, and facilities for junior high schools. Her artwork was exhibited in both Pennsylvania and Virginia. [3]

Early life

Mary Godfrey was born on July 3, 1913, in the small southern town of Charlotte Court House, Virginia, and was one of eight children of Henry B. Godfrey and Louise (née Reid) Godfrey. During an interview Godfrey states she was born in New York City. [4] Godfrey's family maintained a farm in Charlotte Court House and a residence in New York City, where her father had established a business.

Godfrey's older sister, Cleveland Community Activist and journalist, Stella Godfrey White Bigham, whose work promoted interracial understanding, [5] was the first African American woman to sit on the Cleveland Transit System board.

Education

Godfrey entered the Pratt Institute Department of Teacher Training in Art Education in 1933, at the age of 20, and received a teaching certificate in 1937. Even though records indicate Godfrey received a BFA in art education, Pratt did not grant four-year bachelor's degrees until 1938. The coursework Godfrey received during her four years was equivalent to a bachelor's degree. She was qualified to teach all phases of art in public and private school from elementary to the college level in any state. [6]

Godfrey continued her education and received a master's degree from Columbia University Teachers College.

Career

After Godfrey graduated from Pratt Institute she became an art teacher/supervisor for the Camden Public Schools in Camden, New Jersey from 1938 to 1947. Sara Joyner, Virginia’s first state art supervisor and founder of the National Art Education Association (NAEA), worked toward advancing art education for all children and helped to organize a Negro Art Section of the Virginia Education Association, and in 1947, she hired Godfrey as the first African American assistant supervisor of Art Education in Virginia. Her job was to supervise the Black schools in the state and to promote art education. [7]

Works

Two pieces of Godfrey's work, Art Lesson, oil on canvas, and Lady with Cat/Daybreak, watercolor, ink, and chalk on paper, were gifted by Godfrey's family to the Pennsylvania State University Palmer Museum of Art. Daybreak was included in the exhibition Those Who Taught: Selected Works by Former Faculty (May 20 - August 14, 2022), and Art Lesson was exhibited in Looking at Who We Are: The Palmer at 50 (September 23 - December 18, 2022). [8] [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John T. Biggers</span> African-American muralist

John Thomas Biggers was an African-American muralist who came to prominence after the Harlem Renaissance and toward the end of World War II. Biggers created works critical of racial and economic injustice. He also served as the founding chairman of the art department at Houston's Texas State University for Negroes, a historically black college.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hampton University</span> Historically black university in Hampton, Virginia, US

Hampton University is a private, historically black, research university in Hampton, Virginia. Founded in 1868 as Hampton Agricultural and Industrial School, it was established by Black and White leaders of the American Missionary Association after the American Civil War to provide education to freedmen. The campus houses the Hampton University Museum, which is the oldest museum of the African diaspora in the United States and the oldest museum in the commonwealth of Virginia. First led by former Union General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, Hampton University's main campus is located on 314 acres in Hampton, Virginia, on the banks of the Hampton River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Penn State Abington</span> Public university in Abington, Pennsylvania, U.S.

Penn State Abington is a commonwealth campus of the Pennsylvania State University located in Abington, Pennsylvania. The campus is set on 45 acres (180,000 m2) of wooded land. The roughly 4000 undergraduate students are taught by a full-time staff of over 150 professors and teaching assistants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Jane Patterson</span>

Mary Jane Patterson was the first African-American woman to receive a B.A degree, in 1862.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Evangeline Brooks</span> American academic

Julia Evangeline Brooks was an incorporator of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, the first sorority founded by African-American women. The sorority has continued to generate social capital for nearly 100 years.

Austrian Viktor Lowenfeld (1903–1960) was an Austrian-born professor of art education at the Hampton Institute and the Pennsylvania State University. His ideas influenced many art educators in the post-World War II United States. In particular, he emphasized "ways in which children at different stages of artistic development should be stimulated by appropriate media and themes, and ... the curriculum ... guided mainly by developmental considerations."

Jackson Davis was a principal, education official, and education reformer from Virginia during the Jim Crow era of segregation. He was involved in supervising education programs for African Americans and promoted well maintained manual labor colleges for them. He did not express any opposition to segregation. He took photographs and documented conditions at some of the schools serving African Americans and Native Americans in the southern United States, especially in rural areas. He was also involved with philanthropic organizations, traveled to Africa twice, and was part of a colonization society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liz Magill</span> American legal scholar (born 1965)

Mary Elizabeth Magill is an American legal scholar and academic administrator. She served as the 9th president of the University of Pennsylvania from 2022 to 2023, executive vice president and provost of the University of Virginia from 2019 to 2022, and dean of Stanford Law School from 2012 to 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julius H. Taylor</span> American physicist (1914–2011)

Julius Henry "Jute" Taylor was a professor emeritus at Morgan State University, where he was also the first chairperson of the department of physics, which he helped to establish at the university. He was the second African-American person to receive a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the first African-American person to receive a PhD in physics at the university. Taylor's research focused on x-ray diffusion, and electrical and optical properties of semi-conductors.

Susan Harriet Fuhrman is an American education policy scholar and served from 2006 as the first female president of Teachers College, Columbia University. Fuhrman earned her doctorate in Political Science and Education from Columbia University. She became very engaged in issues of educational equity and emerged as an authority on school reform. Fuhrman is known for her early and ongoing critical analysis of the standards movement and for her efforts to foster research that provides a scientific basis for effective teaching.

The National Association for Music Education (NAfME) is an organization of American music educators dedicated to advancing and preserving music education as part of the core curriculum of schools in the United States. Founded in 1907 as the Music Supervisors National Conference (MSNC), the organization was known from 1934 to 1998 as the Music Educators National Conference. From 1998 to 2011 it was known as "MENC: The National Association for Music Education." On September 1, 2011, the organization changed its acronym from MENC to NAfME. On March 8, 2012, the organization's name legally became National Association for Music Education, using the acronym "NAfME". It has approximately 45,000 members, and NAfME's headquarters are located in Reston, Virginia.

Marybeth Gasman is Samuel DeWitt Proctor Endowed Chair in Education and a Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University. She was appointed as Associate Dean for Research in the Rutgers Graduate School of Education in the fall of 2021 and was elected Chair of the Rutgers University-New Brunswick Faculty Council in 2021. In addition to these roles, Gasman is the Executive Director of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Institute for Leadership, Equity, & Justice as well as the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Josephine Turpin Washington</span> American teacher and writer (1861–1949)

Josephine Turpin Washington was an African-American writer and teacher. A long-time educator and a frequent contributor, Washington devised articles to magazines and newspapers typically concerning some aspect of racism in America. Washington was a great-granddaughter of Mary Jefferson Turpin, a paternal aunt of Thomas Jefferson.

The College of Education is one of 15 colleges at The Pennsylvania State University, located in University Park, PA. It houses the departments of Curriculum and Instruction, Education Policy Studies, Learning and Performance Systems, and Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education. Almost 2,300 undergraduate students, and nearly 1,000 graduate students are enrolled in its 7 undergraduate and 16 graduate degree programs. The college is housed in four buildings: Chambers, Rackley, Keller, and CEDAR Buildings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grace E. Harris</span> American university administrator

Grace E. Harris., was an administrator from Virginia Commonwealth University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frances Euphemia Thompson</span>

Frances Euphemia Thompson was an African American artist and art educator dedicated to improving the lives of African Americans through art education. She was one of the first African American women to graduate from Massachusetts Normal Art School.

Mary-Elizabeth Hamstrom was an American mathematician known for her contributions to topology, and particularly to point-set topology and the theory of homeomorphism groups of manifolds. She was for many years a professor of mathematics at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.

Hollylynne Stohl Lee is an American mathematics educator and statistics educator who describes herself as an "educational designer" focusing on technology-based learning. She is a professor of mathematics education in the College of Education at North Carolina State University, where she directs the Hub for Innovation and Research in Statistics Education in the William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation.

Joella Hardeman Gipson-Simpson was an American musician, mathematician, and educator who became the first African American student at Mount St. Mary's College in Los Angeles.

Karen A. Thole is an American engineer. She is a Distinguished Professor and former head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Pennsylvania State University.

References

  1. "Mary E. Godfrey, State College, Pennsylvania". Legacy.com. 20 May 2007. Retrieved 20 March 2017.
  2. "Mary Godfrey". African American Chronicles: Black History at Penn State. Penn State University. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
  3. Guide to the Mary E. Godfrey Papers (6447), Penn State University Archives, Special Collections Library, Pennsylvania State University.
  4. Hollingsworth, Jr., C. (1988). Viktor Lowenfeld and the racial landscape of Hampton Institute during his tenure (1939-1946), (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.
  5. Stella Godfrey White Bigham, The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, Stella G. White Papers, Charles W. White Family Papers at Western Reserve Historical Society, Retrieved from,
  6. Roy, V. (1936). Department of Teacher Training, Pratt Institute School of Fine and Applied Arts Catalog: Day Courses, 1936–37. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Pratt Institute.
  7. David Burton & Pearl Quick (2017). Sara Joyner: The First State Art Supervisor in Virginia, Studies in Art Education, 58:2, 115-124.
  8. "Those Who Taught: Selected Works by Former Faculty".
  9. https://palmermuseum.psu.edu/exhibition/looking-at-who-we-are-the-palmer-at-fifty>

Further reading