Bringing Montessori to America
S. S. McClure, Maria Montessori, and the Campaign to Publicize Montessori Education
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7307012 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Blair Justice (0000-0002-5713-9543, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, corresponding author), Benjamin Justice |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 104 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 515-516 |
| Publication date | 2017-08-28 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jahist/jax237 |
| OpenAlex | W2745567767 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
Between 1910 and 1915, Maria Montessori and her child-centered pedagogy streaked across the American educational horizon like a shooting star. Popular magazines and newspapers hailed “La Dottoressa” as a genius; notable celebrities and philanthropists lined up behind her American lecture tour; middle-class parents flocked to purchase her educational materials for their children; and even the U.S. Education Commissioner gave a tepid endorsement (p. 134). Yet by 1920, Montessori, whose star was still on the rise in Europe, had faded into obscurity in the United States. Not until an unlikely renaissance in the late 1950s would her reform enjoy any real traction—and even then, only at the margins of American education. Montessori's biographical history is well known; so, too, are her ideas. But the history of the idea of Montessori—how, and why, her persona and reform package rose and fell so rapidly in the second decade of the twentieth century—has not been adequately explored or explained. In Bringing Montessori to America Gerald L. Gutek and Patricia A. Gutek give a creative and engaging account of Montessori's American flameout. Montessori's rise and fall, as they describe it, was the direct result of the media mogul S. S. McClure's attempt to commodify Montessori and her ideas. (McClure was deeply in debt and financially desperate.) Montessori was eager and ambitious, but she was intolerant of educators making modifications or experimenting with her program. Though initially promising, the Montessori moment stalled, Gutek and Gutek argue, through a toxic combination of McClure's poor business skills and Montessori's insistence on directly controlling her brand
Art · Cabinet (room · Curriculum · Genius · Literature · Pedagogy · Political science · Sociology · Visual arts · Diverse Education Studies and Reforms · Education Methods and Practices · Historical Education Studies Worldwide · History
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,38 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2021 (4) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |