Helen Parkhurst: Montessori’s American Surrogate, Dalton School, Progressive Educator

Abstract

The chapter addresses how the relationship between Maria Montessori and Helen Parkhurst redirected the Montessori movement in the United States. In 1915, Parkhurst was an assistant to Maria Montessori who was lecturing at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. Parkhurst designed and served as directress of the highly popular glass-walled Montessori demonstration classroom exhibit at the Exposition. Supplanting the Montessori Educational Association, Montessori established the Montessori Promotion Fund to publicize her method, manufacture and market her materials, and finance her travel to America. When Montessori returned to Europe, she designated Parkhurst to supervise all aspects of Montessori education in the United States, overseeing all Montessori schools, and establishing college programs to prepare Montessori teachers for certification in public school systems. Parkhurst worked as Montessori’s American surrogate for four years but in 1919 decided to pursue her own independent career path. She devised a progressive innovation featuring instruction in education laboratories which became known as the Dalton Plan.