Out of the Shadows

Alice Chipman Dewey was a philosopher, social reformer, educator, pioneer, and among the earliest women to graduate from U-M. Her incredible legacy has been historically overshadowed by that of her husband, John Dewey, though research and papers at the Bentley are now helping define Alice in her own right.

Of the little that is well-known about the rich life of Alice Chipman Dewey—one of the first women to graduate from the University of Michigan, a founder and a freethinker and a philosopher, who dedicated her life to education reform—almost all is connected to her husband, John Dewey. The two shared the same boarding house in Ann Arbor, on the northwest corner of Maynard and Jefferson Streets. It is here where Chipman, a philosophy major, first got to know the shy new instructor in the Department of Philosophy, when they both were in their mid-20s, more than 135 years ago.

Of John Dewey, much is known: He is widely considered to be a leading American philosopher, a proponent of pragmatism, and a pioneer of social reform and progressive education. Of his partner of 41 years, “no biography of her has ever been written, and she has been virtually neglected in the historical literature on progressive education,” wrote Irene Hall in her 2005 thesis The Unsung Partner: The Educational Work and Philosophy of Alice Chipman Dewey. “She is mentioned in biographies of her husband, but these biographies provide little insight into her thinking or her life.”