Los
Angeles County
Biographies
SUSAN M. DORSEY
An educator of national repute,
Susan M. Dorsey has been closely connected with the public schools of Los
Angeles for more than three and a half decades in the capacities of instructor and
school administrator. Her service has
been distinguished not merely by its duration and the responsibility of the
offices she has filled, but the particularly personal character of the work she
has done and the ideas and ideals which have guided her in that work.
Born in Penn Yan, New York, Mrs.
Dorsey was reared and educated in the east and following her graduation from
Vassar College was a member of its faculty for three years. Afterward her work was along religious and social
lines, and it was those interests which first brought her to California in
1881. During the first nine years of her
residence in this state she was identified with various social programs. In 1892 she resumed education work and in
1896 became a teacher of classical languages in the Los Angeles high
school. An instructor of marked ability,
she was placed at the head of the classical department of the school, of which
she was later made vice principal. In
this position Mrs. Dorsey had opportunity not only to teach along the formal
lines, but to assist largely in shaping the policies of the Los Angeles high
school and of all the high schools in the city.
With zeal and energy she applied herself to the task of integrating the
work of the high schools and that of colleges and the practical work of
life. She constantly sought to evolve
plans for developing the social life of the school, and for introducing into it
a liberal and democratic sprit which would gradually disintegrate the class and
clique system too frequently found in such schools. She was profoundly interested and ultimately
instrumental in devising a method whereby older girls should be able to help
the younger ones.
Keeping not only abreast of the
times but in advance of them, Mrs. Dorsey was one of the pioneers in developing
the idea of vocational guidance. In the
direction of that ideal she was steadily progressing when most public schools
in America and elsewhere were following the cut and dried program of formal
education, with only incidental relationship to the big and vital problems of
life.
In March, 1913, by the unanimous
choice of the members of the Los Angeles board of education, Mrs. Dorsey
assumed the duties of assistant superintendent of schools. With this assignment there came the
responsibility of supervising one of the school districts. In spite of absorption in this larger and
more general work, she always found time to consider individual cases, whether
of a teacher or a pupil. Because of her
interest in organizations having in charge the social welfare of women and
girls in the city, she has done much to put the work of the schools into close
and effective coordination with such outside organizations, and to secure
frequent conferences between the school authorities proper and the juvenile associations,
the mothers of the city and charity organizations. Especially during the World War much time and
serious effort were given to making the schools one of the great controlling
factors in Los Angeles toward winning the war.
On the lst of January, 1920, Mrs. Dorsey
entered upon the work of superintendent of the schools of Los Angeles, to which
position she had been assigned by the board of education a few days
before. She assumed this responsible
work at a time of extreme difficulty, owing to the fact that war conditions for
several years had prevented the usual improvement and increase in school
facilities, while the child population of Los Angeles kept on growing at an
astonishing rate. To the situation she
brought poise, courage, optimism and determination, proving equal to the
emergency and to every demand made upon her powers.
Mrs. Dorsey was honored with the
presidency of the Southern Section of the California Teachers Association, the
vice presidency of the National Education Association, and was chosen a member
of the commission on the National Emergency in Education and a member of the
National Council of Education. She is a
charter member of the Woman’s University Club of Los Angeles and also belongs
to the Vassar Club and the City Teachers’ Club.
Her talents have been devoted to the working out of a large and
wholesome program of American education, and her own Americanism is a record
that begins with her ancestors, who fought under General Washington in the
Revolutionary War.
Transcribed by
V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. III, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages
87-89, Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES BIOGRAPIES