Date of Award

1-1-1984

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Teaching & Learning

Abstract

This study is the in-depth documentation of a woman English educator whose life was at once uniquely individual and representative of an era and a profession. She was never famous, but rather was one of the countless numbers of teachers who so profoundly influenced and shaped American education.The life of Kathrine Belanger Macdonald Tiffany, or KB as she was more generally known, spanned a full century, 1878-1978. She both witnessed and participated in much of this country's history, from homesteading to politics. And she was especially influenced by the nineteenth-century, Protestant-American ideals of morality, citizenship, and education.The study is divided into four chapters, each covering about twenty-five years, and an epilogue. Chapter one describes her influential girlhood years. Her Dakota Territory immigrant homesteader's background, the religious influence of her country church and home, and the values she learned in early educational settings are all described.In the second chapter she is portrayed as wife, educator, and new woman. She was variously a high school English teacher, principal, normal school instructor, and appointed state educational office holder in North Dakota. She was also an active participant in the new woman movement, and, along with her husband, a part of the political activities of the Nonpartisan League.Chapter three depicts her as professor of rhetoric and English and wife of a college president. She emerges as a very devoted, master teacher in several institutional settings. Both her own teaching and the early history of the small Christian colleges where she taught are described here.In chapter four KB tells her own story, through her numerous letters. During this last quarter century of her life, she was carefully planning and executing projects to raise the academic stature of her Alma Mater, the University of North Dakota.The final chapter, the epilogue, completes the study by addressing some of the issues raised in KB's story. Generalizations and seeming contradictions in her life, as well as legends about her are considered.Historiographic methods of research, utilizing mainly primary sources, were used in preparing this study.

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