Agnes Mathilda Samuelson

Background

Agnes Mathilda Samuelson was born on April 14, 1887, in Shenandoah, Iowa and her parents were Sven August Samuelson and Alvida (Johnson) Samuelson, who both immigrated from Sweden to the United States. She was the oldest of 7 children.

Education

Agnes Samuelson graduated from high school in 1904 with a dream to be a teacher because she had experience helping Swedish immigrants learn American customs and language. After completing an 11-month long course at the Western Normal College in Shenandoah in 1905, she started her teaching career in 1906. To further her education, Agnes Samuelson attended the University of Nebraska (now the University of Nebraska-Lincoln) from 1911 to 1913. She attended the State University of Iowa, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in 1925 and a Master of Arts A in 1928.

Career

During the next two years, Agnes Samuelson taught at multiple schools in southwest Iowa, later becoming a principal and teacher at a high school in Silver City, Iowa. In 1908, her father died which made her become the main income earner in her family, making her more sensitive to the fact that male teachers received higher salaries.

Later became superintendent of public schools in Yorktown, Iowa in 1913. In 1915, Agnes Samuelson successfully campaigned to become a Page County Superintendent of Schools. She provided rural schools with more new curricular education during that time, ensured that schoolbooks were available countywide, and helped advance teachers by starting summer schools and institutes.

Agnes Samuelson became an extension professor of rural education in 1923 at the Iowa State Teachers College and continued to help rural children receive equal education while in that position.

In 1926, while Agnes Samuelson was a student and an extension professor, she ran for State Superintendent of Public Instruction and won the Republican nomination against May E. Francis. She was re-elected in 1930 and 1934. She held the position for 12 years.

In 1935, Agnes Samuelson was elected as president of the National Education Association. After deciding not to run for another term as Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1938, she became the executive secretary of the Iowa State Teachers Association. She left the association in 1945 to travel to the headquarters of the National Education Association in Washington, D.C. so that she could become an assistant editor of the organization's journal and to become the associate director of American Education Week.

Agnes Samuelson retired in 1952 and moved back to Iowa to live in Des Moines. After her retirement, she wrote books and compiled a school manual and service for the Governor's Commission on Senior Citizens.

Achievements

• Agnes Samuelson was posthumously inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1976 and a Des Moines elementary school was named after her.

Membership

• Pi Lambda Theta , United States

• Delta Kappa Gamma

• Phi Beta Kappa

Connections

Father:

Sven August Samuelson

Mother:

Alvida (Johnson) Samuelson

References

• Hudson, D., Bergman, M., & Horton, L. (Eds.) The biographical dictionary of Iowa
  2009