The University of Chicago
activist educator suffragist author
Janette Murray was born on October 28, 1874, in Traer, Iowa, the United States to William and Elizabeth (Young) Stevenson, descendants of Scottish farmers who settled in Tama County. The Murrays lived in Cedar Rapids until 1963, when they relocated to Ames, and then to the Calvin Manor in Des Moines.
Janette Murray was educated in rural schools and Traer High School. In 1896 she graduated from Coe College in Cedar Rapids. She studied English at the University of Chicago as a graduate student.
Janette Murray taught school in Yankton, South Dakota, and in Nebraska for several years and became a principal. During 1915-1916, Janette Murray campaigned for woman suffrage. In 1917 she helped establish the State University of Iowa’s Child Welfare Research Station.
As the state Parent Teacher Association (PTA) chair of parent education, Janette Murray established PTA child-study groups. She was elected to the Cedar Rapids School Board in 1921, becoming the first female president in 1923-1924.
In the late 1920s, Janette Murray became a radio personality, giving weekly radio talks on parenting over three years. She was also regularly asked to speak to groups on parenting, education, Iowa history, travel, and foreign affairs.
Murray’s activities extended to policy studies and international relations. In 1944 Janette Murray began organizing women’s study groups to help women become informed on world trade and foreign policy in order to help prevent future wars. She was a supporter of the United Nations and of foreign aid programs to provide education, food, and clothing for the underprivileged worldwide. For her efforts, she received the National Brotherhood Award.
In 1947, at the age of 72, Janette Murray was named Mother of the Year by the American Mothers’ Committee of the Golden Rule Foundation.
Throughout the years Janette Murray shared her ideas and knowledge as a writer. She authored works on voting rights for women and the sugar industry in Hawaii. She wrote about parenting in her column, "The Modern Mother in Home, School, and Community," for the Cedar Rapids Gazette and in three nationally distributed publications for the Child Welfare Research Station. She wrote feature articles for Iowa newspapers and other magazines and journals, including Parents Magazine and publications of the National Kindergarten Association, and also wrote about Iowa history in the Iowa Journal of History and Politics. She was the author or co-author of several books.
(With her daughter Janet Murray Fiske, Janette Murraycoaut...)
1963(With her husband, Frederick G. Murray, Janette Murray coa...)
1950In addition to her work on suffrage and parent education, Janette Murray was active in a number of organizations, including the Cedar Rapids branch of the American Association of University Women (president, 1944-1946), Phi Kappa Phi (the national scholastic honor society), and the Central Park Presbyterian Church in Cedar Rapids.
In 1902 Janette Murray married Frederick Gray Murray. Janette Stevenson Murray had five children, all of whom graduated from Coe College and went on for further degrees. Each of her children taught school for some period of time.
Frederick Gray Murray, a Coe College graduate, continued his education at Rush Medical College. He set up practice in Cedar Rapids, interrupted by a sojourn in Hawaii in 1918-1919 as a major in the Medical Corps during World War I.
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