English: Biography: Deborah Cannon Partridge Wolfe, a self-described "teacher and preacher," is an educator, minister, community activist, writer, and world traveler, who has worked at many levels to provide opportunities for greater human development and understanding among people. Both parents, David Wadsworth and Gertrude Moody Cannon, held theological degrees, and her father was minister of the First Baptist Church in Cranford, N.J. After graduating from New Jersey State Teachers' College in 1937 with a degree in education, she worked summers in educational and recreational programs for migrant laborers in Maryland. She earned her master's degree in rural education from Columbia Teachers' College in 1938. At Tuskegee Institute from 1938 to 1940, she was principal and teacher-trainer in the laboratory schools at the Institute, head of the Department of Elementary Education, and director of the graduate studies program. In 1940 she was married to Henry Roy Partridge, who was then teaching at Tuskegee. While he was in the service during World War II, she continued her graduate studies program, earning her doctorate from Columbia University in 1945. When the marriage ended, she and her son returned to Cranford. She has served as professor of education at Queens College of the City University of New York for more than 30 years and as visiting professor for many colleges throughout the country. She was married to Estemore Wolfe in 1959. From 1962 to 1965, Dr. Wolfe served as education chief for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor; in this position she was instrumental in the development, passage, and implementation of some of the most innovative educational legislation ever written. Post-graduate study at Union Theological Seminary and Jewish Theological Seminary of America led to ordination to the Baptist ministry in 1970; since 1975, she has served as associate pastor of the First Baptist Church in Cranford. She has an extensive list of professional and community affiliations, including the National Alliance of Black School Educators, of which she was president; the Advanced Education Committee for the Graduate Record Examination; and the AAAS Commission on Science Education. She now chairs the non-governmental representatives to the United Nations, and is active in several sororities. The recipient of numerous awards, she was cited as one of New York's Outstanding Ten Women in 1958 and in 1959 was honored by the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History.

Description: The Black Women Oral History Project interviewed 72 African American women between 1976 and 1981. With support from the Schlesinger Library, the project recorded a cross section of women who had made significant contributions to American society during the first half of the 20th century. Photograph taken by Judith Sedwick
Repository: Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America.
Collection: Black Women Oral History Project
Research Guide: http://guides.library.harvard.edu/schlesinger_bwohp

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