Winifred Ward: Progressively Queer

Abstract

This article examines Winifred Ward's life and her writing to illustrate that Ward was both a progressive and a Queer author who used the language of the historical moment to advance her often subversive and revolutionary ideas. Scholars have often referred to Winifred Ward as the “mother” of the field of creative dramatics. This article locates Winifred Ward's writing in the progressive education movement and acknowledges the connection between Ward and other progressive-era educators, namely John Dewey, William Kirkpatrick, Francis Parker, and Hughes Mearns, all of whom promoted the education of what they termed the whole child. However, the article goes a step further, considering the influence of Ward's intimate relationship with Hazel Easton on her professional work and her writing. Furthermore, the article examines the ways that children and childhood, and the women who taught them, were constructed in the United States at the turn of the century. Ultimately, the article analyzes Ward's writing through a Queer lens and suggests that a Queer sensibility may have influenced Ward's notion that some children need to explore various means of gender representation to arrive at one that is satisfactory to their sense of self.

Notes

¹I capitalize “Queer” in the spirit of reclaiming the word to signify a group of people or a culture, similar to the way in which “Deaf” or “Black” has come to signify a particular group in contemporary discourse.

²For instance, I was advised by many of my colleagues not to mention this research in my Winifred Ward Scholarship application portfolio.

³Ward herself was a Congregationalist; she was dedicated to providing drama and education materials to Sunday schools, as well as identifying stories from the Bible that were particularly “well suited to dramatic interpretation” and Christian education.