Ethel Percy Andrus (September 21, 1884 – July 13, 1967) was a long-time educator and the first woman high school principal in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. She was also an elder rights activist and the founder of

AARP AARP (formerly called the American Association of Retired Persons) is an interest group in the United States focusing on issues affecting those over the age of fifty. The organization said it had more than 38 million members in 2018. The magazi ...

in 1958. In 1993 she was inducted into the

National Women's Hall of Fame The National Women's Hall of Fame (NWHF) is an American institution incorporated in 1969 by a group of men and women in Seneca Falls, New York, although it did not induct its first enshrinees until 1973. As of 2021, it had 303 inductees. Induc ...

. In 1995 she was designated a

Women's History Month Women's History Month is an annual declared month that highlights the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society. It is celebrated during March in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, corresponding with ...

Honoree by the

National Women's History Project The National Women's History Alliance (NWHA) is an American non-profit organization dedicated to honoring and preserving women's history. The NWHA was formerly known as the National Women's History Project. Based out of Santa Rosa, California sinc ...

Life

Andrus earned a bachelor of philosophy (S.B. or

Scientiæ Baccalaureus A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

) degree from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

in 1903 and a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree from

Lewis Institute Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The ...

(now

Illinois Institute of Technology Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The university has prog ...

) in 1918. She then went on to receive her master's (1928) and doctoral (1930) degrees from the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

. While teaching at the Lewis Institute, she volunteered at

Jane Addams Laura Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 May 21, 1935) was an American Settlement movement, settlement activist, Social reform, reformer, social worker, sociologist, public administrator, and author. She was an important leader in the history of s ...

Hull House Hull House was a settlement house in Chicago, Illinois, United States that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located on the Near West Side of the city, Hull House (named after the original house's first owner Ch ...

. Andrus founded a separate organization, the National Retired Teachers Association (NRTA) in 1947. She realized that retired teachers were living on very small

pensions A pension (, from Latin ''pensiō'', "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments ...

, often without any

health insurance Health insurance or medical insurance (also known as medical aid in South Africa) is a type of insurance that covers the whole or a part of the risk of a person incurring medical expenses. As with other types of insurance, risk is shared among m ...

. She approached more than 30 companies to offer health insurance to retired teachers before she found someone willing to take a chance on NRTA members in 1956. The organization expanded its membership to all retirees and became AARP in 1958. In 1954 she moved to

Ojai, California Ojai ( ; Chumash: ''’Awhaỳ'') is a city in Ventura County, California. Located in the Ojai Valley, it is northwest of Los Angeles and east of Santa Barbara. The valley is part of the east–west trending Western Transverse Ranges and ...

, to start Grey Gables of Ojai, an NRTA sponsored retirement community. She ran both NRTA and AARP from her offices in Ojai until 1964 when she moved the administrative branch of AARP to Long Beach. It was while living in Ojai that she founded AARP in 1958. Today, the NRTA is still a division of AARP and serves as its educator community. The

Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center The USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology is one of the seventeen academic divisions of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, focusing in undergraduate and graduate programs in gerontology, History Founded in 1975, the Leona ...

is named after her at the

Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, the oldest and largest existing professional school of gerontology. Among Andrus' many accomplishments is a stint as a faculty member at

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, a predecessor of

, and being the first woman principal of a major urban high school in the state of California at Abraham Lincoln High School in Los Angeles. She was inducted into the

in 1993.

The Extra Mile The Extra Mile – Points of Light Volunteer Pathway is a memorial in Washington D.C. Located adjacent to the White House, the monument is composed of 34 bronze medallions honoring people who "through their caring and personal sacrifice, reached ...

National Monument in Washington, DC, selected Andrus as one of its 37 honorees. The Extra Mile pays homage to Americans like Andrus who set their own self-interest aside to help others and successfully brought positive social change to the United States. She is buried at Ivy Lawn Memorial Park in

Ventura, California Ventura, officially named San Buenaventura ( Spanish for " Saint Bonaventure"), is a city on the Southern Coast of California and the county seat of Ventura County. The population was 110,763 at the 2020 census. Ventura is a popular tourist ...

Notes

External links

National Women's Hall of Fame biography Virtualogy.com biography Ojaihistory.com How One Woman Changed America Pioneering Educator Founded the AARP Ventura County Star burial site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Andrus, Ethel Percy 1884 births 1967 deaths American activists 20th-century American educators Elder rights activists USC Rossier School of Education alumni Illinois Institute of Technology alumni AARP people Burials at Ivy Lawn Cemetery

Life

Notes

Further reading

External links