Wood, Mary Elizabeth, 1902-
Biography
Mary Elizabeth Wood, educator, certified social worker, and Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) administrator, was born August 28, 1902, in Des Moines. Her parents were Emmett and Rose Wood, who instilled in their six daughters and three sons the importance of education. Every night when the family gathered for dinner, each had to describe something they had learned or done that day. "If you hadn't done anything or learned anything you were in hot water," recalled Wood (Des Moines Register, April 6, 1995).
Wood grew up in Des Moines and graduated from East High School in 1920 and Drake University in1924, the only African-American in her graduating class at each institution. With a teaching certificate from Drake she was offered a job at Houston College in Texas, where she taught for a year before becoming the director of the youth program for the African-American branch of the Tulsa, Oklahoma, YWCA. Wood received her M.A. in Community Organization from New York University in 1946. In 1949, Wood was one of six American YWCA leaders chosen to attend a six-week Leadership Training Institute in Geneva, Switzerland. Wood worked at YWCA branches in Denver, Newark and Philadelphia before her appointment as metropolitan executive director of the YWCA of Buffalo and Erie County, New York, in 1957. She was the first African-American woman to hold such a post. In 1968 she became metropolitan executive director of the YWCA of Greater Pittsburgh, working there until her retirement in 1972. After her retirement Mary Wood served as a consultant to the National Board of the YWCA, helping the association assess the progress of branches in implementing "the one imperative: to eliminate racism." Throughout her life Mary Wood has received many honors and awards for her professional service and in 1996 she was inducted into the Iowa Wome's Hall of Fame.
Found in 2 Collections and/or Records:
Giving Voice to their Memories: Oral Histories of African American Women in Iowa
Oral history project of the Iowa Women's Archives.
Mary Elizabeth Wood papers
Social worker and the first African American woman in the United States to be named executive director of a greater metropolitan YWCA.
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