Grady Gammage
5 Aug 1892 - 22 Dec 1959
bornArkansas, USA
diedTempe, Arizona, USA
SchooltblData
BiographyPresident of Arizona State Teachers College/ Arizona State University, 1933-1958. Attended public schools and a college in Arkansas, completing his education at the University of Arizona in 1916, with an BA degree. Taught school in Arkansas until he contracted tuberculosis in 1912, when he came to Arizona. He moved to Tucson and attended the University of Arizona while working for the university maintenance crew. He was cured of tuberculosis in 1914. He returned to Arkansas and married Dixie Dees. Returned to Tucson and graduated from the University of Arizona with honors in 1916. He worked briefly as editor of the Tucson Post. He served as Principal of Winslow High School, 1920-1923 and became Superintendent of Schools in Winslow in 1923-1925. He completed his Master's degree from UA in 1922 and received an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Arizona in 1926. He became Professor of Education at Northern Arizona State Teachers College (NAU) in 1925 and was President of Northern Arizona State Teachers College, 1926-1933. He was appointed to the State Board of Education in 1925. He came to Tempe as President of Arizona State Teachers College in 1933 still in 1936 Proposed $400,000 capital improvements program at ASTC. By 1940, he had completed $1.75 million in capital improvements, mostly financed through the Public Works Administration (PWA), the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and other federal agencies. He received an Ed.D in Education from New York University in 1940. He also received a Doctor of Letters degree from Southwestern Christian Seminary in Phoenix. He guided the development of the school into a four-year liberal arts college, and successfully promoted progressive changes in the school's status and name, to Arizona State College in 1945, and to Arizona State University in 1958.
He wrote two full-length works, "Rural Education in Arizona," and "A Survey of Arizona State Teachers Colleges." He was a member of the Arizona United War Fund and the National War Fund. He was Director of United China Relief, and received a citation from General Chiang Kai-Shek and a medal from the Danish government for this work. In November 1956 he was awarded a citation by the Jewish Chautauqua Society for encouraging the establishment of a JCS resident lectureship on Judaism at ASU and for other contributions to interfaith understanding. He raised $500,000 in Arizona for the USO. In 1957, he was recognized by the National Conference of Christians and Jews for outstanding leadership. He was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, the Masons, and several fraternities. He was also a member of the Chambers of Commerce of Phoenix and Tempe, and the Arizona Club of Phoenix.
Grady Gammage Auditorium at Arizona State University was named in his honor.
Lived in the President's House owned by the college.
BIO-Gammage
BIO-Matthews
Hopkins and Thomas, The ASU Story,
pp. 222-223, 226-238, 254, 291-292
Tempe Telephone Directory, 1940
HPS-171 Tempe CD 1936, '38, '41-'42
Person TypeIndividual
