CANTIDAD:

1000

RESUMEN

Joseph Lee (Mar. 8, 1862 – July 28. 1937), author, philanthropist, and leader of the Playground Movement, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Henry Lee, a banker, and Elizabeth Perkins Cabot Lee, and grew up within the city’s “Brahmin” elite. He was educated at the Nobles school in Dedham, Massachusetts, and Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, before entering Harvard, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1883 and a master’s and a law degree in 1887. His family wealth enabled him to forego a promising legal career in favor of social work.

He became known as the “father of the playground movement” and transformed a fledgling playground association into the predominant recreation organization of the United States.
From 1891 to 1894, Lee was a member of the executive committee of the Massachusetts Emergency and Hygiene Association —the body that created the first playground in the United States in 1885— serving on a subcommittee of the playground group. Lee believed that, to a child, “play...is the most serious thing in life,” and, as such, “play builds the child.” (Lee, 5).

In 1897, Lee founded the Massachusetts Civic League, meant to “inform and organize public sentiment” in matters of charity and reform. The ultimate goal of the league was to promote progressive social legislation - something Lee felt was one of the neglected obligations of the philanthropist. The philanthropist, he insisted, must not only fund organizations for social benefit, but spend unlimited time, money, and talent studying social problems. With this philosophy at the mast of the organization, Lee’s Civic League was well suited to lead the Boston playground movement into the new century. Through the league, Lee became one of the most influential early recreation advocates, pioneering work in the study of children’s play, the development of experimental playgrounds, and the importance of play opportunities in fostering a sense of purpose, organization, and citizenship in young children.

That same year, Joseph Lee married Margaret Cabot, of the aristocratic Cabot family like his mother, Elizabeth. Margaret was involved with the kindergarten movement in the United States, following the work of German educator and founder of the kindergarten, Friedrich Froebel. Together, Joseph and Margaret raised four children in Brookline, Massachusetts: Margaret Lee Woodbury Southard, Susan Mary Lee, Joseph Lee, Jr., and Amy Lee Colt. Lee’s connections to Harvard and interest in kindergarten education may have spurred his significant financial support--a $1000 donation--of the Harvard Summer School for Cuban Teachers in 1900.

In 1906, along with the reformers Jacob Riis and Jane Addams, Lee was a founder of the Playground and Recreation Association of America, serving first as its vice-president and later its president. Simultaneously, he served as the president of the National Recreation Association, and on the Boston School committee, the Committee on Training Camp Activities, and as the president of Community Service of Boston, Inc. In 1907, he spearheaded enactment of the Boston Playground Law. From 1918 to 1921, and again from 1928 to 1934, Lee served as an overseer of Harvard University.

Although he held a stellar record in the spheres of childhood education and recreation, Lee was a staunch opponent of what he viewed as “undesirable” immigration, believing that immigrants from southern and eastern Europe were inferior to Anglo-Saxons. Along with many other prominent Boston Brahmins, Lee was active in the Immigration Restriction League.

Lee died from pneumonia at his family home in Cohasset, Massachusetts, on July 28, 1937.


Further Reading

1. Joseph Lee’s papers are held at the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. http://www.masshist.org/collection-guides/view/fa0191

2. Lee, Joseph. Play in Education (1915).

3. Obituary: New York Times, July 29, 1937.