Sketch Biography of Author Mary Parker Follett
By Matthew Shapiro *

Follett was born in Boston in 1868. In 1892 she entered Radcliffe College,
the women's branch of Harvard, from which she graduated summa cum laude in
1898.  Follett published the work she did at Radcliffe in THE SPEAKER OF THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES (1896, 1909), which was widely lauded, a great
success but in retrospect dull and conventional by the standards of her later
works THE NEW STATE (1918) and CREATIVE EXPERIENCE (1924). 

>From 1900 to 1908 Follett devoted herself to social work in the Roxbury
neighborhood of Boston. In 1908 she became chairperson of the Women's
Municipal League's Committee on Extended Use of School Buildings, and in
1911 she helped open the East Boston High School Social Center. Subsequent
to this she helped out with the formation of many other social centers
throughout Boston. Her experience in this area helped to transform her view
of democracy.

Later on Follett served as a member of the Massachusetts Minimum Wage Board,
and in 1917 Follett became vice-president of the National Community Center
Association. However, by this time she had turned most of her attention to
writing for a wider public regarding what the social centers had taught her
about democracy. In 1918 she published THE NEW STATE, which was reissued in
1921 with a foreword by the British statesman Viscount Haldane. In 1924 she
published CREATIVE EXPERIENCE. 

>From this point until her death in 1933, Follett made a mark on the emerging
discipline of management. Her various papers and speeches in this context
were published in 1942 by Metcalf and Urwick in a book called DYNAMIC
ADMINISTRATION. Another celebration of her work in this context is MARY
PARKER FOLLETT: PROPHET OF MANAGEMENT was written by Pauline Graham,
published in 1995. 

Joan Tonn, a professor at the College of Management, University of
Massachusetts, Boston, is finishing up the first biography of Follett.

Follett's THE NEW STATE and CREATIVE EXPERIENCE are difficult to come by,
even though THE NEW STATE was re-published in 1965. In order to help bring
Follett's insights back into the eye of the general public, the Idaho
Systems Institute is in discussion with publishers to re-issue and
distribute these two works. 

The Idaho Systems Institute (IdaSys) is also planning the creation of an
online Virtual Mary P. Follett Institute, which will serve to foster
discussion related to, and action based on, the principles which Mary Parker
Follett espoused. The site will serve to promote new interpretations and
insights so that visitors and Fellows can live the creative democratic
process described by Follett rather than just read about it. The site will
also serve as a clearing house for information on books, essays, and
articles related to Follett, and will provide links to sites related to
civic participation, community, and democracy. The site has not been
developed but when it is it may be accessed through the following URL, which
is the IdaSys home page:  http://207.158.244.148/isi/index.html  

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*

Matthew Shapiro is the president and acting executive director of the Idaho
Systems Institute, a non-profit educational and scientific agency whose
mission is to promote systems thinking and design culture in communities in
Idaho, in the Pacific Northwest and in general. Authored works include ONE
NATURE, THE SOUTHWEST IDAHO SYSTEM, and THE FAILURE TO TRANSFORM EDUCATION
IN IDAHO: DIAGNOSIS, PROGNOSIS, AND THE ALTERNATIVE. He is the founder of
Coevolution Southern Idaho and is currently working to build a democratic
consciousness and civic framework based on dialogue, co-creation, and
idealized design from his own neighborhood level outwards. This effort is
being chronicled, along with supporting material from the literature on
civic participation and new democratic forms, in a work-in-progress
tentatively titled FROM NEIGHBORHOOD TO WORLD. He may be reached at (208)
384-9961 or via e-mail at ISI@netchaos.com.