From collection Candidates
Ethel Redfield campaigned in Idaho for County Superintendent of schools around 1913. She served the position until 1917. In 1916, she was elected on the Republican ticket for Idaho State Superintendent of Public School instruction. She held the position until 1923 and subsequently became executive secretary of the State Board of Education from 1924-1925. In 1925 she was elected unanimously by the Board of Education for State Commissioner of Education and served in this position for two years. While in office she was a member of a group of state superintendents that headed up drift education to save money for schools. Ethel Redfield was born on April 22, 1877 to Frances M. and Elizabeth Farrell Redfield in Kamiah, Idaho. At the time of her birth, her father, a government agent, was working on the Nez Perce Reservation in Idaho. The family later moved to Oregon, where Redfield was raised. Redfield began working in education when she taught fifth and sixth grades and Latin to 34 students in a one-room school in Detroit, Oregon. She attended Albany College, more recently named Lewis and Clark College, in Portland, Oregon where she received an AB and a Bachelor of scientific didatics degree in 1987 and 1988. Albany College later awarded her an honorary doctorate in 1955. After graduating from Albany College, she served from 1906-1913 as the head of the Latin department at Lewiston High School in Idaho. In 1913, she was elected as the Nez Perce County Superintendent of Schools. In 1917, she was elected to the State Superintendent of Public School Instruction and served three terms. In subsequent years she also served as the Executive Secretary of the State Board of Education and the State Commissioner of Education while working on a Masters Degree in Education at the University of Idaho. She continued her graduate work at Stanford and Harvard Universities. In 1928, she returned to the University of Idaho in varying capacities; dean of women, resident hostess at the school's Faris Hall, director of summer sessions, head of the college of education and active member of the university's organizations. She served at the University until her retirement. She died in 1957 at Palo Alto, California.
