Julia

Julia Richman was the first woman district superintendent of schools in the City of New York. Her innovations, leadership and curriculum brought an entire new dimension to public school education at the beginning of the twentieth century.At age seventeen, she began to teach in the Grammar Department of one of the largest schools in New York. Her father coaxed her into teaching part time at the temple Sabbath school. Richman was very active in the Council of Women. She worked with them all her life to improve the Sabbath school system. When she was twenty-nine, she became the principal of the Girls' Department of Public School 77 and held it for nineteen years. She was the first and the first Normal College graduate to acquire such a position.She wrote books on curriculum and she started school optical programs, special schools for delinquents, chronic absentees and above average pupils. In 1906, she converted her house into a social center for the Teachers of her district. Richman was actively involved in the community by fighting prostitution around 1910. She also was very active in aiding children and established many types of clubs for them to join.
In 1912 she resigned her position so as to give a younger woman an opportunity to take her place. She had plans for many projects and activities during her retirement. She sailed to Europe and the day before the steamer was to land in Cherbourg, France, she was taken ill. Four days later complications set in and she died on June 24, 1912.