Ethel Percy Andrus

Ethel Percy Andrus, Ph.D., dedicated her career to education and the concerns of retired Americans. In 1916, at the age of 32, she was named principal of Lincoln High School in Los Angeles, making her the first woman in California to lead a secondary school. Soon after her arrival, she began a successful campaign to rename the community “Lincoln Heights.” During her 28 years at the school, she would go on to influence generations of students as an innovative administrator, particularly in the areas of industrial and adult education. She also earned a Ph.D. from the USC Rossier School of Education in 1930 and became an expert in urban education. Dr. Andrus founded the National Retired Teachers Association (NRTA) in 1947 in response to the meager pensions on which retired educators struggled to live at the time after speaking with a retired teacher forced to live in a chicken coop. The NRTA used group strength to provide low-cost insurance programs, and in 1956, it became the first health insurance program for educators over the age of 65. Two years later, after thousands of other non-teachers contacted her about receiving benefits, Dr. Andrus co-founded the American Association for Retired Persons (AARP) along with her close friend Leonard Davis. She served as president and led the organization to rapid growth by creating an array of programs to help older Americans with many aspects of their lives, including second careers, health insurance, travel and more.