RICHMAN, JULIA

RICHMAN, JULIA (1855–1912), U.S. educator; the first woman district superintendent of schools in her native New York. She prepared for her teaching career at the Female Normal School (now Hunter College) and at New York University.   First serving as teacher and vice principal of Public School 77, she became the principal of its girls' department in 1884. In 1903 she was appointed district superintendent of schools, a post which she held until her death. Julia Richman helped immigrant children to adjust to American life, combated truancy and juvenile delinquency, and advocated educational programs for mentally retarded children. She organized an employment agency for school dropouts and provided medical and social services for pupils. She also pioneered in organizing the Parent-Teacher Association. She directed the Hebrew Free School Association and, as first president of the Young Women's Hebrew Association, 1886–90, influenced adult Jewish education. From 1895 to 1899 she was chairman of the committee on religious school work of the Council of Jewish Women. As educator and author of Good Citizenship (1908), with Isabel Richman Wallach, The Pupils' Arithmetic (1911–17), and Methods of Teaching Jewish Ethics (1914), she stressed the development and welfare of every child. A girls' high school in Manhattan was named after her. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: R. Proskauer and A.R. Altman, Julia Richman (1916). (William W. Brickman)