Past National PTA Presidents (1920-1929)

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Selena-Sloan-Butler.jpgSelena Sloan Butler, founder and first president, National Congress of Colored Parents and Teachers 1926-1931

Selena Sloan Butler was past president of Georgia Congress of colored Parents and Teachers 1919-1926. On May 7, 1926, the National Congress of Colored Parents and Teachers (NCCPT) was formed. In 1928, Mrs. Butler was appointed as a member of the President’s National Conference on Child Health and Protection. Selana Butler died October 1964.

Margaretta-Willis-Reeve.jpgMargaretta Willis Reeve, president, National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teacher Associations 1923-1928

At the1924 convention, the membership voted to shorten the name of the organization to the National Congress of Parents and Teachers.  The name was registered for use in 1925. National Congress of Parents and Teachers used the abbreviated name in 1925 – N.C.P.T. at their annual convention in Austin, Texas. In 1927 the 31st NCPT Convention was held in Oakland, California.  Also that year, the P.T.A. Mothersingers choruses were originated by the national chairman of Music Committee. August 1927, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada the International Federation of Home and School elected Margaretta Reeve as their president, in recognition of the N.C.P.T.’s increasing efforts  to arouse interest in the world’s children.  The Federation met biannually from 1927 through 1937, after which world conditions made it necessary to suspend further operations.  At the end of her term the organization of the states was nearly complete.  Nevada was the only state not yet organized.  The District of Columbia and the Territory of Hawaii were joined with the forty-seven other states in a body whose membership now totaled a million and a quarter.

Katherine-Chapin-Higgins.jpgKatherine Chapin Higgins, president, National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teacher Associations – 1920-1923 (Massachusetts).

Katherine was over seventy years old when she made more than eighty visits to state congresses and a hundred and ninety-seven to towns giving two hundred and fifty-seven addresses. 1922 – National Congress convention held in Tacoma, Washington