Elmina R. Lucke Papers, 1986-1987, n.d. | Oberlin College Archives

Lucke, Elmina R. (1889-1987)

Elmina Rose Lucke began life in the town of Carleton, Michigan. The daughter of Jacob John Lucke and Caroline Streit, she was born on 6 December 1889, and later both a sister, who died as a baby, and brother, were added to the family. She started attending school at a one-room schoolhouse in 1896.  In the early 1900s, Lucke commuted to West Central High School in Toledo, Ohio, where she stayed with an aunt. There, she developed a love of study and participated actively in student groups until she graduated in 1908 and was enrolled at Oberlin College.

During her time of study at Oberlin, Lucke majored in comparative literature and additionally held student senate positions, participated with the Oberlin Review and the Literary Society, and served as class Vice President for 1911-12. These activities foretold her active career as a teacher, advisor for social welfare groups, and ultimately, a lecturer and consultant for the United Nations – all scholarly and diplomatic positions. Lucke also took advantage of the musical opportunities at Oberlin; she entered as a Conservatory student before transferring into the collegiate division. The love of music followed her into her later travels and studies, as did the diversity of the Oberlin student population, among whom she found Chinese and Japanese classmates as well as African-American. She graduated Oberlin in 1912 with Phi Beta Kappa honors.

Following graduation, she moved back to Carleton, helping to establish the first high school in the town and teaching in it. In spite of her trepidations about teaching, Lucke found that she enjoyed it. In 1912, after a year’s stint at the school, she traveled to Berlin, Germany, to pursue graduate study in comparative literature at the University of Berlin. The outbreak of World War I interrupted her studies, and Lucke returned to the United States where she taught German, history, and English at Scott High School in Toledo, Ohio. Lucke pursued this teaching position for the next three years, taking her first government post in 1917. At that point, she began employment as director of social services with the Children’s Bureau in Gary, Indiana while studying social service at the University of Chicago. She was also employed by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics to conduct wartime surveys in Oklahoma and Kansas during this period of 1917-19.

With the end of the war came another change of career for Elmina Lucke, and she accepted a position in social services under the auspices of the Y.W.C.A. She provided service to foreign communities and, in particular, foreign-born women. She was inspired to learn more about law and protection for immigrants to the United States, after seeing the frequent cheating and corruption of such immigrants in Detroit. Soon thereafter, she organized the Detroit International Institute, Service Bureau for the foreign born. Her experience there led the administrators of Toledo high schools to seek out her contributions as both a teacher of experimental courses in social studies and an organizer of such courses throughout the school system, beginning in 1922. Her family had moved to Toledo by this time, and she moved back upon the discovery of her own illness and her father’s illness. This did not prevent her from actively pursuing her new interest in social welfare, though.

In 1926, Lucke moved to New York and enrolled at Columbia University, in the International Law and Relations doctoral program – one of the first two women to enter the program. She left the program after three years of studying law for use in social work involving international relations, having earned an M.A. and done additional work towards her doctoral degree. While studying at Columbia, she also taught in the Experimental High School, Lincoln School, of the Teacher’s College of Columbia University. Here, as in her previous teaching, she introduced courses in social studies. She continued working as an experimental teacher and researcher until 1946.

Elmina R. Lucke returned to foreign travel, taking a leave for study with a grant from the American Council of Nationalities Service in 1930-31. Later, she served on the National Board for the council from 1937-69. In 1946, she left her teaching career in New York to work as an advisor for the Y.W.C.A. in India, where she founded the Delhi School of Social Work through connections with the Y.W.C.A. and University of Delhi. This travel and work in India impacted her future career immensely and was an important element in her book, Remembering at Eighty Eight. For her work and motivation, in 1950 she received a Fulbright Scholarship to Cairo, Egypt, where she served as consultant in social work training at the Cairo School of Social Work. She additionally advised the Department of Social Welfare of Egypt and the United States State Department, and from 1951-2, acted as consultant for the American Council of Voluntary Agencies for Foreign Service.

Following her work in Egypt, Elmina Lucke moved to Pakistan in 1952 to serve as chairman of the United Nations Technical Assistance Program to Pakistan until 1955. Lucke spent the succeeding years, until 1959, consulting and lecturing on Asian Affairs and the United Nations. During this time, she accepted appointments to the Board of Trustees of the New Lincoln School and the Advisory Board of the Adelphi School of Social Work in 1956. That year, Oberlin College recognized her extraordinarily extensive labors in social services with an honorary Doctoral degree of Humane Letters.

Next, Elmina Lucke taught a seminar for foreign students of Social Welfare at the University of Michigan from 1958-59, before being appointed representative to the United Nations for the International Federation of University Women. Her career consisted largely of lecturing in international affairs from 1959 until 1963, her official “retirement” date. Upon retiring, she moved to Sarasota, Florida, but continued to receive delegations and appointments as representative to a variety of conferences and councils, all relating to her experience in social work or representation of women’s interests. These included consultation on the U.N. Australian Council of Women, attendance at the Tonga Conference of 1964 as a delegate of the Pan-Pacific and Southeast Asia Women’s Association (PPSEAWA), and presentation of proposals on behalf of the PPSEAWA at a U.N. Conference on Women in Tehran in 1965.

As a retired lecturer, Lucke continued to speak on social issues and serve on multiple advisory boards – including the Oberlin College Alumni Board, beginning in 1960. She wrote about her career and experiences in social work in her memoirs, first published in India in 1985 under the title, Unforgettable Memories: A Collection of Letters in India. This was later edited and republished by Athol Press in the United States, with the title, Remembering at Eighty Eight: Letters I Should Have Written. Lucke never married, and left only a niece and nephew when she died in Sarasota, Florida on 31 October 1987.

Author: Tyler Cassidy-Heacock

manuscripts
oral histories (document genres)
photographs - photographic prints