Barbara Taylor Bowman and Valerie B. Jarrett

Barbara Taylor Bowman is the Irving B. Harris Professor of Child Development at Erikson Institute. She is one of the Institute’s founders and served as its president from 1994 to 2001. She has over 50 publications, including articles, book chapters and edited volumes and her specialty areas are early education, cultural diversity and education of children at-risk. She was Chief Officer for Early Childhood Education at the Chicago Public Schools from 2004 to 2012. Bowman has worked on a number of research and training projects, including those on Native American reservations, St. Louis Public Schools and Chicago Child Parent Centers.  She has served on numerous professional boards and committees, including the boards of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, of which she was President (1980-82), the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (1997-2002), panels for the National Research Council (she chaired the committee on Early Childhood Pedagogy) and committees for the Black Child Development Institute. She is a frequent consultant on early care and education, is a speaker at conferences and at universities in the United States and has served on editorial boards.  Honors include six honorary doctorates, the McGraw Hill Prize in Education, the Sargent Shriver Award for Equal Justice, the Chicago Historical Society Jane Addams award and a Golden Apple for Community Service. At present, she teaches and supervises students at Erikson Institute, is a member of the President’s Commission for Educational Excellence for African Americans and the Illinois Early Learning Council, is a commissioner of the Chicago Public Library, is on the boards of trustees for the Great Books Foundation, Business People in the Public Interest, and Erikson Institute and is on advisory committees for the Fred Roger’s Center and Frank Porter Graham Institute.

Valerie B. Jarrett was the longest serving Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama. She oversaw the Offices of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs and Chaired the White House Council on Women and Girls. Ms. Jarrett worked throughout her tenure at the White House to mobilize elected officials, business and community leaders and diverse groups of advocates. She led the Obama Administration’s efforts to expand and strengthen access to the middle class, and boost American businesses and our economy. She championed the creation of equality and opportunity for all Americans, and economically and politically empowering women in the United States and around the world. She oversaw the Administration’s advocacy for workplace policies that empower working families, including equal pay, raising the minimum wage, paid leave, paid sick days, workplace flexibility, and affordable childcare, and led the campaigns to reform our criminal justice system, end sexual assault and reduce gun violence. Ms. Jarrett has a background in both the public and private sectors. She served as the Chief Executive Officer of The Habitat Company in Chicago, Chairman of the Chicago Transit Board, Commissioner of Planning and Development and Deputy Chief of Staff for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. She also served as the director of numerous corporate and not-for-profit boards including Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Stock Exchange, Chairman of the University of Chicago Medical Center Board of Trustees and Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Ms. Jarrett has also received numerous awards and honorary degrees, including TIME’s “100 Most Influential People.” Jarrett received her B.A. from Stanford University in 1978 and her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 1981.

Gordon Parks, Laura Dorothy Vaughn with her children, Lauranita and Barbara, Chicago, 1941 (Private Collection)
One of Parks’s earliest photographs, which today stands out as a benchmark of that to come, was made in late 1941 during the first dark days of World War II for a South Side Community Art Center Christmas fundraiser. This seemingly simple portrait of a committed, community-engaged mother, Laura Dorothy Vaughn Taylor, and her two teenage daughters, Lauranita Taylor Dugas and Barbara Taylor Bowman, unveils Parks’s early exploration of the elements of character, strategic lighting and dynamic composition, which became so important to his later and better known work for the Farm Security Administration, Office of War Information, Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), and Life magazine. The National Gallery of Art is organizing Gordon Parks: The New Tide, 1940-1950, the first exhibition to focus exclusively on Parks’s first ten years as a photographer. Opening in November 2018 and focusing on extensive new research, the exhibition and its accompanying book will document the importance of these early years in shaping Parks’s innovative and influential vision.