Masaryk, Alice Garrigue (1879-1966)

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Northwestern University Settlement

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Birth Date

1879-05-03

Death Date

1966-11-29

Birthplace

Vienna, Austria

Biographical Text

Alice Garrigue Masaryk was the daughter of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia. She was one of the first women admitted to study medical sciences at Charles University in Prague. After a year she left to study History, Sociology and Philosophy in London and Berlin, and received her doctorate in 1903. Masaryk then traveled to America and stayed at the University of Chicago Settlement where she learned about social work from Julia Lathrop, Mary McDowell, and Jane Addams. She returned to Czechoslovakia and became a teacher in České Budějovice and later in Prague, teaching high school history and geography. In 1911 she returned to Charles University as a founder of the sociological department, though this department closed down when she was detained in 1915 for hiding her father's political papers. She was to be executed, but protest from the U.S. brought on by Lathrop, McDowell and Addams kept her alive. She then taught sociology from her home, and in 1918 she established the first Czechoslovakian Higher School of Social Work with Anna Berkovcova. In 1919 Masaryk was elected to the Czechoslovakian parliament, later replacing her mother as an official representative of Czechoslovakia, essentially becoming the First Lady of the new Republic. She became the head of the Czechoslovak Red Cross in 1918, holding this position until 1938 when the Germans invaded. During World War II she lived at the University of Chicago Settlement once again, and stayed in the U.S. for the remainder of her life. Masaryk died in 1966.