Born: 1868, United States
Died: 19 June 1947
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
The Opportunity School, founded in 1916 by Emily Griffith and now known as the Emily Griffith Technical College, continues to offer job training and education “For All Those Who Wish To Learn” in Denver more than 100 years later. Griffith herself had been forced to leave school after the eighth grade to help take care of her family, who had always lived in poverty. But her uncle’s night school for adults – the original source of the mantra “For all those who wish to learn” – inspired Griffith to become a teacher. At 16, in 1880s Nebraska, she convinced the skeptical local school board to place her in charge of the one-room schoolhouse, where she taught students from age six to 26. Living with their families, she discovered that most of their parents could not read, write or do basic math; many at the time lived in poverty due at least in part to lack of education, because they had in turned left school early to work on family farms. So Griffith tutored the parents as well, in addition to studying to advance her own education beyond her formal schooling.
In 1894, the Griffith family moved to Denver in search of more opportunities. Griffith began working with Denver Public Schools, claiming to be 15 (she was actually 27) for fear of the stigma of being an unmarried “old maid.” Working at the Twenty Fourth Street School in Denver’s Five Points neighborhood, her students came from the city’s Hispanic, Jewish, Asian, African-American and immigrant populations, where prejudicial policies kept these families in poverty. As she had in Nebraska, Griffith spent her spare time providing free lessons to her students’ siblings and parents and teaching English to immigrants. After she became Deputy State Superintendent of Schools in 1904, her former students would still come to her office at the State Capitol when they needed help. She became Deputy State Superintendent of Instruction in 1910
Returning to teaching in 1913, she also taught formal adult night classes on practical skills like sewing, cooking, and English classes for immigrants. She decided to use her connections from her time with the state school board to gain support for a new school, but despite her decades of professional experience, some people claimed a woman who had not even attended high school could not possibly run a school. In 1916, the school board allowed her to use an old, condemned school building, which opened on 9 September following safety renovations. 1400 students enrolled in the first week.
With the motto “For All Those Who Wish to Learn,” the Opportunity School was open 13 hours a day, to accomodate students’ work schedules. There were no attendance requirements, and students were allowed to learn on their own schedule, finishing classes in as much or as little time as the individual needed. All courses were practical, and included masonry (construction with stone), electricity, dressmaking, and millinery (hat making). Griffith worked with local employers and unions to train students, with classes taught by experts working in those fields. If a subject was requested by more than 20 students, Griffith would find a suitable teacher. Knowing many of her students were likely going hundry, she carried a large cauldron of soup on a streetcar, feeding around 200 students a day. She also sent teachers to help students who were unable to attend classes for health reasons. There was no cost to the students to attend the school, as it was funded by Denver Public Schools and donations.
When she retired in 1933, more than 1 million students had graduated from her Opportunity School, which was renamed the Emily Griffith Opportunity School the following year.
After many years of peaceful retirement, Emily and her sister Florence were found murdered in their home in 1947. The murder remains unsolved, though police suspected a friend of the sisters, as they had prepared dinner for three people that evening, indicating a guest was expected.
In 1985, Griffith was inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame, and she received a Millennium Award, given to the people who have had the largest impact on Denver, in 2000.