James Sterling Tippett

James Sterling Tippett (September 7, 1885 in Memphis, Missouri^[1] – 1958) was an American educator and children's writer.

Biography

In 1890, his family moved to a farm inherited from his maternal grandfather, and remained there until he was thirteen, when his family returned to Memphis. After graduating from high school, Tippett began teaching high school, and attended the University of Missouri during summer breaks.

Tippett moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1918 to become principal of Peabody Demonstration School. In 1922, he left to join the Lincoln School at Teachers College in New York as an instructor and special investigator. During this time, he began writing children's books. The Singing Farmer, his first book, was inspired by a classroom farm exhibit. It was published in 1927.

Tippett taught in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and South Carolina, while continuing to write children's books and edit educational textbooks. His works include: I Live in a City (1927), I Go A-Traveling (1929), I Spend the Summer (1930), Busy Carpenters (1930), Toys and Toymakers (1931), A World to Know (1933), Henry and the Garden and Stories about Henry (1936), Shadow and the Stocking (1937), Sniff (1937), Counting the Days (1940), and Abraham Lincoln (1951), as well as a series called Understanding Science.

Tippett moved with his wife Martha to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 1939. There he served as a visiting professor of education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill until his death in 1958. In 1972 his name was added to the North Carolina Educational Hall of Fame.

James S. Tippit wrote a famous poem called 'Sunning' in 1947 before he died.

References

External links

• Finding Aid for the James Sterling Tippett Papers
• Works by or about James Sterling Tippett in libraries (WorldCat catalog)