Paralleling women as presidents of AECT with changes in U.S. laws and social norms

Abstract

The Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) was founded in 1923 as the National Education Association’s (NEA) Division of Visual Instruction (DVI). Four years later, the association elected its first woman president Anna V. Dorris, a faculty member at the San Francisco State Teachers College. Although passage of the 19th Amendment shortly before the establishment of AECT encouraged conversations about increasing rights for women, it would be many years before additional laws would be passed and before the number of women serving as AECT president would equal that of men serving.