Johnson, Eleanor Murdoch (1892–1987)

American educator and editor who founded the children's newspaper My Weekly Reader. Born in Hager-stown, Maryland, in 1892; died in 1987; daughter of Richard Potts Johnson and Emma J. (Shuff) Johnson; attended Colorado College, 1911–12; graduated from the Central State Teachers College, 1913; University of Chicago, Ph.B. cum laude, 1925; Columbia University, M.A., 1932.

Taught in the public schools of Lawton, Oklahoma (1913–16), Chickasha, Oklahoma (1916–17), Oklahoma City (1917–18); served as superintendent of elementary schools, Drumright, Oklahoma (1918–22), Oklahoma City (1922–26), York, Pennsylvania (1926–30); was assistant superintendent of schools in Lakewood, Ohio (1930–34); co-founded and edited My Weekly Reader (1934).

An honors graduate from the University of Chicago (class of 1925), Eleanor Murdoch Johnson was working in Pennsylvania, as an administrator of the elementary school curriculum, when she conceived the idea of a newspaper for children. Taking her idea to American Education Publications, she worked with them in developing the paper's content and format, although she did not join their permanent staff until 1935.

The paper was initially published in 1928, and at the end of its first year boasted a readership of 100,000 schoolchildren. (It is estimated that two-thirds of adults in the 1990s had access to My Weekly Reader while in elementary school.) The publication, four-to-eight pages in length, was aimed at improving reading skills and developing responsible citizenship through knowledge of current events. It was also carefully scheduled to reach classrooms on Friday afternoons, when both students and teachers needed a distraction.

Johnson, who received a master's degree from Columbia in 1932, was also involved with the publication of Current Events and other newspapers for American Educational Press, and authored a number of educational textbooks. After her retirement in 1965, she served as a consultant to Xerox Educational Publications. She died in 1987, age 94.