Mary Parker Follett

A Public Scholar “Far Ahead of Her Time”

By Deborah Bassett 

Who was Mary Follett?

One of the key historical figures in the field of organizational communication, Mary Parker Follett spent her life working in poor Boston neighborhoods, serving on minimum wage boards, and aiding suffrage organizations. A teacher, an author,a scholar,a feminist, and a public servant, Follett has been called a“social anthropologist”,“far ahead of her time”,and a “pioneer of integrative negotiations”.

Sociologist Charles A. Ellwood, one of Follett’s contemporaries, wrote that Follett was “easily the foremost woman thinker along social and political lines of our time, and perhaps one of the most philosophical thinkers in the field of social theory of all time-a fact which should be highly gratifying to all advocates of the emancipation and education of women as well as to all who are seeking to further the progress of the social sciences.” Clearly, Follett was not only respected by her contemporaries for her remarkable theoretical contributions, but recognized even then for the impact and reach her ideas were sure to have in future generations of scholars. Ellwood would be gratified to know that Follett’s contributions have, indeed, endured the passage of time, and that his characterization of her as one of the most significant figures in the field has proven correct.

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