Norton, Agatha (1918 - )

Agatha Norton

A professor in the Related Art Department and the Environment, Textiles and Design program area for thirty years, Agatha Norton wanted to study foods and nutrition when she was a teenager because she loved high school chemistry and had a friend who was a dietitian. But while at Stout State University earning her BS in Home Economics Education (1939), she discovered that she loved teaching. For the following seventeen years, she taught home economics at the junior high school and high school level. Norton's belief that many home economics programs were weak in design prompted her to earn an MS in Related Art from UW (1948) through summer courses. She turned down several university positions in order to continue teaching adolescents, but finally in 1956 accepted an offer from the Related Art Department at UW, where she taught courses relating to apparel design, interior design, and textile arts.

As Chair of this department from 1965 to 1972, Norton demonstrated her commitment to meeting students' changing needs. Recognizing that throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s students were increasingly interested in professional training, she developed the idea of introducing an option first in interior design, and later in apparel design. Essential to this second option was the cooperation of Hazel Paschall, who arranged for apparel design students to spend a year at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Due in large part to these new options, which soon became majors, enrollment in Related Art grew dramatically under Norton's tenure.

Out of an interest in ethnic arts and crafts, she has traveled to numerous regions around the world including Far East Asia, Northern Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East, Central and South America, Eastern Canada, the Caribbean, and also within the United States. Norton's works have been displayed at the local, state and national level. Two of her exhibitions were particularly meaningful to her. In 1966, one of her textiles was displayed at the North Central Regional Crafts Exhibition (Craftsmen 1966). And in 1972, the American Home Economics Association published photographs of her hand-crafted textiles in its journal and purchased two of her textiles for its permanent headquarters collection.