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Flora J. Cooke (December 25, 1864 - February 21, 1953) was an American progressive educator. She helped found and was principal of the Francis W. Parker School for 34? years.

Biography
Flora Juliette Hannum was born December 25, 1864 in Bainbridge Township, Ohio to Rev. Sumner Hannum and Rosetta Ellis Hannum. She was one of six children. Her mother died when she was five and her father put Flora and her siblings up for adoption. Flora was a "headstrong child" and went through six homes in a year. She was finally adopted by her mother's friends Charles Cooke and Luella Miller Cooke of Youngstown, Ohio in 1881.

Cooke was educated in the public schools in Youngstown and graduated high school there in 1884. She immediately began her career teaching in rural schools in the area. From 1885 to 1889 she was teaching at the Hellman Street School in Youngstown, at the end as its principal. At the Hellman Street School she met Zonia Baber, a graduate of the Cook County Normal School (a teacher training school in Chicago). Baber was a disciple of the methods of Francis Wayland Parker of that institution. Baber and Cooke began a lifelong professional association.

In 1889 when Baber was back teaching at Cook County Normal School, Parker invited Cooke to become a student on the suggestion of Baber. After graduation Cooke taught at the institution's practice school, and Parker said she had become "the best primary teacher I ever saw." Cooke would spend ten years at the school, and became an evangelist for Parker's methods, eventually speaking in 28 states including Hawaii. She also represented Parker internationally at conferences in Switzerland and Denmark.

When philanthropist Anita McCormick Blaine funded a new private school called the Chicago Institute to serve as a laboratory for Parker's research, Cooke joined him. This eventually became the School of Eduation at the University of Chicago. Blaine also funded the creation of the Francis W. Parker School and Cooke was made its first principal, a position she held until her retirement in 1934.

While at the Parker School, she advanced both Parker's ideas and her own on progressive education. She ensisted on enrolling a diverse student body, hoping the private school would also serve as a model for public education. She defended the rights of students, including one who wrote a pacifist essay during World War I, incurring the wrath of parents. She treated the school as a learning laboratory, and in 1932 agreed for it to participate in the Eight-Year Study, which added to the school's reputation.

After retirement she was a trustee of the Parker school until 1948. She was one of the founders of the North Shore Country Day School and was a founder and trustee of Graduate Teachers College of Winnetka and Roosevelt University in Chicago.

She remained active in her later life, including becoming involved in a "celebrated controversy" with Senator Theodore G. Bilbo over his racially motivated opposition to fair employment legislation. She was also a member of liberal organizations including the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the NAACP and the ACLU.

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Her papers and those of the Francis Parker school are held at the Chicago Historical Society. Cooke never married. She died of a heart attack on February 21, 1953.