Jean Joseph Maurice Dartigue

Jean Joseph Maurice Dartigue (1903 – 1983) was a Haitian public official and educational reformer. He believed the cause of problems in Haiti stemmed from the nation's poor educational system. He continued his work with UNESCO in Africa until the end of his career.

Early life

Dartigue was born in Les Cayes, Haiti in 1903.

Dartigue attended the Petit Séminaire Collège Saint-Martial. In 1924, he earned a degree from Haiti's Faculty of Law. He was selected to attend the École Centrale d'Agriculture (Central School of Agriculture) after his graduation. In 1926, he traveled to the United States to began working towards a master's degree at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Career

In 1926, Dartigue was hired as an assistant to the director of rural education. In 1928, he began working as a teacher in education and social studies. That year he became the director of an agricultural boarding school. He was brought back to the School of Agriculture to supervise their experimental farm plots in 1930. He returned to Columbia University in 1931, where he completed his master's degree.

In 1934, the final year of the United States occupation of Haiti, Dartigue was named Director of Rural Education. He remained in the position from 1934 until 1941. In 1941, he became and Minister of Public Instruction, Labor, and Agriculture, a role he retained until 1945. In this role, Dartigue served as vice president for the corporate entity Société haitiano-américaine de développement agricole. This was a joint venture between the United States of America and Haiti during World War II to expand wartime production of rubber in the Haitian countryside.

As minister, Dartigue was partially successful in implementing reforms for primary and vocational schools, but failed to restructure secondary schools before the Haitian Revolution of 1946.

Dartigue sought asylum in the United States after the revolution. He moved to New York to work with the United Nations until 1956. That year, he moved to Paris for a position with UNESCO. He joined a UNESCO mission to the Congo from 1960 to 1961. He was heavily involved in overseeing educational reform in Africa through the 1960s.

Dartigue died in Paris in 1983.

Legacy

The Jean Joseph Maurice Dartigue Papers, consisting of records pertaining to the Société haitiano-américaine de développement agricole, are indexed by the Library of Congress.

His son, John Dartigue, was an executive and vice president of publicity at Warner Brothers. He died in 2022.

Further reading

• Dartigue, Esther (1994). An outstanding Haitian, Maurice Dartigue : the contribution of Maurice Dartigue in the field of education in Haiti, the United Nations, and UNESCO (1st ed.). New York: Vantage Press. p. 394. ISBN 0-533-10704-0. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
• Pierre-Jacques, Charles (2002). D'Haïti à l'Afrique, itinéraire de Maurice Dartigue, un éducateur visionnaire (in French). Éditions Images. ISBN 978-2-921757-33-1. Retrieved 3 April 2023.