ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a selective chronological narrative of John Dewey's personal and intellectual biography. Priority is given to themes, concepts, events, and writings that set the biographical and historical context for later analysis of his key writings. Burlington rises above the eastern shore of Lake Champlain in a wide valley between Vermonts Green Mountains and New Yorks Adirondack Mountains. By the time of John's birth to Archibald and Lucina Rich Dewey on October 20, 1859, Burlington was Vermont's cultural and commercial hub. It is tempting to imagine young John weaned on a wholesome diet of earnest town meeting days in a sleepy, homogeneous New England village, white steeples rising unassumingly from a thickly forested landscape. But this is tempting fiction. Much to his later dismay and regret, Dewey supported President Woodrow Wilson's 1917 decision for the United States to join the First World War as the war that would end war and make the world safe for democracy.
