Gone but Not Forgotten: Council Leaders, 1934-1952.

To prevent lack of understandable interest and knowledge gaps in the American Counseling Association's (ACA) roots and its development, we spotlight the American Council of Guidance and Personnel Associations (hereinafter referred to as the Council) leaders who were assisted by members to solve what was, at that time, professional organization concerns. They looked ahead to shape the next generations of the developing profession of counseling. Gladding and Newsome (2004) credited the Council's hidden history with the formation of what has become ACA (p. 9). Some historical information associated with each leader's administration is reported in this article. Because of space restrictions, little is said about the professional lives of the Council leaders, and almost nothing is revealed about them personally. * A Review of the Council Anecdotal information selected from the senior author's (the first author) personal files provide brief tributes to the 17 professional organization leaders of the Council confederation (see Appendix A). Each of the 9 men and 8 women leaders was elected/appointed by the Council representatives annually at conventions or at skeleton conferences from 1943 through 1946, the World War II (WWII) era when national conventions were banned, transportation was curtailed, and travel restrictions were enforced. No specific, systematic rotation plan existed on paper; leaders chosen were representatives of four major constituent professional associations of the Council: American College Personnel Association (ACPA), Eastern College Personnel Officers (ECPO), National Association of Deans of Women (NADW), and National Vocational Guidance Association (NVGA). We explain collaboration functions among professional organization leaders and members a short time before the Council's formation in 1934 and chart progress during the existence of the Council until dissolution procedures that began in 1952 were completed. For several years prior to 1951, the Council was moving toward becoming the American Personnel and Guidance Associations. The committee to consider unification presented its landmark report at the Council convention in March 1950, which led to the establishment and implementation of the new Personnel and Guidance Association (PGA). Although most of the Council leaders are little known in counseling literature, their combined leadership actions in a prehistory period of nearly 2 decades made the formation of ACA possible. ACA has several prototypes. Six years after the founding of ACA's progenitor association known as the Council, the word American was dropped from the title when the original plan of organization was revised. The Council leaders created the structure of the PGA and conducted the first election of officers in the summer of 1951. The word American was added to PGA during the 1952 joint convention of the Council and the new PGA in Los Angeles to avoid having an acronym that was similar to the professional golfers' association. APGA was chartered on July 1, 1952. Meanwhile, the Council's books were closed after 18 years of operation. After restructuring 31 years later, the APGA became the American Association for Counseling and Development (AACD) in 1983, then was recast as the American Counseling Association (ACA) in 1992, representing the counseling profession worldwide. During 1984-1985, the AACD board of directors and the last AACD senate recognized the Council's golden anniversary. Information was placed in the archives of AACD as a historical remembrance (P. J. McDonough, personal communication, July 31, 1984) and commemorative statements about the Council's history appeared in three issues of Guidepost (now Counseling Today; AACD, 1985; Sheeley, 1984, 1985). * Coalition Backdrop Members of several guidance, personnel, and placement service professional associations who held annual conventions during the late 1920s and early 1930s dealt with professional education problems in schools and colleges; these problems grew out of changes in the social order of the depression days. …