Interview with Dr. Hank Mann

Horace Mann was born December 12, 1921. He received his undergraduate degree from Brooklyn College. During WWII he served as a navigator-bombardier aboard B-29 bombers in the Pacific. He flew 35 missions over Japan, earning a Distinguished Flying Cross and Purple Heart. After the war, Mann was hired by the New York City public schools to teach children with developmental disabilities. He soon realized that there was a need for advanced teacher training in this emerging field and began studying how to best prepare others to teach children with special needs. In 1953, Penn State University granted Mann its first-ever Doctorate in Special Education. Mann nearly joined the faculty at Boston University before President Harvey Rice of the State University College for Teachers at Buffalo contacted him with the chance to head the college’s fledgling Exceptional Children Education Department. In 1977, the White House tapped him as a delegate on children and youth issues. He retired in 1992 and passed away in 2010.https://digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/bsc_oral_history/1040/thumbnail.jp