Ruth J. Colvin

Ruth J. Colvin, née Johnson, was born in Chicago, Illinois, the eldest of five children.
She attended Thornton Junior College in Harvey, Illinois, where she received a two-year degree, and Moser Business College in Chicago. At Northwestern University, she met her future husband, Robert Colvin. They married in 1940, moved to Seattle, Washington, then to Syracuse, New York, where he built a lucrative business. The couple had two children.

She earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Syracuse University in 1959.
She first became aware of the problem of illiteracy in Syracuse after the 1960 census, when it was reported that more than 11,000 people in Onondaga County basically could not read. Always an avid reader herself, she worked with reading specialists at Syracuse University to develop materials to train volunteer reading tutors. Her first two books, Tutor (1962) and I Speak English (1962), are still considered authoritative sources for training volunteers to teach adults basic literacy or English as a second language. Also in 1962, Ms. Colvin became the first president of Literacy Volunteers of America, a national nonprofit organization.

During the next few years, she helped found The National Coalition for Literacy to increase public awareness of illiteracy. Ms. Colvin also published Student Involvement Guidelines to encourage student involvement in all aspects of literacy programs.

In 2002, Literacy Volunteers of America merged with Laubach Literacy International to form ProLiteracy Worldwide. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2006 by President George W. Bush. In 2020, she published a memoir, My Travels Through Life, Love and Literacy: A Journey Over 100 Years in the Making.