As this historical review shows, the National Education Association (NEA) was one of the principal contributors to the development of adult education in the United States. The report describes NEA's direct involvement through the lifespan of the NEA Department of Immigrant Education (1921-1924); the NEA Department of Adult Education (1924-1951); the National Association of Public School Adult Educators, an NEA department (1952-1972); the Division of Adult Education Service (1945-1971); the National Training Laboratory in Group Development (1947-1970); and the Adult Education Committee of the World Confederation of Organizations of the Teaching Profession (1959-1975). This report covers 50 years of the history of NEA and adult education. Some of the developments it describes include the following: (1) the characteristics of the NEA departments; (2) the part played by the Carnegie Corporation in funding the NEA Department of Immigrant Education; (3) the founding of the American Association for Adult Education; (4) leadership changes and mergers among departments and associations; (5) the role of the NEA and the Fund for Adult Education in strengthening the role of adult education in state departments of education; and (6) the story of two persons in the NEA who started from the same philosophic understanding of adult education, and what happened when they began to move in different directions. The report includes commentary from a long-time NEA staff member and department director. (KC)