Boston Latin Academy
Encyclopedia
Boston Latin Academy is a public
exam school founded in 1877 in Boston
, Massachusetts
providing students in grades 7th through 12th a rigorous classical
preparatory
education.
Formerly named Girls' Latin School prior to 1977, the school was the first college preparatory high school for girls in the United States. Now coeducational, the school is currently located in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston
and is part of the Boston Public School system
.
Girls’ Latin School opened on West Newton Street in Boston’s South End on February 12, 1878. The school had only thirty-seven pupils in its three classes. The first thirty-seven students were divided according to aptitude into three classes; the Sixth, Fifth and Third class. The first graduating class in 1880 included Alice M. Mills, Charlotte W. Rogers, Vida D. Scudder, Mary L. Mason, Alice S. Rollins and Miriam S. Witherspoon; all six were accepted to Smith College
.
In 1888, Abbie Farwell Brown, Sybil Collar and Virginia Holbrook decided to found a school newspaper. The name Jabberwock was picked from a list Abbie Farwell Brown submitted. It was taken from “Jabberwocky”, the famous nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll
in “Through the Looking Glass”. They wrote to Lewis Carroll in London
and received back a handwritten letter giving them permission to use the name. The Jabberwock is one of the oldest school newspapers in the United States.
The number of students grew each year. When the number of students exceeded 350 in 1898, the school committee moved the first four classes to a building in Copley Square
vacated by the Chauncy Hall School while the fifth and sixth remained in the old building. In 1907, Girls’ Latin School moved into a brand new building, shared with Normal School located on Huntington Avenue in the Fenway.
The school remained there until 1955, when Teachers’ College expanded, forcing Girls’ Latin School to relocate to the former Dorchester High School for Girls building located in Codman Square.
In 1972, boys were admitted for the first time to Girls’ Latin School. The school name was changed in 1975 and the first graduating class of Boston Latin Academy was in 1977.
In 1981, Latin Academy moved back into the Fenway area, this time to Ipswich Street, across from Fenway Park
. It remained there until the summer of 1991, when it moved back again, this time to its present location in the former Roxbury Memorial and Boston Technical High School building, located on Townsend St. in Roxbury
.
Although Latin Academy works to create a nurturing environment, a great number of students transfer out due to the difficulty of the courses. 94% of its graduating students go on to attend four-year colleges. In 2010 Boston Latin Academy received a Silver Medal as one of the top public high schools in the nation by US News and World Report.
test.
John Tetlow, graduate of Brown University and valedictorian of his class of 1864, was unanimously voted by the School Committee as the new principal for GLS in January 1878. He was just 35 years old. Born on April 12, 1843 in Providence, Rhode Island, Tetlow had been headmaster of Friends Academy in New Bedford from 1869 through 1878.
John Tetlow married Elizabeth Ingersoll Harrington, daughter of the superintendent of New Bedford public schools in 1870. They had two daughters: Elizabeth born March 31, 1875 and Helen, born February 1, 1877. His wife died six weeks later on March 17, 1877. He met Elizabeth P. Howard, a much beloved teacher at GLS, and they were married on July 1, 1880. Daughters, Elizabeth and Helen, would later graduate from GLS class of 1892 and class of 1895 respectively. Their one biological daughter, Frances H., born almost six years later on June 16, 1886, would graduate in 1903.
For the first few years, John Tetlow continued to teach all Greek and Latin classes. He was, first and foremost, an outstanding and unequalled teacher who inspired a real love of learning and quickly became known for his passionate insistence on accuracy.
Tetlow collaborated to establish the New England Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools in 1885, served as a Trustee of The Roxbury Latin School and authored several Latin and Greek high school text books. He gained a national reputation for making the school one of the finest college preparatory schools in the US. By the early 1900s, more than half of each graduating class was accepted at The Harvard Annex (which later became Radcliffe College), Smith College, Wellesley College, Vassar College and Mount Holyoke College.
At the end of the 1910 school year, sixty seven-year old Headmaster Tetlow made the decision to retire; official August 31.
Tetlow had guided the school beautifully through the difficult first few years of infancy until the school finally won its place. GLS had 760 students, more than twenty times its original size.
On November 25, 1911, about a year and a half after his retirement, Mr. Tetlow was riding his bike from his home at 139 Davis Avenue in Brookline about a quarter mile over Route 9 to Jamaica Pond. Along Chestnut Street, near Perkins Street which runs along the north border of the Pond, Mr. Tetlow was struck by an automobile. Two weeks later on Saturday, he went to bed, fell asleep and never regained consciousness.Tetlow did not know he had fractured his hip and suffered a sub peritoneal hemorrhage. This caused a heart attack. He passed away very unexpectedly on December 9, 1911. A memorial service, organized by alumnae, was held on April 8, 1912 for John Tetlow at which half a dozen esteemed colleagues spoke of his life. Superintendent of the Boston Public Schools, Stratton D. Brooks, opened the services and said, “We are assembled this afternoon to pay tribute to a man whose…insistence upon those things he believed to be right has done much to place the schools of Boston in the position they occupy in the minds of the educated of this country.”
Ernest J. Hapgood 1910-1948
Mr. Ernest Hapwood was born, coincidentally, on the same day the first class started at GLS; February 12, 1878. He graduated from Tufts University in 1901 and received his masters from Tufts in 1905. Because he had attended Brown University from 1888 to 1890, and was a star tackle on the football team, he was awarded an honorary degree from Brown in 1911. Hapgood married Edith Kenney Hapgood, with who he had had a daughter and three sons. He came to teach at GLS in 1905, and became head of the Mathematics department in 1908.
After suffering a small stroke in December 1947, Hapgood made the decision to retire. The portrait of Ernest G. Hapgood was painted by Claxton B. Moulton and was a present from the alumnae association. The portrait is hung in a gold and black frame and is approximately 6 feet (1.8 m) by 4 feet (1.2 m). The painting depicts Hapgood standing beside a white chair, in a blue suit with white shirt and red tie, with one hand in his pocket.
The man with a “ringing laugh and expansive smile” had watched over the school from September 14, 1910 until January 31, 1948. Fatherly, friendly, approachable, caring yet mindful of the school’s standards at all times, he quietly doubled the school’s reputation for outstanding academic preparation. The Jabberwock wrote, “Mr. Ernest Hapgood’s retirement is a blow indeed to the G.L.S. We shall always be sincerely grateful to him for his untiring efforts as an educator and his brilliant guidance of our school for so many years.”
Mr. Hapgood died at 75 years of age of heart disease on April 3, 1953 at Newton-Wellesley Hospital after a long illness, just days before the GLS 75th anniversary weekend.
Louis A. McCoy 1948-1957
Mr. Louis A. McCoy became only the third headmaster in seventy years in 1948. He was also a graduate of Brown University. McCoy was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on August 14, 1887. He received his B.A. in 1909 and received his A.M. in 1910 from Brown University. At one time, he also played professional baseball. He taught math and coach athletics at Bulkeley High School (1910–15) in New London, Conn., taught math at New Haven High School (1915–17) then became head of the math department at English High School (1917–28), Roxbury Memorial High School (1928–38). He then became the Headmaster at Girls’ High (1938–48) before accepting the position at GLS. He married Marguerite H. McGlone on July 12, 1916 and had two daughters Marguerite E. and Virginia M.; Virginia also became a teacher in the Boston Public Schools.
After two years at Codman Square, Headmaster McCoy announced his retirement. On June 3, 1957, Headmaster McCoy was honored by the Alumnae Association and a banquet was held in his honor to unveil McCoy’s portrait painted by Mrs. Griswold Tyng.On June 3, 1965, Louis A. McCoy died at the age of seventy seven.
Thomas F. Gately 1957-1965
Thomas F. Gately was born in 1895 and served in the US Navy in WW I. Headmaster from 1957 to 1966. Graduate of Boston College High School and Boston College 1920. He taught at Jamaica Plain High before becoming headmaster at GLS.
William T. Miller 1965-1966
“Our new headmaster, Mr. Miller, spent the year with us; we anxiously watched him enter GLS in September and mournfully watched him leave in June, 1966."
Margaret C. Carroll 1966-1978
Margaret C. Carroll earned a BS degree from Teacher’s College Boston, a M.A. of education from Teachers College and BU. She taught science at Girls’ High from 1931-1950. She was head of Department of Science at Dorchester High School from 1950–57, head master at Roxbury Memorial High School for Girls from 1957–1959, headmaster of Boston Business School from 1959–1966 and GLS 1966-1978.
Margaret C. Carroll died on December 29, 2005 at 97. She was born June 17, 1908 in Boston. She is buried at St Joseph Cemetery in Boston.
Robert Binswanger (1983–1991)
Maria Garcia-Aaronson (1991–2009)
Emilia Pastor
Occupied by Girls’ Latin School and Boston Latin Academy
1878-2010.
1. West Newton Street South End, Boston
First Building Occupied by Girls’ Latin School 1878-1907
After Girls’ Latin School was approved on November 27, 1877, the first classes were held on February 12, 1878. Girls’ Latin shared its first building with Girls’ High School. Built from 1869 through 1871, the school was at the time of its completion, the largest in New England and the most expensive school built in the United States. It occupied a 30480 square feet (2,831.7 m²) lot fronting on West Newton Street in the South End. West Newton Street was bounded on the north by Pembroke Street and on the west and east by Tremont and Shawmut Streets. In 1878, West Newton Street was a wide, dirt street and the sidewalks were brick. The Evangelical Zionist Church was to the left of the school and to the right was a row of brick townhouses with classic Bostonian double-bowed fronts.
The school was limestone block on the street level and red brick on the upper three stories. A set of granite stairs bridged the side walk up to the door. The turreted roof was unusually decorative and had a Faneuil Hall like cupola tower on top. It contained sixty six classrooms; seven rooms providing seating for one hundred students and the smallest four rooms seating seventy-five.
In December 1882, the school committee voted to expand the classrooms for GLS and approved the use of six rooms on the second floor and one room on the third floor of Girls’ High. They also appropriated $2,000 so that the school could be physically separated or isolated from Girls’ High. They erected partitions, assigned separate entrances, and purchased $1,500 of additional furnishings. The entire west half of the second floor was “appropriated to the exclusive use of the school”.
Enrollment at GLS had grown from 37 in 1878 to 296 in 1896. The West Newton Street building was becoming far too small to accommodate both schools. Every available recitation room in the school had been filled with desks, the drawing and musical rooms in the attic and basement, even the cloak-rooms had been converted for use. The school built for 925 girls, was approaching 1,300 students.
However, Girls’ Latin would occupy the building on West Newton Street from 1878 to 1907; almost thirty years. The building was razed in 1960 and a playground now occupies its site on West Newton Street.
2. Chauncy Hall 1898-1907
Boylston Street Copley Square, Boston
In February 1898, the first through fourth classes, approximately 240 students, were moved to the Chauncy Hall School in Copley Square which had been vacated by the private school two years earlier. Headmaster John Tetlow summed, “The present transfer of the main part of Girls’ Latin School to an independent building is rightly viewed by the friends of the school as a subject for congratulations…but let it be remembered that this transfer is only one step toward the consummation to be striven for…The school needs, for adequate performance of its mission in the community, a new and well equipped building;…”
Located at 593-597 Boylston Street between Dartmouth and Clarendon directly across from Trinity Church, the building was stone with three spires and an ivy covered façade.
The Chauncy Hall School was established in 1828 by Gideon F. Thayer and was originally located on Chauncy Place in Boston. The school burned to the ground in May 1873. The decision was made to re-build a new school. “Fortunately our attention was directed to the neighborhood of what is now Copley Square, and though it seemed somewhat out-of-town, it was thought best to take the risk of the city growing in that direction,” wrote historian Thomas Cushing, “The estimated cost was $100,000, and school masters do not usually have that sum at command to embody their wishes in brick and mortar.” A stock company was formed of approximately 160 former pupils and parents of current pupils, including Dr. Israel Tisdale Talbot. The school paid the stockholders annual rent until the school relocated in 1896. When the decision was made to transfer the upper four grades to the empty building, the City of Boston entered into agreement to lease the building from the Chauncy Hall Association for annual rent and taxes of $8,708.
The third floor contained a 400-seat hall, and the first two floors, 12 classrooms. From the beginning, the school was thought unsuitable being too dark, noisy (from the constant stream of electrically powered street cars) and too far from West Newton Street. The remaining fifth and sixth classes walked the two mile (3 km) round trip twice each month to attend school assemblies.
3. Huntington Avenue 1907-1955
Huntington Avenue the Fenway, Boston
The first and only building built for GLS
On November 11, 1902, the Committee on High Schools ordered that the Board of Commissioners, “purchase a site and erect a building for Girls’ Latin, at the earliest possible date.” This order was expanded to include within the same complex the Normal School and a new grammar school
The new building for Girls’ Latin School was ready for the beginning of the 1907 school year. The Girls’ Latin and Normal School group was completed at a cost of $978,181.The two acre plus lot (113,181 square feet) fronted on Evans Way and Huntington Avenue, was bounded by Tetlow Street on the north (named in honor of its head master), Longwood Avenue on the south and Worthington on the west (later this was renamed Palace Road).
Three architectural firms had collaborated on the design of the building; Peabody & Stearns, Coolidge, Carlson and Maginnis and Walsh & Sullivan. The buildings were red brick with terra cotta and limestone trim and included all the latest advances in electricity and heating. Although the electric light bulb had been invented in 1879, new completely electric buildings were still somewhat of a novelty. For the first time, the school had working telephones with service provided by New England Telephone and Telegraph Company and other new “telephonic services” including switchboard, desk telephones, clocks and bells.
Three architectural firms had collaborated on the design of the building; Peabody & Stearns, Coolidge, Carlson and Maginnis and Walsh & Sullivan. The buildings were red brick with terra cotta and limestone trim and included all the latest advances in electricity and heating. Although the electric light bulb had been invented in 1879, new completely electric buildings were still somewhat of a novelty. For the first time, the school had working telephones with service provided by New England Telephone and Telegraph Company and other new “telephonic services” including switchboard, desk telephones, clocks and bells.
Over the door leading to the courtyard were inscribed the words in Latin, “Here is an open field for talent; appreciative recognition is assured to the deserving; diligent application is honored with due rewards.”
The average classroom was much smaller, and held approximately 56 desks. New features had been introduced like “battery blackboards” that provided more than one surface of natural slate and slid up and down like windows; wall maps and wall charts. The new chemistry and botany labs also had soapstone sinks and hoods to remove odors.
In 1922, Boston Latin School relocated from Warren Avenue to a new Boston Latin School on Avenue Louis Pasteur. Constructed at a cost of $950,000, the building was dedicated on May 18, 1923. The rear yards of Boston Latin and Girls’ Latin were separated only by a street named Palace Road.
Girls’ Latin School expanded from approximately 421 students in 1907 to over 1,200 students in 1955 within the Huntington Avenue building.
In 1924, The Normal School became The Teachers College of the City of Boston. The Massachusetts Board of Education took over the responsibility of operating this teacher’s college to provide financial relief to the City of Boston. In return, the City of Boston agreed to deed the entire Huntington Avenue Building including the Girls’ Latin School buildings and the park area in front to the State.
On August 12, 1952, Girls’ Latin School’s building was transferred to the state for $1.00; approved by the Mayor John B. Hynes and 4/5ths of school committee. Teachers College of the City of Boston became the State Teachers College at Boston. The State Board of Education entered into a “Use Permit” with the City of Boston so that GLS could rent the property for classes until June 30, 1953 with the understanding that by 1955, “that some provision would be made for the housing of the school in other school property in the City of Boston”. In January 1955, the School Committee asked the State to extend the “Use Permit” but they refused despite the protests of prominent citizens and vigorous efforts by the alumnae.
On Friday June 24, 1955 the final day of classes was held at the building.
In 1983, The Massachusetts College of Art took over the Girls’ Latin School and Normal School buildings and began a program of renovation and new construction. The original entrance to Girls’ Latin was altered to allow the construction of a new thirteen story Tower Building; however, Girls’ Latin School Building remains intact behind the Tower. The assembly hall was recently renamed The Pozen Center.
4. Codman Square 1955-1981
Talbot Avenue Codman Square, Dorchester
The next home of GLS, the Dorchester High School building in Codman Square, was originally completed in 1901and it had been in use for over five decades. The Codman Square building sat on a tight triangle of land, the apex extending out to the middle of the square at Washington Street; one triangle side being Talbot Avenue and the other, Centre Street. The land was purchased in 1896, but construction did not start for two years due to the difficult shape of the 60000 square feet (5,574.2 m²) site. The first proposed school building was rejected. The approved design was by Hartwell, Richardson & Driver
was Renaissance revival in style. The building’s exterior was a distinctive yellow brick called buff brick, accented by limestone lintels and trim. On each of four floors, a wide main corridor ran the length of the building parallel to Talbot Avenue. Two broad sets of ornamental stairs extended from the basement to the fourth floor.
In the basement was a lunch room, 900 lockers and to the rear of the building, a gym. Over the gym on the second floor level was the assembly hall which could seat 1,000. At the front there was a stage and two anti-rooms and at the rear a large balcony. Arched timbers were exposed in the ceiling.
On the first floor was the headmaster’s office, reception office, and several classrooms. The second floor held the library. Both the second and third floor had many classrooms as well as fully equipped laboratories. The fourth floor had two art rooms. There were 58 classrooms total.
Codman Square was closed in 1981 and the school was transferred to Ipswich Street, a former warehouse for the US Postal Service. The Codman Square school sat vacant for a few years. Then in 1986, most of the classrooms in the building were converted into housing by private developer Robert Walsh. The Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation completed renovation of the historic Girls’ Latin Academy building in April, 2008. In addition to renovating (and financially re-structuring) the existing 58 housing units, thirty-five new affordable rental units were added in the vacant portions of the school building the gym and the auditorium. This completed the adaptive re-use of this Codman Square landmark. The former Girls’ Latin School and first home of Boston Latin Academy remains one of the three historic buildings in the Codman Square Historic District.
5. 174 Ipswich St 1981-1991
6 205 Townsend St 1991–Present
Sorority;
Born in Missouri on September 7, 1867, she moved to Boston at the age of six. One of the first nationally recognized graduates from GLS was Sarah Ida Shaw (1885). Valedictorian of her GLS class, Sarah planned to attend Wellesley College but her mother’s illness and her father’s business travel made her decide to attend Boston University. She commuted by horse-drawn carriage each day from her home in Roxbury and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1889. All three of the women’s sororities on campus invited her to join, but as a junior, she decided to start a sorority that would “think more of a girl’s inner self and character”. As a result, Delta Delta Delta Sorority was founded. From its alpha chapter at BU, it grew to 131 chapters nationwide. After her graduation, Sarah taught classical languages and German at Lynn High School until her marriage in 1896. She continued her involvement with Tri Delta through 1900, serving as Grand President from 1889 to 1893. She died suddenly in 1924 from a stroke. She was elected to The Fraternity Hall of Fame in 1976.
Abbie Farwell Brown (1871–1927) GLS Class of 1891 founder and first editress The Jabberwock;
The Jabberwock became a personification of Abbie F. Brown, and she was affectionately regarded as his “godmother“.
Vivacious and witty Brown was born on August 21, 1871 at 41 West Cedar Street on Beacon Hill to Benjamin F. and Clara Brown. She resided her entire life on West Cedar Street. The three-story brick townhouse with recessed door entry still stands today. Abbie’s father was a merchant, born the son of Benjamin and Jane Farwell Brown. He married Clara Neal on October 13, 1870. Brown’s mother Clara was a writer and had published some of her own works; which was no doubt a great inspiration. Brown was valedictorian of her class at the Bowdoin School in 1886; and that year she was accepted to GLS. President of the GLS class of 1891, after graduating she would attend Radcliffe for two years and go on to become a children’s author.
It was a visit in 1899 to Chester Cathedral, England, which inspired her first and most highly regarded children's book, The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts. When it was published by Houghton and Mifflin in 1900 she remarked, “It is all the Jabberwock’s fault that I wrote any book at all. For in four years’ care of you, I acquired a taste for scribbling, which is rarely cured and which has broken out at last in this awful way.” In 1902, after The Lonesomest Doll (1901), Hall and Locke hired her as editor of their Young Folks Library series. In addition, her poem "On the Trail," set to music by Mabel Daniels, another GLS graduate (1896), became the Girl Scouts' anthem. Abbie Brown succumbed to breast cancer and died on March 4, 1927 at the age of 55. She was buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. Abbie Brown gave the school one of its most prized possessions; a signed copy of the first set of The Jabberwocks.
Hannah Myrick
GLS Class of 1892 First Business Committee The Jabberwock First MD of GLS;
Hannah Myrick was the first to graduate from GLS (1892) and go on to become a doctor. She graduated from Smith College (1896) and received her medical degree from Johns Hopkins University (1900). She practiced medicine in Boston for ten years as superintendent of the New England Hospital for Women and Children. Later she was physician at Schraffts Candy Co. After retiring, Myrick was a prize-winning amateur photographer and was credited with developing some of the first X-ray film used at New England Hospital for Women and Children.
Josephine Preston Peabody GLS Class of 1896;
Josephine P. Peabody, or Posey as she was known, would remain a lifelong friend of Abbie F. Brown. She was a non-graduate of the class of 1896 and went on to become an internationally recognized American poet and dramatist. On January 3, 1926, the New York Times Book Review summed, “Josephine Peabody, as a girl, had never been robust. Her course at Girls’ Latin School in Boston was curtailed by ill health, and although she entered Radcliffe College she was unable to complete more than two years of work….She was a volcano pent up inside the most fragile bit of Dresden china.”
After Radcliffe College, she was instructor in English Literature at Wellesley College from 1901-1903. In 1906 she married Prof. L. S. Marks from Harvard University. The Stratford-on-Avon prize went to her in 1909 for her drama The Piper, which was produced in England in 1910; and in America at the New Theatre, New York City, in 1911. The Wayfarers, A Book of Verse (1898) contains a poem first printed in the Jabberwock which was she recalled, “actually written in school, on a slip of ‘practice paper’, within a book, within a desk, within a dream.” In the last decade of her life, she struggled against an illness that hardened the arteries leading to her brain, and made her extremely fatigued. She died in December 1922.
Frances Oliver Grant GLS Class of 1913;
Frances Oliver Grant was the first black woman ever to achieve Phi Beta Kappa at Radcliffe College. She also was first black to graduate Radcliffe from GLS. Grant graduated form Radcliffe magna cum laude in 1917.
Louise Bogan GLS Class of 1915;
Louise Bogan displayed a flair for writing while in high school; she contributed many pieces to the Jabber wock including poetry. One of her poems in the January 1915 Jabberwock was “Voyageur”. Bogan also wrote the class poem of 1915. She went on to become one of the most accomplished poets of her time as well as poetry critic for the New Yorker magazine. She attributes her flair for style to teacher Ms. Caroline Gerrish of GLS. “She taught me that style was the important element, in work of any kind, and that style depended on sincerity and a sense of form, which should grow with the writer. I owe her more than I can say.”
Maribel Vinson Owen GLS Class of 1928 greatest female skater in US history;
Maribel Vinson graduated from Girls’ Latin in 1928 and Radcliffe College in 1932 and went on to become the most prolific woman skater in US history. She won the US National Figure Skating Championships every year from 1926 through 1937 with the exception of 1934. This ties her with Michelle Kwan for the most figure skating singles titles ever won by a US woman.
Vinson also won the United States Pairs title five times; with Thornton L. Coolidge to win in 1928 and 1929 and with George E. B. Hill in 1935, 1936, and 1937. At the 1932 Olympic Winter Games held in Lake Placid, she was awarded the bronze medal. (Sonja Henie of Norway won the gold in 1928, 1932 and 1936). While still competing, in 1934, Maribel Vinson became the first woman sportswriter ever to be hired at the New York Times newspaper.
At Radcliffe, Maribel found time to participate in the Harvard Dramatic Club and made her debut in a play called “Close Up”. In the 1940-, she starred in an ice show called “Gay Blades” and consented to an interview by the Jabberwock for its 60th Jubilee. She said, “You may quote me as saying outside of directing and producing this show, the hardest thing I have ever done was get through Latin School on five home lessons a night. What a grind! But its good for you.”
She married Canadian skater Guy Rochon Owen and had two girls, Maribel and Laurence. In 1952, her husband died unexpectedly. Following her retirement from amateur ice skating she earned a living as a coach in the skating rinks of Boston . Maribel Vinson-Owen coached Tenley Albright to five U.S. titles and then to the first Olympic gold medal for an American in Ladies figure skating in 1956.Both of her daughters became competitive skaters. In 1961, 20 yr. old Maribel, a 1957 GLS graduate, won the US Figure Skating Pairs title and 16- yr. old Laurence, who attended Winchester High School won the US Women’s Singles title.
Following their US Championships, Coach Maribel Vinson-Owen’s two daughters were scheduled to compete in the 1961 World Ice Skating Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia. The American team boarded Sabena Flight 548 at New York City's Idlewild International Airport. On the morning of February 15, 1961 the flight was trying to land for a stopover in Brussels, Belgium when it plunged into a farm in Berg, Belgium taking the lives of all passengers; including 18 members of the American figure skating team and 16 others. Vinson-Owen and both daughters were among the dead. The 1961 World Championships were canceled as a result of this tragedy. Maribel Vinson-Owen and her daughters were buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1976, Maribel Vinson Owen was named to the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame and was inducted again in 1994 with George E.B. Hill in the Pairs category. The Vinson-Owen School in Winchester, Massachusetts, is named in her honor.
1957 GLS graduate Laurence Owen, who had been Sports Illustrated's cover girl the week she died, would have been favored for gold at the 1964 Games in Innsbruck.
Mary McGrory GLS Class of 1935 Won Pulitzer Prize
Mary McGrory won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary while a reporter at Washington Star. She graduated from Emanuel College in 1939, started as a secretary at the Boston Herald in 1942. “The more I think about it, the more I think Girls’ Latin, is admiral training for this business. The intensity, the high standards, and keen competition are very much the same.”
Public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individuals, and the public is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the Öffentlichkeit or public sphere. The concept of a public has also been defined in political science,...
exam school founded in 1877 in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
providing students in grades 7th through 12th a rigorous classical
Classical education movement
The Classical education movement advocates a form of education based in the traditions of Western culture, with a particular focus on education as understood and taught in the Middle Ages. The curricula and pedagogy of classical education was first developed during the Middle Ages by Martianus...
preparatory
University-preparatory school
A university-preparatory school or college-preparatory school is a secondary school, usually private, designed to prepare students for a college or university education...
education.
Formerly named Girls' Latin School prior to 1977, the school was the first college preparatory high school for girls in the United States. Now coeducational, the school is currently located in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
and is part of the Boston Public School system
Boston Public Schools
Boston Public Schools is a school district serving the city of Boston, Massachusetts, United States.-Leadership:The district is led by a Superintendent, hired by the Boston School Committee, a seven-member school board appointed by the Mayor after approval by a nominating committee of specified...
.
History
Boston Latin Academy (BLA) was founded on November 27, 1877 as Girls' Latin School (GLS). The founding of the school was the result of citizen and parent participation and the intention to give college preparatory training for girls. A plan to admit girls to Public Latin School was formed by an executive committee of the Massachusetts Society for the University Education of Women. Three visionary and driving members of this executive committee, Emily Talbot, Florence Cushing and Annie Fields, deserve much of the credit for the school's founding. Henry Durant, president of Wellesley College, and one of the most brilliant legal minds in Boston, was also greatly instrumental in outlining the legal route for the school to be established. A petition with a thousand signatures was presented to the School Board in September 1877. The board referred the question to the subcommittee on high schools. Meanwhile Emily Talbot met with the headmaster of Public Latin School and asked that her daughter and another girl be admitted. Although Headmaster Moses Merrill was willing to teach the girls, he thought it best to wait for the subcommittee's decision. Ultimately the subcommittee recommended that a separate Latin School for girls be established.Girls’ Latin School opened on West Newton Street in Boston’s South End on February 12, 1878. The school had only thirty-seven pupils in its three classes. The first thirty-seven students were divided according to aptitude into three classes; the Sixth, Fifth and Third class. The first graduating class in 1880 included Alice M. Mills, Charlotte W. Rogers, Vida D. Scudder, Mary L. Mason, Alice S. Rollins and Miriam S. Witherspoon; all six were accepted to Smith College
Smith College
Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...
.
In 1888, Abbie Farwell Brown, Sybil Collar and Virginia Holbrook decided to found a school newspaper. The name Jabberwock was picked from a list Abbie Farwell Brown submitted. It was taken from “Jabberwocky”, the famous nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
in “Through the Looking Glass”. They wrote to Lewis Carroll in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and received back a handwritten letter giving them permission to use the name. The Jabberwock is one of the oldest school newspapers in the United States.
The number of students grew each year. When the number of students exceeded 350 in 1898, the school committee moved the first four classes to a building in Copley Square
Copley Square
Copley Square is a public square located in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, named for the donor of the land on which it was developed. The square is named for John Singleton Copley, a famous portrait painter of the late 18th century and native of Boston. A bronze statue of...
vacated by the Chauncy Hall School while the fifth and sixth remained in the old building. In 1907, Girls’ Latin School moved into a brand new building, shared with Normal School located on Huntington Avenue in the Fenway.
The school remained there until 1955, when Teachers’ College expanded, forcing Girls’ Latin School to relocate to the former Dorchester High School for Girls building located in Codman Square.
In 1972, boys were admitted for the first time to Girls’ Latin School. The school name was changed in 1975 and the first graduating class of Boston Latin Academy was in 1977.
In 1981, Latin Academy moved back into the Fenway area, this time to Ipswich Street, across from Fenway Park
Fenway Park
Fenway Park is a baseball park near Kenmore Square in Boston, Massachusetts. Located at 4 Yawkey Way, it has served as the home ballpark of the Boston Red Sox baseball club since it opened in 1912, and is the oldest Major League Baseball stadium currently in use. It is one of two "classic"...
. It remained there until the summer of 1991, when it moved back again, this time to its present location in the former Roxbury Memorial and Boston Technical High School building, located on Townsend St. in Roxbury
Roxbury, Massachusetts
Roxbury is a dissolved municipality and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was one of the first towns founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, and became a city in 1846 until annexed to Boston on January 5, 1868...
.
Although Latin Academy works to create a nurturing environment, a great number of students transfer out due to the difficulty of the courses. 94% of its graduating students go on to attend four-year colleges. In 2010 Boston Latin Academy received a Silver Medal as one of the top public high schools in the nation by US News and World Report.
Mission statement
The mission of Boston Latin Academy is to prepare students for higher academic study by challenging them with a rigorous curriculum. With this foundation, Boston Latin Academy prepares students to be independent learners and contributing citizens in a diverse and challenging society.Admissions
Entrance is allowed in the 7th and 9th grades. To gain admission to BLA, a student must be a resident of Boston, and must take the ISEEIndependent School Entrance Examination
The Independent School Entrance Examination, or ISEE, is an entrance exam used by many independent schools and magnet schools in the United States. Developed and administered by the Educational Records Bureau, the ISEE has three levels: the Lower level, for entrance in grades 5-6; Middle level,...
test.
Academics
Boston Latin Academy's curriculum focuses on the classics. Students are required to take college preparatory classes and four years of Latin. Over 20 different types of Advanced Placement classes are offered along with Honors classes. Boston Latin Academy has a long tradition of academic excellence and has been recognized by U.S. News & World Report as an Outstanding American High School and by America’s Best Redbook Schools for Overall Excellence.- Excellence in academics with a high rate of college placement
- Dedicated faculty who challenge and encourage students
- Honors and Advanced Placement Courses
- Exemplary Peer Tutoring Programs
- Supportive Alumni Association through BLAA
- Active and supportive Community Booster Club and School Parent Council
- Generous and supportive Business Partner
- Students who represent Boston’s multicultural, multiracial population
- Greenhouse and Outdoor Classroom within interior open-air courtyard
Headmasters
Dr. John Tetlow 1878-1910John Tetlow, graduate of Brown University and valedictorian of his class of 1864, was unanimously voted by the School Committee as the new principal for GLS in January 1878. He was just 35 years old. Born on April 12, 1843 in Providence, Rhode Island, Tetlow had been headmaster of Friends Academy in New Bedford from 1869 through 1878.
John Tetlow married Elizabeth Ingersoll Harrington, daughter of the superintendent of New Bedford public schools in 1870. They had two daughters: Elizabeth born March 31, 1875 and Helen, born February 1, 1877. His wife died six weeks later on March 17, 1877. He met Elizabeth P. Howard, a much beloved teacher at GLS, and they were married on July 1, 1880. Daughters, Elizabeth and Helen, would later graduate from GLS class of 1892 and class of 1895 respectively. Their one biological daughter, Frances H., born almost six years later on June 16, 1886, would graduate in 1903.
For the first few years, John Tetlow continued to teach all Greek and Latin classes. He was, first and foremost, an outstanding and unequalled teacher who inspired a real love of learning and quickly became known for his passionate insistence on accuracy.
Tetlow collaborated to establish the New England Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools in 1885, served as a Trustee of The Roxbury Latin School and authored several Latin and Greek high school text books. He gained a national reputation for making the school one of the finest college preparatory schools in the US. By the early 1900s, more than half of each graduating class was accepted at The Harvard Annex (which later became Radcliffe College), Smith College, Wellesley College, Vassar College and Mount Holyoke College.
At the end of the 1910 school year, sixty seven-year old Headmaster Tetlow made the decision to retire; official August 31.
Tetlow had guided the school beautifully through the difficult first few years of infancy until the school finally won its place. GLS had 760 students, more than twenty times its original size.
On November 25, 1911, about a year and a half after his retirement, Mr. Tetlow was riding his bike from his home at 139 Davis Avenue in Brookline about a quarter mile over Route 9 to Jamaica Pond. Along Chestnut Street, near Perkins Street which runs along the north border of the Pond, Mr. Tetlow was struck by an automobile. Two weeks later on Saturday, he went to bed, fell asleep and never regained consciousness.Tetlow did not know he had fractured his hip and suffered a sub peritoneal hemorrhage. This caused a heart attack. He passed away very unexpectedly on December 9, 1911. A memorial service, organized by alumnae, was held on April 8, 1912 for John Tetlow at which half a dozen esteemed colleagues spoke of his life. Superintendent of the Boston Public Schools, Stratton D. Brooks, opened the services and said, “We are assembled this afternoon to pay tribute to a man whose…insistence upon those things he believed to be right has done much to place the schools of Boston in the position they occupy in the minds of the educated of this country.”
Ernest J. Hapgood 1910-1948
Mr. Ernest Hapwood was born, coincidentally, on the same day the first class started at GLS; February 12, 1878. He graduated from Tufts University in 1901 and received his masters from Tufts in 1905. Because he had attended Brown University from 1888 to 1890, and was a star tackle on the football team, he was awarded an honorary degree from Brown in 1911. Hapgood married Edith Kenney Hapgood, with who he had had a daughter and three sons. He came to teach at GLS in 1905, and became head of the Mathematics department in 1908.
After suffering a small stroke in December 1947, Hapgood made the decision to retire. The portrait of Ernest G. Hapgood was painted by Claxton B. Moulton and was a present from the alumnae association. The portrait is hung in a gold and black frame and is approximately 6 feet (1.8 m) by 4 feet (1.2 m). The painting depicts Hapgood standing beside a white chair, in a blue suit with white shirt and red tie, with one hand in his pocket.
The man with a “ringing laugh and expansive smile” had watched over the school from September 14, 1910 until January 31, 1948. Fatherly, friendly, approachable, caring yet mindful of the school’s standards at all times, he quietly doubled the school’s reputation for outstanding academic preparation. The Jabberwock wrote, “Mr. Ernest Hapgood’s retirement is a blow indeed to the G.L.S. We shall always be sincerely grateful to him for his untiring efforts as an educator and his brilliant guidance of our school for so many years.”
Mr. Hapgood died at 75 years of age of heart disease on April 3, 1953 at Newton-Wellesley Hospital after a long illness, just days before the GLS 75th anniversary weekend.
Louis A. McCoy 1948-1957
Mr. Louis A. McCoy became only the third headmaster in seventy years in 1948. He was also a graduate of Brown University. McCoy was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on August 14, 1887. He received his B.A. in 1909 and received his A.M. in 1910 from Brown University. At one time, he also played professional baseball. He taught math and coach athletics at Bulkeley High School (1910–15) in New London, Conn., taught math at New Haven High School (1915–17) then became head of the math department at English High School (1917–28), Roxbury Memorial High School (1928–38). He then became the Headmaster at Girls’ High (1938–48) before accepting the position at GLS. He married Marguerite H. McGlone on July 12, 1916 and had two daughters Marguerite E. and Virginia M.; Virginia also became a teacher in the Boston Public Schools.
After two years at Codman Square, Headmaster McCoy announced his retirement. On June 3, 1957, Headmaster McCoy was honored by the Alumnae Association and a banquet was held in his honor to unveil McCoy’s portrait painted by Mrs. Griswold Tyng.On June 3, 1965, Louis A. McCoy died at the age of seventy seven.
Thomas F. Gately 1957-1965
Thomas F. Gately was born in 1895 and served in the US Navy in WW I. Headmaster from 1957 to 1966. Graduate of Boston College High School and Boston College 1920. He taught at Jamaica Plain High before becoming headmaster at GLS.
William T. Miller 1965-1966
“Our new headmaster, Mr. Miller, spent the year with us; we anxiously watched him enter GLS in September and mournfully watched him leave in June, 1966."
Margaret C. Carroll 1966-1978
Margaret C. Carroll earned a BS degree from Teacher’s College Boston, a M.A. of education from Teachers College and BU. She taught science at Girls’ High from 1931-1950. She was head of Department of Science at Dorchester High School from 1950–57, head master at Roxbury Memorial High School for Girls from 1957–1959, headmaster of Boston Business School from 1959–1966 and GLS 1966-1978.
Margaret C. Carroll died on December 29, 2005 at 97. She was born June 17, 1908 in Boston. She is buried at St Joseph Cemetery in Boston.
Robert Binswanger (1983–1991)
Maria Garcia-Aaronson (1991–2009)
Emilia Pastor
Buildings
History of the buildingsOccupied by Girls’ Latin School and Boston Latin Academy
1878-2010.
1. West Newton Street South End, Boston
First Building Occupied by Girls’ Latin School 1878-1907
After Girls’ Latin School was approved on November 27, 1877, the first classes were held on February 12, 1878. Girls’ Latin shared its first building with Girls’ High School. Built from 1869 through 1871, the school was at the time of its completion, the largest in New England and the most expensive school built in the United States. It occupied a 30480 square feet (2,831.7 m²) lot fronting on West Newton Street in the South End. West Newton Street was bounded on the north by Pembroke Street and on the west and east by Tremont and Shawmut Streets. In 1878, West Newton Street was a wide, dirt street and the sidewalks were brick. The Evangelical Zionist Church was to the left of the school and to the right was a row of brick townhouses with classic Bostonian double-bowed fronts.
The school was limestone block on the street level and red brick on the upper three stories. A set of granite stairs bridged the side walk up to the door. The turreted roof was unusually decorative and had a Faneuil Hall like cupola tower on top. It contained sixty six classrooms; seven rooms providing seating for one hundred students and the smallest four rooms seating seventy-five.
In December 1882, the school committee voted to expand the classrooms for GLS and approved the use of six rooms on the second floor and one room on the third floor of Girls’ High. They also appropriated $2,000 so that the school could be physically separated or isolated from Girls’ High. They erected partitions, assigned separate entrances, and purchased $1,500 of additional furnishings. The entire west half of the second floor was “appropriated to the exclusive use of the school”.
Enrollment at GLS had grown from 37 in 1878 to 296 in 1896. The West Newton Street building was becoming far too small to accommodate both schools. Every available recitation room in the school had been filled with desks, the drawing and musical rooms in the attic and basement, even the cloak-rooms had been converted for use. The school built for 925 girls, was approaching 1,300 students.
However, Girls’ Latin would occupy the building on West Newton Street from 1878 to 1907; almost thirty years. The building was razed in 1960 and a playground now occupies its site on West Newton Street.
2. Chauncy Hall 1898-1907
Boylston Street Copley Square, Boston
In February 1898, the first through fourth classes, approximately 240 students, were moved to the Chauncy Hall School in Copley Square which had been vacated by the private school two years earlier. Headmaster John Tetlow summed, “The present transfer of the main part of Girls’ Latin School to an independent building is rightly viewed by the friends of the school as a subject for congratulations…but let it be remembered that this transfer is only one step toward the consummation to be striven for…The school needs, for adequate performance of its mission in the community, a new and well equipped building;…”
Located at 593-597 Boylston Street between Dartmouth and Clarendon directly across from Trinity Church, the building was stone with three spires and an ivy covered façade.
The Chauncy Hall School was established in 1828 by Gideon F. Thayer and was originally located on Chauncy Place in Boston. The school burned to the ground in May 1873. The decision was made to re-build a new school. “Fortunately our attention was directed to the neighborhood of what is now Copley Square, and though it seemed somewhat out-of-town, it was thought best to take the risk of the city growing in that direction,” wrote historian Thomas Cushing, “The estimated cost was $100,000, and school masters do not usually have that sum at command to embody their wishes in brick and mortar.” A stock company was formed of approximately 160 former pupils and parents of current pupils, including Dr. Israel Tisdale Talbot. The school paid the stockholders annual rent until the school relocated in 1896. When the decision was made to transfer the upper four grades to the empty building, the City of Boston entered into agreement to lease the building from the Chauncy Hall Association for annual rent and taxes of $8,708.
The third floor contained a 400-seat hall, and the first two floors, 12 classrooms. From the beginning, the school was thought unsuitable being too dark, noisy (from the constant stream of electrically powered street cars) and too far from West Newton Street. The remaining fifth and sixth classes walked the two mile (3 km) round trip twice each month to attend school assemblies.
3. Huntington Avenue 1907-1955
Huntington Avenue the Fenway, Boston
The first and only building built for GLS
On November 11, 1902, the Committee on High Schools ordered that the Board of Commissioners, “purchase a site and erect a building for Girls’ Latin, at the earliest possible date.” This order was expanded to include within the same complex the Normal School and a new grammar school
The new building for Girls’ Latin School was ready for the beginning of the 1907 school year. The Girls’ Latin and Normal School group was completed at a cost of $978,181.The two acre plus lot (113,181 square feet) fronted on Evans Way and Huntington Avenue, was bounded by Tetlow Street on the north (named in honor of its head master), Longwood Avenue on the south and Worthington on the west (later this was renamed Palace Road).
Three architectural firms had collaborated on the design of the building; Peabody & Stearns, Coolidge, Carlson and Maginnis and Walsh & Sullivan. The buildings were red brick with terra cotta and limestone trim and included all the latest advances in electricity and heating. Although the electric light bulb had been invented in 1879, new completely electric buildings were still somewhat of a novelty. For the first time, the school had working telephones with service provided by New England Telephone and Telegraph Company and other new “telephonic services” including switchboard, desk telephones, clocks and bells.
Three architectural firms had collaborated on the design of the building; Peabody & Stearns, Coolidge, Carlson and Maginnis and Walsh & Sullivan. The buildings were red brick with terra cotta and limestone trim and included all the latest advances in electricity and heating. Although the electric light bulb had been invented in 1879, new completely electric buildings were still somewhat of a novelty. For the first time, the school had working telephones with service provided by New England Telephone and Telegraph Company and other new “telephonic services” including switchboard, desk telephones, clocks and bells.
Over the door leading to the courtyard were inscribed the words in Latin, “Here is an open field for talent; appreciative recognition is assured to the deserving; diligent application is honored with due rewards.”
The average classroom was much smaller, and held approximately 56 desks. New features had been introduced like “battery blackboards” that provided more than one surface of natural slate and slid up and down like windows; wall maps and wall charts. The new chemistry and botany labs also had soapstone sinks and hoods to remove odors.
In 1922, Boston Latin School relocated from Warren Avenue to a new Boston Latin School on Avenue Louis Pasteur. Constructed at a cost of $950,000, the building was dedicated on May 18, 1923. The rear yards of Boston Latin and Girls’ Latin were separated only by a street named Palace Road.
Girls’ Latin School expanded from approximately 421 students in 1907 to over 1,200 students in 1955 within the Huntington Avenue building.
In 1924, The Normal School became The Teachers College of the City of Boston. The Massachusetts Board of Education took over the responsibility of operating this teacher’s college to provide financial relief to the City of Boston. In return, the City of Boston agreed to deed the entire Huntington Avenue Building including the Girls’ Latin School buildings and the park area in front to the State.
On August 12, 1952, Girls’ Latin School’s building was transferred to the state for $1.00; approved by the Mayor John B. Hynes and 4/5ths of school committee. Teachers College of the City of Boston became the State Teachers College at Boston. The State Board of Education entered into a “Use Permit” with the City of Boston so that GLS could rent the property for classes until June 30, 1953 with the understanding that by 1955, “that some provision would be made for the housing of the school in other school property in the City of Boston”. In January 1955, the School Committee asked the State to extend the “Use Permit” but they refused despite the protests of prominent citizens and vigorous efforts by the alumnae.
On Friday June 24, 1955 the final day of classes was held at the building.
In 1983, The Massachusetts College of Art took over the Girls’ Latin School and Normal School buildings and began a program of renovation and new construction. The original entrance to Girls’ Latin was altered to allow the construction of a new thirteen story Tower Building; however, Girls’ Latin School Building remains intact behind the Tower. The assembly hall was recently renamed The Pozen Center.
4. Codman Square 1955-1981
Talbot Avenue Codman Square, Dorchester
The next home of GLS, the Dorchester High School building in Codman Square, was originally completed in 1901and it had been in use for over five decades. The Codman Square building sat on a tight triangle of land, the apex extending out to the middle of the square at Washington Street; one triangle side being Talbot Avenue and the other, Centre Street. The land was purchased in 1896, but construction did not start for two years due to the difficult shape of the 60000 square feet (5,574.2 m²) site. The first proposed school building was rejected. The approved design was by Hartwell, Richardson & Driver
Hartwell and Richardson
Hartwell and Richardson was a Boston, Massachusetts architectural practice established in 1881, by Henry Walker Hartwell and William Cummings Richardson ....
was Renaissance revival in style. The building’s exterior was a distinctive yellow brick called buff brick, accented by limestone lintels and trim. On each of four floors, a wide main corridor ran the length of the building parallel to Talbot Avenue. Two broad sets of ornamental stairs extended from the basement to the fourth floor.
In the basement was a lunch room, 900 lockers and to the rear of the building, a gym. Over the gym on the second floor level was the assembly hall which could seat 1,000. At the front there was a stage and two anti-rooms and at the rear a large balcony. Arched timbers were exposed in the ceiling.
On the first floor was the headmaster’s office, reception office, and several classrooms. The second floor held the library. Both the second and third floor had many classrooms as well as fully equipped laboratories. The fourth floor had two art rooms. There were 58 classrooms total.
Codman Square was closed in 1981 and the school was transferred to Ipswich Street, a former warehouse for the US Postal Service. The Codman Square school sat vacant for a few years. Then in 1986, most of the classrooms in the building were converted into housing by private developer Robert Walsh. The Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation completed renovation of the historic Girls’ Latin Academy building in April, 2008. In addition to renovating (and financially re-structuring) the existing 58 housing units, thirty-five new affordable rental units were added in the vacant portions of the school building the gym and the auditorium. This completed the adaptive re-use of this Codman Square landmark. The former Girls’ Latin School and first home of Boston Latin Academy remains one of the three historic buildings in the Codman Square Historic District.
5. 174 Ipswich St 1981-1991
6 205 Townsend St 1991–Present
Notable Alumni
Sarah Ida Shaw (1867–1924) GLS Class of 1885 Founder Delta Delta DeltaDelta Delta Delta
Delta Delta Delta , also known as Tri Delta, is an international sorority founded on November 27, 1888, the eve of Thanksgiving Day. With over 200,000 initiates, Tri Delta is one of the world's largest NPC sororities.-History:...
Sorority;
Born in Missouri on September 7, 1867, she moved to Boston at the age of six. One of the first nationally recognized graduates from GLS was Sarah Ida Shaw (1885). Valedictorian of her GLS class, Sarah planned to attend Wellesley College but her mother’s illness and her father’s business travel made her decide to attend Boston University. She commuted by horse-drawn carriage each day from her home in Roxbury and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1889. All three of the women’s sororities on campus invited her to join, but as a junior, she decided to start a sorority that would “think more of a girl’s inner self and character”. As a result, Delta Delta Delta Sorority was founded. From its alpha chapter at BU, it grew to 131 chapters nationwide. After her graduation, Sarah taught classical languages and German at Lynn High School until her marriage in 1896. She continued her involvement with Tri Delta through 1900, serving as Grand President from 1889 to 1893. She died suddenly in 1924 from a stroke. She was elected to The Fraternity Hall of Fame in 1976.
Abbie Farwell Brown (1871–1927) GLS Class of 1891 founder and first editress The Jabberwock;
The Jabberwock became a personification of Abbie F. Brown, and she was affectionately regarded as his “godmother“.
Vivacious and witty Brown was born on August 21, 1871 at 41 West Cedar Street on Beacon Hill to Benjamin F. and Clara Brown. She resided her entire life on West Cedar Street. The three-story brick townhouse with recessed door entry still stands today. Abbie’s father was a merchant, born the son of Benjamin and Jane Farwell Brown. He married Clara Neal on October 13, 1870. Brown’s mother Clara was a writer and had published some of her own works; which was no doubt a great inspiration. Brown was valedictorian of her class at the Bowdoin School in 1886; and that year she was accepted to GLS. President of the GLS class of 1891, after graduating she would attend Radcliffe for two years and go on to become a children’s author.
It was a visit in 1899 to Chester Cathedral, England, which inspired her first and most highly regarded children's book, The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts. When it was published by Houghton and Mifflin in 1900 she remarked, “It is all the Jabberwock’s fault that I wrote any book at all. For in four years’ care of you, I acquired a taste for scribbling, which is rarely cured and which has broken out at last in this awful way.” In 1902, after The Lonesomest Doll (1901), Hall and Locke hired her as editor of their Young Folks Library series. In addition, her poem "On the Trail," set to music by Mabel Daniels, another GLS graduate (1896), became the Girl Scouts' anthem. Abbie Brown succumbed to breast cancer and died on March 4, 1927 at the age of 55. She was buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. Abbie Brown gave the school one of its most prized possessions; a signed copy of the first set of The Jabberwocks.
Hannah Myrick
Hannah Myrick
Hannah Myrick was a physician who received her medical degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1900, thereby helping to blaze the trail for more women to enter medicine...
GLS Class of 1892 First Business Committee The Jabberwock First MD of GLS;
Hannah Myrick was the first to graduate from GLS (1892) and go on to become a doctor. She graduated from Smith College (1896) and received her medical degree from Johns Hopkins University (1900). She practiced medicine in Boston for ten years as superintendent of the New England Hospital for Women and Children. Later she was physician at Schraffts Candy Co. After retiring, Myrick was a prize-winning amateur photographer and was credited with developing some of the first X-ray film used at New England Hospital for Women and Children.
Josephine Preston Peabody GLS Class of 1896;
Josephine P. Peabody, or Posey as she was known, would remain a lifelong friend of Abbie F. Brown. She was a non-graduate of the class of 1896 and went on to become an internationally recognized American poet and dramatist. On January 3, 1926, the New York Times Book Review summed, “Josephine Peabody, as a girl, had never been robust. Her course at Girls’ Latin School in Boston was curtailed by ill health, and although she entered Radcliffe College she was unable to complete more than two years of work….She was a volcano pent up inside the most fragile bit of Dresden china.”
After Radcliffe College, she was instructor in English Literature at Wellesley College from 1901-1903. In 1906 she married Prof. L. S. Marks from Harvard University. The Stratford-on-Avon prize went to her in 1909 for her drama The Piper, which was produced in England in 1910; and in America at the New Theatre, New York City, in 1911. The Wayfarers, A Book of Verse (1898) contains a poem first printed in the Jabberwock which was she recalled, “actually written in school, on a slip of ‘practice paper’, within a book, within a desk, within a dream.” In the last decade of her life, she struggled against an illness that hardened the arteries leading to her brain, and made her extremely fatigued. She died in December 1922.
Frances Oliver Grant GLS Class of 1913;
Frances Oliver Grant was the first black woman ever to achieve Phi Beta Kappa at Radcliffe College. She also was first black to graduate Radcliffe from GLS. Grant graduated form Radcliffe magna cum laude in 1917.
Louise Bogan GLS Class of 1915;
Louise Bogan displayed a flair for writing while in high school; she contributed many pieces to the Jabber wock including poetry. One of her poems in the January 1915 Jabberwock was “Voyageur”. Bogan also wrote the class poem of 1915. She went on to become one of the most accomplished poets of her time as well as poetry critic for the New Yorker magazine. She attributes her flair for style to teacher Ms. Caroline Gerrish of GLS. “She taught me that style was the important element, in work of any kind, and that style depended on sincerity and a sense of form, which should grow with the writer. I owe her more than I can say.”
Maribel Vinson Owen GLS Class of 1928 greatest female skater in US history;
Maribel Vinson graduated from Girls’ Latin in 1928 and Radcliffe College in 1932 and went on to become the most prolific woman skater in US history. She won the US National Figure Skating Championships every year from 1926 through 1937 with the exception of 1934. This ties her with Michelle Kwan for the most figure skating singles titles ever won by a US woman.
Vinson also won the United States Pairs title five times; with Thornton L. Coolidge to win in 1928 and 1929 and with George E. B. Hill in 1935, 1936, and 1937. At the 1932 Olympic Winter Games held in Lake Placid, she was awarded the bronze medal. (Sonja Henie of Norway won the gold in 1928, 1932 and 1936). While still competing, in 1934, Maribel Vinson became the first woman sportswriter ever to be hired at the New York Times newspaper.
At Radcliffe, Maribel found time to participate in the Harvard Dramatic Club and made her debut in a play called “Close Up”. In the 1940-, she starred in an ice show called “Gay Blades” and consented to an interview by the Jabberwock for its 60th Jubilee. She said, “You may quote me as saying outside of directing and producing this show, the hardest thing I have ever done was get through Latin School on five home lessons a night. What a grind! But its good for you.”
She married Canadian skater Guy Rochon Owen and had two girls, Maribel and Laurence. In 1952, her husband died unexpectedly. Following her retirement from amateur ice skating she earned a living as a coach in the skating rinks of Boston . Maribel Vinson-Owen coached Tenley Albright to five U.S. titles and then to the first Olympic gold medal for an American in Ladies figure skating in 1956.Both of her daughters became competitive skaters. In 1961, 20 yr. old Maribel, a 1957 GLS graduate, won the US Figure Skating Pairs title and 16- yr. old Laurence, who attended Winchester High School won the US Women’s Singles title.
Following their US Championships, Coach Maribel Vinson-Owen’s two daughters were scheduled to compete in the 1961 World Ice Skating Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia. The American team boarded Sabena Flight 548 at New York City's Idlewild International Airport. On the morning of February 15, 1961 the flight was trying to land for a stopover in Brussels, Belgium when it plunged into a farm in Berg, Belgium taking the lives of all passengers; including 18 members of the American figure skating team and 16 others. Vinson-Owen and both daughters were among the dead. The 1961 World Championships were canceled as a result of this tragedy. Maribel Vinson-Owen and her daughters were buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1976, Maribel Vinson Owen was named to the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame and was inducted again in 1994 with George E.B. Hill in the Pairs category. The Vinson-Owen School in Winchester, Massachusetts, is named in her honor.
1957 GLS graduate Laurence Owen, who had been Sports Illustrated's cover girl the week she died, would have been favored for gold at the 1964 Games in Innsbruck.
Mary McGrory GLS Class of 1935 Won Pulitzer Prize
Mary McGrory won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary while a reporter at Washington Star. She graduated from Emanuel College in 1939, started as a secretary at the Boston Herald in 1942. “The more I think about it, the more I think Girls’ Latin, is admiral training for this business. The intensity, the high standards, and keen competition are very much the same.”
Athletics
Currently Latin Academy offers a wide variety of sports. The team mascot is the Jabberwock, but in recent years it has changed to the Dragon.- Football
- Boys Soccer
- Girls Soccer
- Girls Volleyball
- Cross Country
- Girls Basketball
- Boys Basketball
- Girls Hockey
- Boys Hockey
- Coed Swimming
- Track
- Baseball
- Softball
- Boys Volleyball
- Boys Golf (created fall '08)
- Boys Tennis
- Girls Tennis
See also
- Boston Latin SchoolBoston Latin SchoolThe Boston Latin School is a public exam school founded on April 23, 1635, in Boston, Massachusetts. It is both the first public school and oldest existing school in the United States....
- John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics & ScienceJohn D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics & ScienceThe John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, formerly known as Boston Technical High School is a college preparatory public examination school along with Boston Latin School and Boston Latin Academy that specializes in mathematics, science, technology and engineering in the city of...
- Boston Schoolyard InitiativeBoston Schoolyard InitiativeBoston Schoolyard Initiative is a public private partnership that works to transform the conditions of public schoolyards of Boston Public Schools. BSI, in collaboration with private funders, the City of Boston and Boston Public Schools, uses a community participatory design process to change...