Elizabeth Peabody
Encyclopedia
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (May 16, 1804 – January 3, 1894) was an American educator who opened the first English-language kindergarten
in the United States
. Long before most educators, Peabody embraced the premise that children's play has intrinsic developmental and educational value.
, Massachusetts
on May 16, 1804. She was the daughter of Nathaniel Peabody
, a physician, and spent her early years in Salem
. After 1822 she resided principally in Boston where she engaged in teaching. She also became a writer and a prominent figure in the Transcendental movement
. During 1834–1835, she worked as assistant teacher to Amos Bronson Alcott
at his experimental Temple School
in Boston
. After the school closed, Peabody published Record of a School, outlining the plan of the school and Alcott's philosophy of early childhood education, which had drawn on German
models.
It was there that the "Conversations" were held, organized by Margaret Fuller
. The first of these meetings between women was held on November 6, 1839. Topics for these discussions and debates varied but subjects were as diverse as fine arts, history, mythology, literature, and nature. Fuller served as the "nucleus of conversation" and hoped to answer the "great questions" facing women: "What were we born to do? How shall we do it? which so few ever propose to themselves 'till their best years are gone by". Many figures in the woman's rights movement took part, including Sophia Dana Ripley
, Caroline Sturgis, and Maria White Lowell
.
The 1840 Catalogue of the Foreign Library offered several hundred titles in German, French, Spanish, Italian and English languages, including:
, the main publication of the Transcendentalists. In 1843, she noted that the journal's income was not covering the cost of printing and that subscriptions totaled just over two hundred. The publication ceased shortly thereafter in April 1844.
on February 12, 1897, in support of free kindergartens:
in Concord, Massachusetts
.
and others in addition to the periodicals The Dial and Æsthetic Papers. She was an advocate of antislavery
and of Transcendentalism
. Moreover, she also led decades of efforts for the rights of the Paiute
Indians.
) and writer Mary Tyler Peabody Mann
(wife of educator Horace Mann
).
Kindergarten
A kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Long before most educators, Peabody embraced the premise that children's play has intrinsic developmental and educational value.
Biography
Peabody was born in BillericaBillerica, Massachusetts
Billerica is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,243 at the 2010 census. It is the only town named Billerica in the United States and borrows its name from the town of Billericay in Essex, England.- History :...
, 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...
on May 16, 1804. She was the daughter of Nathaniel Peabody
Nathaniel Peabody
Nathaniel Peabody was an American physician from Rockingham County, New Hampshire. He represented New Hampshire as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1779 and 1780....
, a physician, and spent her early years in Salem
Salem, Massachusetts
Salem is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,407 at the 2000 census. It and Lawrence are the county seats of Essex County...
. After 1822 she resided principally in Boston where she engaged in teaching. She also became a writer and a prominent figure in the Transcendental movement
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the 1830s and 1840s in the New England region of the United States as a protest against the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian...
. During 1834–1835, she worked as assistant teacher to Amos Bronson Alcott
Amos Bronson Alcott
Amos Bronson Alcott was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways of interacting with young students, focusing on a conversational style, and avoided traditional punishment. He hoped to perfect the human spirit and, to that end, advocated a...
at his experimental Temple School
Temple School, Boston (1830s)
The Temple School in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, was established by Bronson Alcott in 1834, and featured a teaching style based on conversation. Teachers working at the school included Elizabeth Peabody and Margaret Fuller.-History:...
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...
. After the school closed, Peabody published Record of a School, outlining the plan of the school and Alcott's philosophy of early childhood education, which had drawn on German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
models.
Bookstore
She later opened a book store, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody's West Street Bookstore, at her home in Boston (ca.1840-1852).It was there that the "Conversations" were held, organized by Margaret Fuller
Margaret Fuller
Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli, commonly known as Margaret Fuller, was an American journalist, critic, and women's rights advocate associated with the American transcendentalism movement. She was the first full-time American female book reviewer in journalism...
. The first of these meetings between women was held on November 6, 1839. Topics for these discussions and debates varied but subjects were as diverse as fine arts, history, mythology, literature, and nature. Fuller served as the "nucleus of conversation" and hoped to answer the "great questions" facing women: "What were we born to do? How shall we do it? which so few ever propose to themselves 'till their best years are gone by". Many figures in the woman's rights movement took part, including Sophia Dana Ripley
Sophia Ripley
Sophia Willard Dana Ripley , wife of George Ripley, was a 19th-century feminist associated with Transcendentalism and the Brook Farm community.-Biography:...
, Caroline Sturgis, and Maria White Lowell
Maria White Lowell
Maria White Lowell was an American poet and abolitionist.-Life and career:Maria was born in Watertown, Massachusetts to a middle-class intellectual family...
.
The 1840 Catalogue of the Foreign Library offered several hundred titles in German, French, Spanish, Italian and English languages, including:
- Mrs. John AdamsAbigail AdamsAbigail Adams was the wife of John Adams, who was the second President of the United States, and the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth...
' Letters - Andryane's Memoires d'un Prisonnier de'Etate au Spielberg
- Bentley's MiscellanyBentley's MiscellanyBentley's Miscellany was an English literary magazine started by Richard Bentley. It was published between 1836 and 1868.-Contributors:Already a successful publisher of novels, Bentley began the journal in 1836 and invited Charles Dickens to be its first editor...
- BonnycastleRichard Henry BonnycastleLieutenant-Colonel Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle was an officer of the British army active in Upper Canada. In his capacity as a military engineer, Bonnycastle oversaw the fortification of Fort Henry in modern Kingston, Ontario.Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle was born in Woolwich to John...
's Spanish America - Boston Quarterly Review
- Buche's Ruins of Cities
- ChanningWilliam Ellery ChanningDr. William Ellery Channing was the foremost Unitarian preacher in the United States in the early nineteenth century and, along with Andrews Norton, one of Unitarianism's leading theologians. He was known for his articulate and impassioned sermons and public speeches, and as a prominent thinker...
's Slavery - CrockerThomas Crofton CrokerThomas Crofton Croker was an Irish antiquary, born at Cork. For some years, he held a position in the Admiralty, where his distant relative, John Wilson Croker, was his superior....
's Fairy Legends - DumerilAndré Marie Constant DumérilAndré Marie Constant Duméril was a French zoologist. He was professor of anatomy at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle from 1801 to 1812, when he became professor of herpetology and ichthyology...
's Elemens des sciences Naturelles
- Mrs. Farrar's Howard's Life
- Fraser's MagazineFraser's MagazineFraser's Magazine for Town and Country was a general and literary journal published in London from 1830 to 1882, which initially took a strong Tory line in politics. It was founded by Hugh Fraser and William Maginn in 1830 and loosely directed by Maginn under the name Oliver Yorke until about 1840...
- GuariniGiovanni Battista GuariniGiovanni Battista Guarini was an Italian poet, dramatist, and diplomat.- Life :He was born in Ferrara, and spent his early life both in Padua and Ferrara, entering the service of Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, in 1567...
's Pastor Fido - Haydn et Mozart lettres
- HerderJohann Gottfried HerderJohann Gottfried von Herder was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic. He is associated with the periods of Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, and Weimar Classicism.-Biography:...
's Hebrew Poetry - Junger's Lustspiele
- LanziLuigi LanziLuigi Lanzi was an Italian art historian and archaeologist.Born in Treia, Lanzi was educated as a priest. He entered the Order of the Jesuits, resided at Rome and in 1773 was appointed keeper of the galleries of Florence, where he became president of the Accademia della Crusca...
's Storia Pittorica - LessingGotthold Ephraim LessingGotthold Ephraim Lessing was a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist, and art critic, and one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature...
's Nathan de Weise - Metropolitan MagazineThe Metropolitan MagazineThe Metropolitan: a monthly journal of literature, science, and the fine arts was a London monthly journal established by Thomas Campbell in 1831....
- Miss MitfordMary Russell MitfordMary Russell Mitford , was an English author and dramatist. She was born at Alresford, Hampshire. Her place in English literature is as the author of Our Village...
's Our Village
- Musical Journal
- [Isaac TaylorIsaac TaylorIsaac Taylor was an English philosophical and historical writer, artist, and inventor.-Life:He was the eldest surviving son of Isaac Taylor of Ongar. He was born at Lavenham, Suffolk, on 17 August 1787, and moved with his family to Colchester and, at the end of 1810, to Ongar. In the family...
]'s Natural History of Enthusiasm - [Sara ColeridgeSara ColeridgeSara Coleridge was an English author and translator. She was the fourth child and only daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his wife Sarah Fricker.-Early life:...
]'s Phantasmion - PringleThomas PringleThomas Pringle was a Scottish writer, poet and abolitionist, known as the father of South African Poetry, the first successful English language poet and author to describe South Africa's scenery, native peoples, and living conditions.Born at Blaiklaw , four miles south of Kelso in Roxburghshire he...
's Residence in South Africa - Revue des deux MondesRevue des deux mondesThe Revue des deux Mondes is a French language monthly literary and cultural affairs magazine that has been published in Paris since 1829....
- George SandGeorge SandAmantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant , best known by her pseudonym George Sand , was a French novelist and memoirist.-Life:...
's Andre - Madame Necker de SaussureAlbertine Necker de SaussureAlbertine Adrienne Necker de Saussure was a Swiss writer and educationalist and an early advocate of education for women.-Life:...
's Vie de De Stael - [CocktonHenry CocktonHenry Cockton was an English novelist. Born in London, he is remembered as the author of The Life and Adventures of Valentine Vox, the Ventriloquist which was parodied by Timothy Portwine as The Adventures of Valentine Vaux; or, the tricks of a Ventriloquist .Other Cockton novels include...
]'s Valentine Vox, illus. by Cruikshank - Vie de Poussin
The Dial
For a time, Peabody was the business manager of The DialThe Dial
The Dial was an American magazine published intermittently from 1840 to 1929. In its first form, from 1840 to 1844, it served as the chief publication of the Transcendentalists. In the 1880s it was revived as a political magazine...
, the main publication of the Transcendentalists. In 1843, she noted that the journal's income was not covering the cost of printing and that subscriptions totaled just over two hundred. The publication ceased shortly thereafter in April 1844.
Kindergarten
When Peabody opened her kindergarten in 1860, the practice of providing formal schooling for children younger than six was largely confined to Germany. She had a particular interest in the educational methods of Friedrich Fröbel, and in 1867 visited Germany for the purpose of studying them more closely. Through her own kindergarten, and as editor of the Kindergarten Messenger (1873–1877), Peabody helped establish kindergarten as an accepted institution in American education. She also wrote numerous books in support of the cause. The extent of her influence is apparent in a statement submitted to CongressUnited States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
on February 12, 1897, in support of free kindergartens:
-
- The advantage to the community in utilizing the age from 4 to 6 in training the hand and eye; in developing the habits of cleanliness, politeness, self-control, urbanity, industry; in training the mind to understand numbers and geometric forms, to invent combinations of figures and shapes, and to represent them with the pencil—these and other valuable lessons… will, I think, ultimately prevail in securing to us the establishment of this beneficent institution in all the city school systems of our country.
Death
Peabody died January 3, 1894, aged 89. She is buried at Sleepy Hollow CemeterySleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is a cemetery located on Bedford Street near the center of Concord, Massachusetts. The cemetery is the burial site of a number of famous Concordians, including some of the United States' greatest authors and thinkers, especially on a hill known as "Author's...
in Concord, Massachusetts
Concord, Massachusetts
Concord is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 17,668. Although a small town, Concord is noted for its leading roles in American history and literature.-History:...
.
Diverse activities
With grounding in history and literature and a reading knowledge of ten languages, in 1840 she also opened a bookstore which held Margaret Fuller's "Conversations" and published books from Nathaniel HawthorneNathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
and others in addition to the periodicals The Dial and Æsthetic Papers. She was an advocate of antislavery
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
and of Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the 1830s and 1840s in the New England region of the United States as a protest against the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian...
. Moreover, she also led decades of efforts for the rights of the Paiute
Paiute
Paiute refers to three closely related groups of Native Americans — the Northern Paiute of California, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon; the Owens Valley Paiute of California and Nevada; and the Southern Paiute of Arizona, southeastern California and Nevada, and Utah.-Origin of name:The origin of...
Indians.
Family
Her sisters were painter Sophia Hawthorne (wife of writer Nathaniel HawthorneNathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
) and writer Mary Tyler Peabody Mann
Mary Tyler Peabody Mann
Mary Tyler Peabody Mann of chronic bronchitis) was a teacher, author, mother, and wife of Horace Mann, American education reformer and politician.-Early Life:Mary Tyler Peabody Mann was the daughter of Dr. Nathaniel Peabody and Elizabeth Palmer Peabody...
(wife of educator Horace Mann
Horace Mann
Horace Mann was an American education reformer, and a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1827 to 1833. He served in the Massachusetts Senate from 1834 to 1837. In 1848, after serving as Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education since its creation, he was...
).
Works
Peabody published a number of works, including:- Record of a school: exemplifying the general principles of spiritual culture. (Boston: J. Munroe, 1835). About Bronson Alcott's Temple School, Boston.
- Crimes of the House of Austria (editor; New York, 1852)
- The Polish-American System of Chronology (Boston, 1852)
- Kindergarten Culture (1870)
- Kindergarten in Italy (1872)
- Reminiscences of Rev. Wm Ellery Channing, D.D.William Ellery ChanningDr. William Ellery Channing was the foremost Unitarian preacher in the United States in the early nineteenth century and, along with Andrews Norton, one of Unitarianism's leading theologians. He was known for his articulate and impassioned sermons and public speeches, and as a prominent thinker...
(1880) - Letters to Kindergarteners (1886)
- Last Evening with Allston, and other Papers (1887)
- Lectures in the Training Schools for Kindergartners (1888)
External links
- Peabody, Elizabeth, Ed. Æsethic Papers. The Editor, Boston, 1849, at the Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
. - Mabel Flick Altstetter, “Some Prophets of the American Kindergarten,” Peabody Journal of Education, Vol. 13, No. 5 (March 1936), pp. 221–225.
- Salem Women's Heritage Trail http://www.salemwomenshistory.com
- Boston Women's Heritage Trail http://www.bwht.org