Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer

Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer

▪ American educator
born May 16, 1804, Billerica, Mass., U.S.
died Jan. 3, 1894, Jamaica Plain [now part of Boston], Mass.
 American educator and participant in the Transcendentalist movement (Transcendentalism), who opened the first English-language kindergarten in the United States.

      Peabody was educated by her mother, who for a time operated an innovative girls' school in the home, and from an early age she exhibited an interest in philosophical and theological questions. In 1820 she opened a school of her own in Lancaster, Massachusetts, and two years later another in Boston. She also studied Greek with the young Ralph Waldo Emerson (Emerson, Ralph Waldo). She opened a school in 1825 in Brookline, Massachusetts, where she made the acquaintance of William Ellery Channing (Channing, William Ellery), with whom she shared a remarkable intellectual intimacy. As her Socratic tutor, Channing introduced Peabody to the Romantic poets and philosophers of the day, and together they examined the emerging liberal theology of Unitarianism. She also served informally as his secretary (1825–34), recording his sermons and seeing them into print. After her school closed in 1832 Peabody supported herself until 1834 mainly through writing, principally her First Steps to the Study of History (1832), and through private tutoring, when she helped Bronson Alcott (Alcott, Bronson) establish his radical Temple School in Boston. Her Record of a School, based on her journal of Alcott's methods and daily interactions with the children, was published anonymously in 1835 and did much to establish Alcott as a leading and controversial thinker.

      In 1837 Peabody became a charter member of the Transcendentalist Club, members of which included Margaret Fuller (Fuller, Margaret), Emerson, Channing, and Alcott. On visits to Emerson and the others she introduced her Transcendentalist friends to the work of the Salem poet-mystic Jones Very and the writer Nathaniel Hawthorne (Hawthorne, Nathaniel), who had married her sister Sophia (another sister, Mary, married Horace Mann (Mann, Horace)).

      In 1839 Peabody opened her West Street bookstore, which became a sort of club for the intellectual community of Boston. On her own printing press she published translations from German by Fuller and three of Hawthorne's earliest books. For two years she published and wrote articles for The Dial, the critical literary monthly and organ of the Transcendentalist movement; she also wrote for other periodicals.

      She was probably the first woman book publisher in America. In 1849 she published a single number of a Transcendentalist journal, Aesthetic Papers, which contained, among other essays, Henry David Thoreau (Thoreau, Henry David)'s “Civil Disobedience.” Peabody closed her shop in 1850 and for the next 10 years taught school, wrote, and worked to promote public education. Her particular brand of Transcendentalism, anchored firmly in an idea of a just society informed by liberal Christianity, led her to place great emphasis on the education of the young. In 1859 Peabody learned of Friedrich Froebel (Froebel, Friedrich)'s kindergarten work in Germany, and the next year she opened in Boston the nation's first formal kindergarten. She continued it until 1867, when she undertook a tour of European kindergartens to learn more of Froebel's thought. Much of her later writing concerned kindergarten education. Those titles include Moral Culture of Infancy, and Kindergarten Guide (1863), Kindergarten Culture (1870), The Kindergarten in Italy (1872), Letters to Kindergartners (1886), and Lectures in Training Schools for Kindergartners (1888). In 1873 she founded the Kindergarten Messenger, of which she was editor during its two years of publication, and in 1877 she organized the American Froebel Union, of which she was the first president. From 1879 to 1884 she was a lecturer at the Concord School of Philosophy of her old friend Alcott. She also published Reminiscences of Rev. Wm. Ellery Channing, D.D. (1880) and Last Evening with Allston (1886).

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  • Peabody,Elizabeth Palmer — Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer. 1804 1894. American educator and writer who founded the first kindergarten in the United States (1860). * * * …   Universalium

  • Peabody, Elizabeth (Palmer) — (16 may. 1804, Billerica, Mass., EE.UU.–3 ene. 1894, Jamaica Plain, Mass.). Educadora estadounidense y líder del movimiento kindergarten en EE.UU. Fue secretaria de William Ellery Channing (1825–34) y trabajó con Bronson Alcott en su Temple… …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Peabody, Elizabeth (Palmer) — born May 16, 1804, Billerica, Mass., U.S. died Jan. 3, 1894, Jamaica Plain, Mass. U.S. educator and leader in the kindergarten movement in America. She served as secretary to William Ellery Channing (1825–34) and worked with Bronson Alcott in his …   Universalium

  • Elizabeth Palmer Peabody — (* 16. Mai 1804 in Billerica, Massachusetts; † 3. Januar 1894) war eine amerikanische Pädagogin und Schriftstellerin, die 1860 den ersten englischsprachigen Kindergarten in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika eröffnete. Sie gehörte zur… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Elizabeth Palmer Peabody — noun educator who founded the first kindergarten in the United States (1804 1894) • Syn: ↑Peabody, ↑Elizabeth Peabody • Instance Hypernyms: ↑educator, ↑pedagogue, ↑pedagog …   Useful english dictionary

  • Elizabeth P. Peabody — Elizabeth Palmer Peabody Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (* 16. Mai 1804 in Billerica, Massachusetts; † 3. Januar 1894) war eine amerikanische Pädagogin und Schriftstellerin, die 1860 den ersten englischsprachigen Kindergarten in den …   Deutsch Wikipedia

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  • Palmer — /pah meuhr/ or, for 5, /pahl /, n. 1. Alice Elvira, 1855 1902, U.S. educator. 2. Arnold, born 1929, U.S. golfer. 3. Daniel David, 1845 1913, Canadian originator of chiropractic medicine. 4. George Herbert, 1842 1933, U.S. educator, philosopher,… …   Universalium

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  • palmer — ► sustantivo masculino TECNOLOGÍA Instrumento de precisión para medir diámetros o espesores pequeños. TAMBIÉN pálmer SINÓNIMO calibrador * * * palmer o pálmer (de «Jean Louis Palmer», su inventor) m. Instrumento para medir diámetros o espesores… …   Enciclopedia Universal

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