Elizabeth Palmer Peabody was always of the scholarly type. She was quick to learn and craved information. She was brought up in a house filled with education. Her father was a doctor and her mother, having had read many books, was a teacher. Elizabeth always had one goal in mind throughout all the escapades of her life and that goal was to prove that genius knew no sex.
By the age of sixteen, Elizabeth had already out learned her mother and began teaching at her mother's school (the school she had previously attended) in Lancaster, Mass. When Elizabeth wasn't teaching she was always studying. It bothered her that not many girls were getting a proper education if they were getting one at all. At the age of eighteen, Elizabeth decided to go to Boston to open up a school for girls as well as to learn Greek for herself. She was taught Greek by Ralph Waldo Emerson and she had soon learned so much that he told her he could not teach her anymore because she had surpassed his knowledge of the subject.
The establishment of the school did not work out however, so Elizabeth went to work as a governess for the Benjamin Vaughan family in Main. It was just her luck that Mr. Vaughan was also of the scholarly type and had over 10,000 books he had brought over with him from England at her disposal. She then became governess of a relative of the Vaughan's but quickly grew tired of it and wanted to try her hand at Boston again. Instead she thought it might be better to gain some recognition first. So she, at the age of twenty-one and her sister Mary, at the age of nineteen, opened a school for girls in Brookline. When the school in Brookline had become very successful Elizabeth went back to Boston to open another school.
While in Boston she gained popularity for her school by becoming Dr. William Ellery Channing's right hand. Dr. Channing was a notable minister and the lion of Boston's literary society, so when his daughter joined Elizabeth's school many followed and the school was off to a great start. Elizabeth later went into a partnership with William Russell and he spent all their money on his clothes and personal possessions so the school soon went broke. Elizabeth then started another school with her sister Mary in 1833 which they ran out of their boarding house in Boston. She also continued to write books for young scholars, her latest subject being the history of the world.
Elizabeth remained a teacher for many years before she took up being the assistant of Bronson Alcott. Alcott was a teacher with radical views and methods that had drifted from city to city always being fired for his radical teachings. Alcott's Temple School failed and left Elizabeth jobless. As if that was not bad enough, she was banned from teaching at all other schools in the area due to her association with Bronson Alcott.
Her next step in finding a career was to open a bookstore. This was not just your average bookstore, however. You see, Elizabeth felt strongly that "books were written by people about people for people and people should discuss them." She held meetings at her bookstore every evening where authors and speakers like Margaret Fuller, would come and talk with the readers and they all would share their ideas and of course buy books. Soon the intellectuals and people from all over the state were coming to this bookstore. With her bookstore being a hit Elizabeth then became Boston's first lady-publisher which then lead her into the middle of the transcendentalist movement.
In 1841 she became the publisher of the Dial, a magazine written by Bronson Alcott which the transcendentalists held as their own literary magazine. The publishing of this magazine is what secured Elizabeth Peabody both her place in the transcendentalist movement and a place in the literary history of America. The transcendentalist movement began to decline in the west however, which lead to the decline of the ever successful bookstore.
By 1845 the bookstore was virtually dead; there were no more meetings or sharing of ideas; both the transcendentalist and the women's movements had passed on and Elizabeth Peabody went back to teaching. This time she went to work for a boys' academy and became the assistant of the Hungarian educator Dr. Kraitsir. Not long after she had started, the educator went back to Hungary and Elizabeth was once again without a job. She never gave up though and she began writing a magazine called the Aesthetic Papers but that only lasted through the first issue. Then Elizabeth had a new idea.
She decided to make colored graphs to make the teaching of history easier. She spent ten years making, coloring, and traveling all over the state of Massachusetts trying to sell these graphs. Along the way she became intrigued by the theories of a German educator by the name of Friedrich Froebel. Frobel thought that children should be taught in a caring and fun atmosphere rather than instilling fear in them and using a switch. Elizabeth agreed with these ideas so much that she took them and developed the Pickney Street Kindergarten in 1861. With her sister Mary, she also wrote and published the book called the Moral Culture Guide to Infancy and kindergarten Guide, which was very successful within the educational field.
When the kindergarten was up and going Elizabeth decided to go to Germany to study the kindergartens there that were already developed with the Froedich plan and were much more developed than her own kindergarten. In 1867 she was off to Europe to take notes on the schooling in those countries and study what would work here in America. In 1870 when she returned, Elizabeth set up the first free public-school in the United States. Her main goal upon her return to the United States was to develop kindergartens all over America and in a few years kindergartens had spread all the way to San Francisco.
At the age of seventy three Elizabeth suffered from a stroke but she recovered quickly and continued to write and sell books. In 1882 she was invited to speak at the Concord School of Philosophy, she was so successful that she was asked back for a second speech. By now, at the age of eighty four Elizabeth had begun to slow down. She took up studying Chinese with Longfellow but this was to be the last of the great Elizabeth Palmer Peabody's learning's as well as teachings. For the next few years Elizabeth was confined to her bed and at the age of ninety, the talented scholar and teacher died.
Works Cited:
Hoyt, Edwin P. The Peabody Influence. Cornwall: The Cornwall Press, 1968.
Jennifer Matthew