Susan Blow

Susan Elizabeth Blow (Born June 7, 1843 in St. Louis, Missouri - died March 26, 1916 in New York City) was a United States educator who opened the first successful public Kindergarten in the United States, she ran it for 11 years without getting paid.

She was the oldest in her family of 6 children. Her father, Henry Taylor Blow, was a U.S. Representative and Ambassador. Her grandfather, Captain Peter Blow, was the long time owner of Dred Scott. When Susan was six years old her home was burnt down by a great fire along the St. Louis riverfront. After the fire, a cholera epidemic hit the city and killed about seven thousand people. The cholera epidemic caused Susan and her family to move five miles from St. Louis to Carondelet.

The first school Susan attended was a private school in New Orleans, Louisiana. At the age of sixteen, she attended a school in New York City. Unfortunately she was unable to attend long because of the Civil War. She had to return home when the Civil War began, but she kept studying using their family library. Even though people would say that she was "too serious", Susan would still study. Susan needed people to talk to about her ideas so she joined a group of thinkers in St. Louis. When Susan's father was appointed ambassador four years after the Civil War, she went with him to Brazil to be his secretary for fifteen months. She left Brazil and traveled to Germany, where she found her calling, Kindergarten. She learned from an early important leader in education, Friedrich Froebel, whom she observed his classroom in Germany. Susan gathered young children learned language, math, and science skills from toys like, balls and blocks, so she decided that America should follow in that path with young education. Blow was devoted to the theories developed by Friedrich Froebel. She began her training at the New York Normal Training Kindergarten, operated by John Kraus and his wife Maria Boelte. In 1873, Blow opened a public kindergarten at Des Peres School in what was then a separate city, Carondelet, St. Louis, Missouri, teaching children in the morning and training teachers in the afternoon. Her classroom was very bright and colorful compared to the other kindergarten classrooms in America. She made her classroom perfect for young children. It had short benches and tables and contained many different books and toys. By 1879, there were 53 kindergarten rooms in St. Louis, making the city a model and a focal point of the kindergarten movement. In 1884, because of an illness, Susan retired and traveled. She ended up leaving St. Louis to live in the east in 1889. Blow spent the remainder of her life establishing kindergartens throughout the country. She also lectured around the country and in 1894 she wrote five books for the International Education Series. Also she wrote articles in the "Kindergarten Magazine". Blow also was a part of the advisory committee of the International Kindergarten Union and Committee of Nineteen. Susan Elizabeth Blow died on March 26, 1916. She was buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis. The "St. Louis Globe-Democrat" wrote about Susan Blow in an article, "A great commander is gone, but the soldiers will go marching on”.

External links

* [http://search.eb.com/women/articles/Blow_Susan_Elizabeth.html Encyclopedia Britannica entry]
* [http://www.stlouiswalkoffame.org/inductees/susan-blow.html St. Louis Walk of Fame entry]
* [http://www.froebelweb.org/images/blow.html Froebel Web biography]
* [http://www.froebelfoundation.org/people/Blow.html Froebel Foundation]
* [http://shs.umsystem.edu/famousmissourians/educators/blow/blow.shtml The State Historical Society of Missouri]
* [http://www.stlouiswalkoffame.org/inductees/susan-blow.html St. Louis Hall Of Fame]