The First Kindergarten
by George Bailey
The first public kindergarten in the United States was opened by Susan Elizabeth Blow in St. Louis, Missouri in 1873. At the Des Peres School, Blow taught children in the morning and conducted training sessions for teachers in the afternoon. She was deeply influenced by the life and work of Friedrich Froebel, one of the first people to take seriously the psychological complexities and needs of children. Within ten years of the commencement of her program at Des Peres, every public school in St. Louis had a Kindergarten, and both Blow and the city became a model for a new national Kindergarten movement. Blow's breakthrough was pivotal for the progress of labor laws and national childcare. When she was still in the process of developing her own theories and methods, the average poor child in St. Louis was educated for three years before being dispatched to the workforce at age ten. Nowadays there are many kindergartens and it just so happens that Branson MO is proud to say that the local school system is one of the best in the country.