Pauline agassiz shaw biography sample pdf

Swiss-American philanthropist and advocate of early childhood education. Pauline, as well as her older brother Alexander and older sister Ida Agassiz , was looked after by relatives until , when Louis Agassiz married Elizabeth Cary Agassiz and the children traveled to live with them in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project.

The household in which Pauline grew up was frequented by members of Harvard's vibrant intellectual community, and she was educated at the school for girls that Elizabeth Cary Agassiz began running in their home in Louis Agassiz taught there, as did a number of his fellow professors at Harvard, and the school quickly gained an excellent reputation; among Pauline's classmates was Clover Adams.

Quincy's mining investments with Pauline's brother would soon begin earning him one of the largest fortunes in Boston. This wealth enabled them and their five children to live in great style on an estate in what is now the Jamaica Plain section of Boston, with a view of Jamaica Pond, and allowed Pauline Shaw, long enamored of children's education, to devote herself to philanthropy in that field.

Early childhood schooling was then something of a novelty: although the first English-language kindergarten in America had been opened by Elizabeth Peabody in Boston in amid some excitement, the idea of such a school had not caught on widely with the general public. With the money to back up her strong belief in the importance of early education, in Shaw opened two kindergartens in Boston.

Within six years she was supporting financially and overseeing the general activities of 31 kindergartens scattered throughout the Boston area, a number of them housed within the public schools. In , 14 of her schools were accepted into Boston's public school system, beginning the city's commitment to public kindergarten.

This article describes the life and contributions of Pauline Agassiz Shaw, who pioneered the public kindergarten movement in the United States and was an activist for many .

Involvement with the children of working-class parents had led Shaw to concern for their parents as well. One year after she had begun supporting her first kindergartens, she began organizing day nurseries for working mothers, and by the s these day nurseries were full-fledged community centers. Located in poor areas of the city usually underserved by local government and in an era all but devoid of public welfare programs , these "neighborhood houses" provided libraries, vocational training, health information, citizenship classes, and recreational facilities.

In , she also founded an industrial training school in the North End of Boston where public school children were taught manual arts, which seven years later led to her founding a training school for teachers of manual arts. In all her projects Shaw sought to eliminate racial distinctions and open doors for the poor and for immigrants.