Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (May 16, 1804January 3, 1894) was an American educator who opened the first English-language kindergarten in the United States. Long before most educators, Peabody embraced the premise that children's play has intrinsic developmental and educational value.
With a grounding in history and literature and a reading knowledge of ten languages, in 1840, she also opened a bookstore that held Margaret Fuller's "Conversations". She published books from Nathaniel Hawthorne and others in addition to the periodicals The Dial and Æsthetic Papers. She was an advocate of antislavery and of Transcendentalism.
Peabody also led efforts for the rights of the Paiute Indians. She was the first translator into English of the Buddhist scripture the Lotus Sutra, translating a chapter from its French translation in 1844. It was the first English version of any Buddhist scripture.
Personal life
Early years
Peabody was born in Billerica, Massachusetts, on May 16, 1804. She was the eldest daughter of Nathaniel Peabody, a physician, and Elizabeth () Peabody, the granddaughter of Joseph Palmer, a general during the American Revolutionary War. The Peabodys were a two-income family. Elizabeth advocated for preschool child education and taught school. Nathaniel was an apothecary, doctor, and dentist. Her sisters were Mary, reformer, educator, and pioneer in establishing kindergarten schools and Sophia, painter and the wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Peabody developed an interest in philosophy, theology, literature, and history over the years and she spoke ten languages.
Legacy
The Elizabeth Peabody House in Somerville, MA continues to educate children, after evolving from an early 20th century settlement house and moving out of the West End of Boston.
Career
Educator
Peabody operated a private school for girls in Boston from 1822 to 1823. She also became a writer and a prominent figure in the Transcendental movement. Peabody and her sister Mary operated a school in Brookline, Massachusetts, from 1825 to 1832, when there was a scandal about finances. Through her kindergarten and as editor of the Kindergarten Messenger (1873–1877), Peabody helped establish kindergarten as an accepted institution in American education.
Bookstore owner
In 1840, Peabody established the West Street Bookshop near Beacon Hill and Boston Common in Boston and had a home above the bookstore where her sisters and parents lived with her. Sophia and Mary lived there until they were married. Peabody purchased foreign journals and books for her business, which was part bookstore, a lending library, and a place for scholars, liberal thinkers, and transcendentalists to meet.
It was there that Margaret Fuller held "Conversations" for women beginning on November 6, 1839. Topics for these discussions and debates included fine arts, history, mythology, literature, and nature. Fuller served as the "nucleus of conversation" and hoped to answer the "great questions" facing women: "What were we born to do? How shall we do it? which so few ever propose to themselves 'till their best years are gone by", Many figures in the woman's rights movement took part, including Sophia Dana Ripley, Caroline Sturgis, and Maria White Lowell. when the bookstore and library closed down. Members of the Transcendentalist movement had begun to disperse since the mid-1840s, and income from the bookstore gradually declined. In 2011, the Boston Landmarks Commission designated the building a Boston Landmark.
The Dial
thumb|Elizabeth Peabody
For a time, Peabody was the business manager of The Dial, the main publication of the Transcendentalists. In 1843, she noted that the journal's income was not covering the cost of printing and that subscriptions totaled just over two hundred. In 1844 the magazine published Peabody's translation of a chapter of the Lotus Sutra from French, which was the first English version of a Buddhist scripture.
Author and publisher
Peabody published antislavery literature and books, like Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau and children's stories written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. She was one of the country's first female publisher.