Susan Blow

Susan Elizabeth Blow (born June 7, 1843 - died March 26, 1916) was an American educator, who in 1873, opened the first successful public kindergarten in the United States, in St. Louis, Missouri.

Life

Susan Blow was born in St. Louis, Missouri, as the oldest of six children of Henry Taylor Blow and Minerva Grimsley. Henry Blow was a wealthy businessman, who got rich in lead industry, and later became famous politician. Her parents were deeply religious, and educated their children in the same spirit. When in 1849 their home burned to the ground, together with dozens of houses at the riverfront and downtown St. Louis, family decided to move to Carondelet, a small town just outside of St. Louis.

Susan Blow received best education, attending private schools in New Orleans and New York City. Her education was cut short due to the Civil War, but she continued to study on her own. She supported the Union and the anti-slavery movement. When in late 1960s her father got appointed as the ambassador to Brazil, Susan joined him. She spent more than a year in Brazil, after which she traveled to Germany, the experience that would change her life.

In Germany Blow met Friedrich Froebel, a German educator, and was fascinated with his ideas. She observed his kindergarten classrooms and learned his theories of education. After the return to America she decided to study more about education, and completed her training at the New York Normal Training Kindergarten, operated by John Kraus and his wife Maria Boelte. In 1873 Henry Taylor Blow asked his friend, the superintendent of St. Louis Public Schools, William Torrey Harris, to open an experimental kindergarten in St. Louis, and Susan Blow agreed to direct it. Thus the first public Kindergarten was opened in the United States, at Des Peres School in St. Louis, Missouri. A year later Blow opened a training school for kindergarten teachers. For the next 11 years, Blow directed the Des Peres School without receiving any pay.

Blow was teaching children in the morning and training teachers in the afternoon. By 1883 every public school in St. Louis had a Kindergarten, making the city a model and a focal point of the Kindergarten movement. Blow spent the remainder of her life establishing Kindergartens throughout the country. She eventually got very sick, and retired in 1884. She moved to New York City in 1889, and continued to teach about the kindergarten movement. She also wrote several books in this period, among others Letters to a Mother on the Philosophy of Froebel (1900) and Educational Issues in the Kindergarten (1908).

From 1905-1909 Blow taught at the Teachers College, Columbia University. She continued to travel around the country, giving lectures and teaching, until three weeks before her death. She died in 1916 in New York City and was buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.

Work

Blow was greatly influenced by the theories of Friedrich Froebel. While in Germany, she learned about the German kindergarten model, in which the main objective was “learning-through-play”. The children learned about language, math, and science through playing with objects, such as balls and blocks.

Susan Blow believed that children are self-creative beings, capable of not only immitating, but also of creating new things through play with others. She instructed teachers to encourage self expression and evoke in children their inborn creativity. At the same time she emphasized that children need to learn about values that are related to human life.

Blow encouraged free-play, and believed that it is the highest expression of human development in childhood, for through play children can express the innermost parts of their soul. Her teachers emphasized free activity, spontaneity, play, and individuality.

Her kindergarten classrooms, in the Des Peres School in St. Louis, were different from other school classrooms, which were often plain and dull. Blow painted all classrooms in bright colors, and had low tables and benches, fit for small children. Each room had many plants and a lot of light, and was equipped with toys and education material for children. Balls and blocks were used to study about color and shapes, and children regularly exercised outside, on the fresh air. The children also learned about hygiene and cleanliness, and had regular meals. The St. Louis Republican wrote in February 1875 about Susan Blow’s classroom:

“Literally, it is a children['s] garden, and the purpose is to direct the child’s mind under six years of age into preliminary grooves of order, cleanliness, obedience, a desire for information, and to combine with these the more prominent idea of object teaching.”

Legacy

Although the idea of kindergarten was first introduced to the United States in the late 1840s, through the pioneering efforts of Margarethe Schurz and Elizabeth Peabody, it was through the work of Susan Blow that it became wide accepted. She not only opened the first US public kindergarten in St Louis in 1873 and a training school for kindergarten teachers in 1874, but also successfully introduced Froebel’s ideas into the United States. She was one of the early pioneers of the Kindergarten Movement, which made kindergarten constituent part of childhood education. The Movement led to the formation of the New York Kindergarten Association and an International Union.

Publications

• Blow, Susan E. 1899. Letters to a Mother on the Philosophy of Froebel. New York: D. Appleton.
• Blow, Susan E. 1900. Kindergarten education. Albany, N.Y. : J.B. Lyon Company
• Blow, Susan E. 1908. Educational Issues in the Kindergarten. New York: D. Appleton.
• Blow, Susan E. 2000 (original published in 1895). The mottoes and commentaries of Friedrich Froebel's Mother play. In W.T. Harris, International Education Series, Part 3: Froebel and Nursery Education. Thoemmes Continuum. ISBN 1855068206
• Blow, Susan E. 2000 (original published in 1895). The Songs and Music of Friedrich Froebel’s Mother Play. In W.T. Harris, International Education Series, Part 3: Froebel and Nursery Education. Thoemmes Continuum. ISBN 1855068206
• Blow, Susan E. 2005 (original published in 1894). Symbolic Education: A Commentary on Froebel’s “Mother Play.” Adamant Media Corporation. ISBN 142126997X

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Borwick, Jim; & Dufur, Brett (Eds.). 1996. Forgotten Missourians Who Made History. Columbia, MO: Pebble Publishing. ISBN 0964662582
• Dains, Mary K. (Ed.). 1990. Show Me Missouri Women: Selected Biographies. Truman State University Press. ISBN 0943549051
• FroebelWeb.org. Susan Elizabeth Blow 1843 – 1916. Retrieved on February 5, 2007, <http://www.froebelweb.org/images/blow.html>
• McCandless, Perry, & Foley, William E. 2001. Missouri Then and Now (pp. 272–273). University of Missouri Press. ISBN 0826213529
• Menius, Joseph M. 1993. Susan Blow. St. Clair, MO: Page One Publishing.
• The State Historical Society of Missouri. 2006. Susan Elizabeth Blow 1843 – 1916. Retrieved on February 5, 2007, <http://www.umsystem.edu/shs/famousmissourians/educators/blow/blow.shtml>

External links

• Biography of Susan E. Blow – Biography, photos, and online resources on Susan E. Blow
• Susan Elizabeth Blow - St. Louis Walk of Fame entry for Susan Blow
• Susan Elizabeth Blow - Froebel Web biography of Susan Blow
• Hall of Famous Missourians - Bronze bust of Blow in the Hall of Famous Missourians
• Henry Taylor Blow’s Congressional biography – Short biography of Susan Blow’s father
• On Susan E. Blow – Article from St. Louis Post-Dispatch. St. Louis, MO. March 28, 1916. p. 14, col. 3.
• Obituary - St. Louis Globe-Democrat. St. Louis, MO. March 28, 1916. p. 8, col. 3-4.
• Online Books Page – Online editions of The Mottoes and Commentaries of Friedrich Froebel's Mother Play and The Songs and Music of Friedrich Froebel's Mother Play

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