Maria Kraus-Boelté

Maria Kraus-Boelté (born November 8, 1836 – died November 1, 1918) was an American educator, one of the leaders of the Kindergarten Movement in the United States. She pioneered the Froebel education and helped promote kindergarten training as suitable for study at university level.

Biography

Maria Kraus-Boelté was born in Hagenow, Mecklenburg-Schwerin (now in Germany), into a prosperous family. She was privately educated, and already in young age became familiar with the work of Friedrich Froebel. She became interested in the Froebel’s methods of education and was eventually trained by Luise Froebel, Froebel's widow, living in Hamburg, Germany from 1859 to 1861.

Following Froebel’s dream to spread the idea of kindergartens to the United States, Kraus-Boelte decided to become sufficiently trained to promote the ideas of her teacher. She went to England in 1861 to learn English language, and has spent several years in an English kindergarten run by one of Froebel's pupils, Berthe von Rönge. Some of Kraus-Boelte’s pupils' work was exhibited at the 1862 London International Exhibition.

Kraus-Boelte returned to Germany in 1867, and opened her own kindergarten in Lübeck.

In 1872 the opportunity finally showed up and Kraus-Boelté was invited by Elizabeth Peabody to come to United States and work with her in New York City. There she established a kindergarten class and training program for mothers. There she got to know her future husband, Prof. John Kraus, an assistant at the National Bureau of Education with whom she had previously corresponded.

In 1873 Kraus-Boelté and her husband opened a Seminary for Kindergartners alongside a model kindergarten class, the Normal Training Kindergarten. In 1877 they published The Kindergarten Guide: the Self-instruction of Kindergartners, mothers, and nurses. The Seminary was an early center for Froebel's ideas in the United States, and had considerable influence, especially because of Kraus-Boelte's personal connection with Luise Froebel. The method of training and curriculum in the school were almost same as those used in Germany. Hundreds of teachers completed the training of one year's course work followed by one year's practice teaching; thousands of children passed through the kindergarten.

John Kraus died in 1896 and Maria Kraus-Boelte continued the work alone. She was president of the Kindergarten Department of the National Education Association in 1899-1890 and three years later persuaded the New York University School of Education to include the first ever college level course in kindergarten education in their summer program. Kraus-Boelte herself taught this course three times.

Kraus-Boelte retired in 1913 and died on November 1, 1918 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Her grave is in Woodlawn Cemetery, New York.

Legacy

The school for educators, New York Seminary for Kindergarteners, which Kraus-Boelte opened with her husband, became one of the most authoritative and influential centers of kindergarten work in the United States. Over several decades, school trained hundreds of Froebelian teachers, who opened their own kindergartens and such eventually helped establish kindergarten education as an essential part of education in the United States. One of Kraus-Boelte’s most distinguished students was Susan Blow, who in 1873 opened the first successful public kindergarten in the United States, in St. Louis, Missouri.

Publications

• Kraus-Boelte, Maria. 1877. The Kindergarten and the Mission of Woman: my experience as trainer of kindergarten-teachers in this country. An address. New York: E. Steiger
• Kraus-Boelte, Maria. 1907. An Interpretation of Some of the Froebelian Kindergarten Principles.
• Kraus-Boelte, Maria & Kraus, John. 2001 (original published in 1882). The Kindergarten Guide (2 Vols.). Kindergarten Messenger. ISBN 1930349041 and ISBN 193034905X

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• McHenry, Robert. 1983. Famous American Women: A Biographical Dictionary from Colonial Times to the Present. Dover Publications. ISBN 0486245233
• Peltzman, Barbara R. 1998. Pioneers of Early Childhood Education: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313304041
• Wiebe, Edward & Bradley, Milton. 2005. Paradise of Childhood: a Practical Guide to Kindergartners. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 1417923245

External link

• Froebel Foundation – Website of the foundation
• The Kindergarten – On the history of kindergarten movement, in The Galaxy (October 1876)
• The Kindergarten Movement – History of the movement
• Women of Woodlawn – Biography of women buried at Woodlawn Cemetery
• Maria Kraus-Boelte – Biography at Encyclopedia Britannica
• Maria Kraus-Boelte – Short entry on Froebel’s website
• Who was Friedrich Froebel – Short biography of Froebel

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