Blow, Susan E. (1843–1916)

Susan E. Blow was a leader in bringing kindergarten education to the United States. In 1873, she began the first kindergarten program in America. Susan Blow had the courage and insight to envision what an early childhood public education could be for the children of America. Blow was an erudite woman who was highly influenced by the work of Friedrich Froebel, who had founded the first kindergarten classroom in Germany.

Blow's interest in learning had been shaped by her own experiences as a child. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri, as the oldest of six children, to Minerva Grimsley Blow and Henry Taylor Blow, a wealthy industrialist. While Susan was a young girl, her father recognized her intelligence and provided her with the best possible education. Susan was tutored by governesses as a young girl and later attended Henrietta Haines's private boarding school for girls in New York as a teenager. In 1861, following the outbreak of the Civil War, her school was closed, and Susan returned home to Missouri. For the remainder of the war, she continued to study in the family library.

Four years after the war ended, Henry Taylor Blow served as an ambassador to Brazil, which provided Susan an opportunity to work as her father's secretary. Once Mr. Blow's appointment was completed, Susan traveled to Germany, where she explored the teachings of Friedrich Froebel, a pioneer in early childhood education. After Blow had returned home, she continued to learn and study about teaching kindergarten. In 1872, Blow went back to New York to study under Maria Kraus Boelte, a German kindergarten expert who had studied with Froebel.

Susan Blow wanted to begin children's instruction earlier, so they could benefit from a better education. She had an intense desire to provide American children with the same privileges she had seen provided to European children. Blow wanted to open her own kindergarten classroom, so her father asked the superintendent of the St. Louis public schools, William Torrey Harris, if she could open an experimental kindergarten classroom. In 1873, Susan Blow opened the first public kindergarten. She modeled her first classroom after the programs she had first seen in Germany. Blow's classrooms reflected Froebel's basic tenets, including that children gain knowledge through exposure to language and math skills within a nurturing environment.

Within 6 years, 53 kindergarten classes were established within the St. Louis school system. Susan was committed to educating the children within the St. Louis area. She worked as the director of the kindergarten programs in St. Louis for 11 years without payment. She also reached out to the poor children in her area by demanding that the children be enrolled in the program free of charge. Prior to Susan Blow's public kindergarten, kindergarten programs were either private or parochial, thus excluding most children from early educational opportunities.

Blow taught children during mornings and, in 1874, established a training school to instruct new teachers during the afternoons. She continued to educate other women in strategies and techniques for instructing young children and trained other teachers for the duration of her life. When failing health prohibited her from teaching children, she continued her mission by lecturing to teachers and writing books about kindergarten. Blow's books include Symbolic Education (1894), Educational Issues in the Kindergarten (1908), and a translation of Froebel's Mutter- und Kose-lieder called Mother's Play, in two volumes (1895). She lectured and taught a kindergarten course at Columbia University's Teachers College from 1905 to 1909 and continued to tour the country and lecture teachers until her death in March 1916.

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