Susan Blow

Susan Elizabeth Blow (June 7, 1843 – March 27, 1916) was an American educator who opened the first successful public kindergarten in the United States. She was known as the "Mother of the Kindergarten."

Early life Susan Blow was the eldest of nine children. She was the daughter of Henry Taylor Blow and Minerva Grimsley Blow. Henry owned various lead-mining operations. He was the president of the Iron Mountain Railroad. He was a state senator, and he was a minister to Brazil and Venezuela. Minerva was the daughter of a prominent manufacturer and local politician. The Blow children grew up in a deeply religious family. They were surrounded by comfort, wealth, and high German culture. Henry Blow founded a Presbyterian church in St. Louis. which by then had been annexed by the City of St. Louis. With the help of her two assistants, Mary Timberlake and Cynthia Dozier, Blow directed and taught a kindergarten class consisting of forty-two students. Not only did she pay all expenses to keep the kindergarten running that first year, she was not compensated for her hard work and dedication. About 150 women also volunteered to work at Blow's kindergartens between 1876 and 1877.

Later life and death Only ten years after opening her training school Blow withdrew from teaching due to Graves' disease, which is a form of hyperthyroidism. She retired in 1884 and moved to Boston with Laura Fischer, who moved there to direct the kindergarten program at Boston Public Schools.

Blow Street, which runs through South St. Louis city, from the Mississippi River at S. Broadway to the St. Louis Hills neighborhood, also bears her family name.

Writings Blow served on the advisory committee for the International Kindergarten Union and Committee of Nineteen and translated two volumes of Fröbel's Mother Play in 1895. She also wrote articles in the ‘’Kindergarten Magazine’’. Below is a list of Blow's published works:

1894: Symbolic Education 1899: Letters to a Mother on the Philosophy of Froebel 1900: Kindergarten Education 1908: Educational Issues in the Kindergarten