when did the first public kindergarten open in the united states
Susan Blow In 1871 Blow traveled to New York, where she spent a year being trained at the New York Normal Training Kindergarten, operated by Froebel devotee Maria Kraus-Boelté. Blow returned to St. Louis in 1873 and opened the nation’s first public kindergarten in Des Peres School in Carondelet, 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 1876-1877.[1]