Elizabeth Harrison (September 1, 1849 – October 31, 1927) was an American educator from

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

. She was the founder and first president of what is today

National Louis University National Louis University (NLU) is a private university with its main campus in Chicago, Illinois. NLU enrolls undergraduate and graduate students in more than 60 programs across its four colleges. It has locations throughout the Chicago metropol ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

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. Harrison was a pioneer in creating professional standards for early childhood teachers and in promoting

early childhood education Early childhood education (ECE), also known as nursery education, is a branch of education theory that relates to the teaching of children (formally and informally) from birth up to the age of eight. Traditionally, this is up to the equival ...

Life

Elizabeth Harrison was born in

Athens, Kentucky Athens ( ) is a small unincorporated village in Fayette County to the east of Interstate 75 in Kentucky in the United States. First settled in 1786 as the community of Cross Plains, the town was chartered as Athens in 1826 and had its own post ...

, the fourth child of Elizabeth Thompson Bullock and Isaac Webb Harrison. According to the 1850 census, Isaac Harrison was a merchant there. The family moved to Midway, Kentucky, then to

Davenport, Iowa Davenport is a city in and the county seat of Scott County, Iowa, United States. Located along the Mississippi River on the eastern border of the state, it is the largest of the Quad Cities, a metropolitan area with a population of 384,324 and ...

, where by 1870 he was described in the census as a land agent. Elizabeth Harrison was invited to Chicago in 1879 by her friend Mrs. W.O. Richardson to pursue a career in education. After encountering the early

kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cen ...

movement in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

and studying with early kindergarten educator Alice Putnam, Harrison sought further training in

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

and

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

.. She then taught kindergarten in

Iowa Iowa () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wiscon ...

and Chicago.

Educational leadership

Involving mothers in education, Harrison and Putnam founded the Chicago Kindergarten Club in 1883, influenced by the book ''Mothers at Play'' by

Friedrich Fröbel Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel or Froebel (; 21 April 1782 – 21 June 1852) was a German pedagogue, a student of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, who laid the foundation for modern education based on the recognition that children have unique need ...

. In 1886, Harrison founded a training school for kindergarten teachers in Chicago. Intrigued by the ideas used by a German woman working at her school, Harrison decided to find out more. She tracked these ideas back to the Pestalozzi-Fröbel-Haus in Berlin and in 1889 she traveled there to study. On her return she renamed her institution the ''Chicago Kindergarten Training College''. Harrison's school became an innovative

college of education In the United States and Canada, a school of education (or college of education; ed school) is a division within a university that is devoted to scholarship in the field of education, which is an interdisciplinary branch of the social sciences en ...

. She was president of the college, expanded to the ''National Kindergarten and Elementary College'', until her retirement in 1920. It is now part of

Later life and death

In 1903 Harrison co-wrote ''The Kindergarten Building Gifts'' with Belle Woodson, Instructor in Gifts and Occupations of the Chicago Kindergarten College. According to the 1910 census, Woodson (aged 41) and Harrison (aged 60) were living together on North Waller Avenue in Chicago. Woodson became the supervisor of Kindergarten Practice Schools and faculty for psychology, literature, architecture. Harrison's chronic bronchitis was perhaps the reason they moved to

San Antonio, Texas ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_ ...

, in 1922. Woodson and Harrison lived at 505 West Mulberry Street where, according to her death certificate, Harrison died from an asthma attack on October 31, 1927. Harrison was buried near her parents in

Writings

During her career, Harrison wrote a number of books, including: ''A Study of Child Nature'' (1890 – which saw 50 editions published in the following years), ''In Storyland'' (1895), ''Some Silent Teachers'' (1903), ''Misunderstood Children'' (1908), ''Montessori and the Kindergarten'' (1913) and ''The Unseen Side of Child Life'' (1922). In 1893, the college published Harrison's book, ''The Kindergarten as an Influence in Modern Civilization'', in which she explained, "how to teach the child from the beginning of his existence that all things are connected ndhow to lead him to this vital truth from his own observation . . .." Harrison's autobiography, ''Sketches Along Life's Road'', was edited and published in Boston in 1930, after her death.

Influence

Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolo ...

winner,

Jane Addams Laura Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 May 21, 1935) was an American Settlement movement, settlement activist, Social reform, reformer, social worker, sociologist, public administrator, and author. She was an important leader in the history of s ...

Hull House Hull House was a settlement house in Chicago, Illinois, United States that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located on the Near West Side of the city, Hull House (named after the original house's first owner Ch ...

, said of her colleague and friend, that Elizabeth Harrison "has done more good than any woman I know. She has brought light and power to all the educational world." In the 1890s, Harrison organized a series of annual conferences in Chicago, which led to the founding of what is today the National Parent Teachers Association (PTA).

References

External links and sources

* * *
National-Louis University

National–Louis University Online Archive and Special Collections

''Famous American Women: A Biographical Dictionary from Colonial Times to the Present'' ed. Robert McHenry (Merriam-Webster, Inc. 1980)
p. 179. {{DEFAULTSORT:Harrison, Elizabeth Founders of schools in the United States University and college founders 1849 births 1927 deaths American women academics American educational theorists American education writers Heads of universities and colleges in the United States Women heads of universities and colleges National Louis University Women educational theorists 19th-century American educators 20th-century American educators American academic administrators 19th-century American women educators 20th-century American women educators