Alice H. Putnam (1841 – January 19, 1919La Orme Ladd, Sadie F. Smith, and Thord Lund, "In Memory of Alice H. Putnam", The Kindergarten-primary Magazine (March 1919), Vol. 31, No. 7.) was an educator who opened the first private kindergarten in Chicago in 1874,"Elizabeth Harrison and the Kindergarten Movement in Chicago", National Louis University. and was described as "the pioneer of the Kindergarten" in that city.
Life Putnam "became interested in the kindergarten when her children were young".Roberta Lyn Wollons, Kindergartens and Cultures: The Global Diffusion of an Idea (2000), p. 47-48. She therefore "found ways of combining her own mothering with working to help others to become better mothers".Barbara Beatty, Preschool Education in America: The Culture of Young Children from the Colonial Era to the Present (1997), p. 84. "Realizing that she needed kindergarten training, Putnam took her oldest daughter with her to Columbus, Ohio, where she studied in a training school run by Anna J. Ogden".
In 1879, Putnam was joined in Chicago by Elizabeth Harrison, who became Putnam's assistant for a year before continuing with her own studies elsewhere.Barbara Beatty, Preschool Education in America: The Culture of Young Children from the Colonial Era to the Present (1997), p. 86. In 1880 Putnam took over a Chicago training class that had been started by Anna J. Ogden, which then became the Chicago Froebel Association, directed by Putnam until 1910. Putnam was a member of the International Kindergarten Union from its organization, in 1883, until her death, serving on its most important committees, and twice as its president.
Death She was interred at Oak Woods Cemetery, Chicago, on January 21, 1919.
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