a biography of the day-eliza ann cooper blaker (social reformer, educator)

[niyad]

Blaker, Eliza Ann




Eliza Ann Blaker (1854-1926) was a social progressive and a pioneering educator who lobbied effectively for educational and social causes in Indianapolis, Indiana, for forty-four years. Possessing strong leadership skills, Blaker devoted her time and energy to the education of the city's poor families during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As an influential woman educator who helped shape public education in Indiana, she combined the roles of philanthropist, social reformer, and educator to successfully organize and maintain a free kindergarten program. She also established a teacher training institution that later became the elementary department of Butler University's School of Education. Through her work, Blaker touched the lives of many Indiana residents. Mrs. John Kern, a woman closely associated with Eliza, wrote after her death: "To the immediate community Dr. Blaker's work has been incalculable. She has been even more to Indianapolis than Jane Addams has been to Chicago" (Eliza A. Blaker Club).


Historic Roots

Eliza Ann Cooper, the eldest of three children, was born 5 March 1854 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Early in life she developed qualities described by Paul Schervish and colleagues as a "philanthropic identity . . . in which care for others [became] a vocation" (1993, 12). Eliza was influenced by a politically-active Quaker tradition and her father's social activism in causes such as the abolition of slavery. She developed "politics [that] focused on the empowerment of the oppressed" (Ibid., 35). Her childhood was often turbulent. Due to her family's constant financial struggles and the premature death of her father, Eliza was forced to assume many responsibilities at a young age. This early socialization left her extremely sensitive to human suffering and created in her a "mature sense of responsibility and community" (Ibid., 32).

. . . .

Soon after her arrival in 1882, the members of the Indianapolis Free Kindergarten and Children's Aid Society offered Blaker the opportunity to supervise the organization of a free kindergarten program. The society sponsored the program in response to growing urban poverty. Preferring to work with the poor, she immediately resigned from the Hadley Roberts Academy. The ladies of the society assisted Eliza's efforts to organize the kindergartens by providing finances, furnishings, and clothing.

As a social reformer, Blaker envisioned a system of kindergartens that would serve poor families. She "believed in an equal education for all; therefore, race, color, or creed could not bar anyone from admittance to her school. No one was ever turned away" (Roberts 1982, 1). As the superintendent, she led the way in introducing new practices
by integrating the kindergarten with family life. She believed the "most important work of both teacher and parent was character training" and stated that the purpose of the kindergarten was "the education and moral training of the children of the poor" (Thornbrough 1956, iv, 18).

. . . .



The kindergartens thrived under Blaker's leadership, which included an appointment as secretary-treasurer of the kindergarten department of the National Education Association in 1892. By 1907, the society's silver anniversary newsletter claimed the existence of thirty-three free kindergartens in different areas of Indianapolis. During the twenty-five years since the society had been established, the kindergartens had enrolled 49,252 students.

http://learningtogive.org/papers/paper78.html

[libodem]

1. Thanks sista

I heart your awesome daily effort to bring us education regarding our foremothers.

[niyad]

2. you are most welcome. it is pleasure to do this little bit, because I learn so much.

(I used to have a trivial pursuits' women's history edition, which almost nobody would play with me. sigghhhh)