The history of the Eliot School spans more than three centuries, its roots stretching back to Massachusetts Bay Colony. A grammar school for 200 years, it transformed into a center for manual arts in the 19th century. Today, it inspires lifelong learning in craftsmanship and creativity for people of all ages and all walks of life, holding classes in its Jamaica Plain schoolhouse and sending teachers out to public schools and community centers throughout Boston.
eliotschool.org Historian/writer
1894–1914
Portraits
Emma Thomas
Carved panel, grapes and leaves, Isaac Scott or student, c. 1900. Collection of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts
John Eliot: Courtesy of the Huntington Art Collections, San Marino, California
Design Acecreative.biz
Carved wooden chest, Student of Isaac Scott, 1900. Collection of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts Chalk and charcoal drawing for wood carving, Isaac Scott, c. 1900. Collection of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts
Images
Plain wooden chest, Eliot School student, c. 1910. Collection of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts
1676–1776
Carved panel, lily pads, Isaac Scott or student, c. 1910. Collection of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts
Title page, Up-Biblum God, translated on instruction from John Eliot, 1663. Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society
1915–1999
Tuition receipt, 1701. Collection of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts
Eliot School woodworking students, c. 1950. Collection of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts
Names of Trustees, 1714. Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society Eliot to Weld Deed, 1689 (copy). Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society
Wicker work, Eliot School student exhibition, 1918. Collection of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts
1777–1873
Upholstery students, c. 1950. Collection of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts
Plot plan of some Eliot School landholdings, 1810. Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society
Tole painting made at Eliot School, Elizabeth Reynolds, mid-20th century. Collection of Suzanne Lyons. Photograph by Renan Flores
Cover, An Address delivered at the Dedication of the School House called Eliot Hall on Jamaica Plain, by Benjamin P. Williams. Gray and Bowen, 1832. Collection of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts
Boys in Eliot School woodworking class, c. 1950. Collection of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts
Eliot High School, West Roxbury, mid 19th century. Collection of the West Roxbury Historical Society
2000–2016
Eliot School minutes, 1787. Collection of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts Eliot Street, 1822. Courtesy of Jamaica Plain Historical Society
Eliot schoolhouse during Jamaica Plain Open Studios, 2011. Photograph by Lucie Wicker
Mary Ann Blood: Courtesy of College Archives & Special Collections, Columbia College Chicago Richard Hallowell Richards and Ellen Swallow Richards: Courtesy of MIT Museum Isaac Scott: Collection of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts Charlie Sandler: Photograph by Leah C-S Photography Eliot School Staff: Photograph by Leah C-S Photography
Maps A Map of New England and New York, John Speed, 1676. Courtesy of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Collection at the Boston Public Library Map of Roxbury, John Groves Hales, 1832. Courtesy of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Collection at the Boston Public Library Map of Boston, Sampson, Davenport & Co., 1874. Courtesy of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Collection at the Boston Public Library Atlas of City of Boston, G.W.Bromley & Co, 1896. Courtesy of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Collection at the Boston Public Library Atlas of the City of Boston, West Roxbury, G.W. Bromley & Co., 1924, Courtesy of Library of Congress Map of Eliot School Partnership sites, 2000–2016, plotted on Google Maps, 2016
Background Writing Eliot School minutes, 1751. Collection of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts
Eliot School rent roll, 1836. Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society
Gilbert Three Stars, Summer Program for Children, 2013. Photograph by Maggie Carberry
Appeal for new schoolhouse construction, January 29, 1831. Collection of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts
1874–1893
Debra Darby and Natalie LaChall, Pattern Alterations class, 2013. Photograph by Abigail Norman
Eliot School minutes, 1878. Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society
Woodcarving students at the Eliot School, 1890s. Collection of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts
Merav Rosen and Calogero Tardanico, Woodworking Open Shop class, 2013. Photograph by Abigail Norman
Elevation drawing of Eliot schoolhouse additions, H.M. Stephenson, 1891. Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society
Paloma Caron, Summer Program for Children, 2014. Photograph by Kasey Davis Appleman
Illustration of Work of Pupils of the Seventh Year or Second Year in Tool Work, from The Eliot School Course–Manual Training, 1892. Collection of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts Woodworking Lesson, from instructor's notebook, late 19th century. Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society Woodworking class projects on display in Eliot School wood shop, 1890s. Collection of the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts
Eliot School minutes, April 4, 1898. Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society Eliot School Annual Report to the Trustees, 1915. Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society Eliot School catalog, 2016
Special Thanks To the Massachusetts Historical Society for maintaining the Eliot School’s archives, and to Greg Heins for photographic scanning. To Charlie Fox, Karen Haas and Marilyn Mase for research and planning assistance.
The Colonial Era
1676–1776 The birth of the Eliot School mirrored the rise of compulsory education in New England. Initially a tiny school in a community of Christian farmers, the school took hold as colonists settled the land and moved toward independence from England.
The Birth of the Eliot School Puritan leaders believed that a Christian society’s prosperity required that all citizens be able to read the Bible and laws of the land. In 1647, they decreed that all towns of more than fifty families must hire a schoolmaster. In 1676, a group of Jamaica Plain residents donated land and corn to establish a local school. In 1689, Reverend John Eliot bequeathed a further 75 acres of land to endow a school “…for the
teaching and instructing of the Children of that end of the Town together with such negroes or Indians as may or shall come to the said school.” Care of the school fell to its trustees, men whose family names are still memorialized by streets throughout West Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. While it is not known whether the trustees ever fulfilled Eliot’s culturally inclusive vision, the school flourished as the town expanded.
Wampanoag Tribe
Revolutionary War
Weld Family
Roxbury Latin School
Natick, Mass.
First Church in Roxbury
John Eliot learned the local Native language and supervised translation of the Bible to spread his Christian message. In the 21st century, his work was used to revive Wôpanâak as a spoken language.
Several Eliot School trustees fought for the patriot cause, while school land supplied wood to the Continental Army.
Members of this prominent Jamaica Plain family, who fought in both King Philip’s War and the Revolutionary War, were among the school’s first trustees.
Founded by John Eliot in 1645, Roxbury Latin School was located in Dudley Square, too far a walk for children from Jamaica Plain.
Established in 1651, Natick was the first of the mostly self-governing Praying Towns that John Eliot established for Native people to adopt European ways.
John Eliot preached here for more than 60 years, starting in 1632, a year after his arrival on these shores.
John Eliot 1604–1690 A pastor at Roxbury’s First Church for more than sixty years, John Eliot is remembered as “Apostle to the Indians.” A firm believer in direct communication, he learned to speak the indigenous language, and his 1663 “Algonquian Bible” was the first bible published in the colonies. He argued against selling Native people into slavery, and instead oversaw formation of fourteen “Praying Towns.” He used these towns’ churches and schools to cultivate literacy and Christianity, and to assimilate Natives to a European way of life. The effort ended in tragedy when residents, despite Eliot’s protests, were herded to Deer Island during King Philip’s War, in 1675, and there left to perish.
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Primary, Grammar and High School
1777–1873 In the 19th century, the American education system transformed. As Americans came to believe that children from all walks of life had an inalienable right to affordable, quality education, the Eliot School blossomed.
Educating Jamaica Plain Following the American Revolution, the Eliot School remained open to any child above the age of seven residing in Jamaica Plain. The trustees leased and sold John Eliot’s land bit by bit, subsidizing the cost of teachers and the schoolhouse as citizens clamored for opportunities to educate their children. The school grew to encompass a primary and a grammar school for girls and boys, consolidating
into a single schoolhouse in 1832. Even this new building was not large enough when, operating as part of Roxbury public schools, the trustees added a high school in the 1840s. In addition to reading, grammar, arithmetic and geography, students could now progress to “higher branches” of education, such as geometry, algebra and philosophy.
Abigail May Brewer
Captain Joseph Curtis
D.S. Smalley
William Edwin Ford
In 1825, Brewer funded the separate, short-lived Brewer School, which taught needlework, reading and spelling to girls. It was absorbed into the Eliot School by the late 1840s.
Eliot School trustees had to live in Jamaica Plain. Their professions ran a gamut of trades. Captain Curtis ran a produce stall at Faneuil Hall.
Head teacher from 1836–1885, Smalley also authored a Phonetic English Dictionary to help foreigners pronounce any word they saw.
This student became a silversmith before taking charge as building manager of the new Boston Public Library on Boylston Street from 1858–1890.
Mary Ann Blood 1851–1927 Hired by the Eliot School in 1873, Mary Ann Blood taught algebra, ancient history and elocution. She moved on to teach analysis, practical hygiene, rendering and Bible reading at Monroe College of Oratory (now Emerson College), where she also ran the teacher training program. Expecting that the 1893 World’s Exposition would inspire a desire for public speaking, Blood later co-founded Columbia School of Oratory (now Columbia College), in Chicago.
eliotschool.org
Manual Arts Training
1874–1893 After the City of Boston annexed West Roxbury in 1874, the Eliot School separated from the Boston public school system to follow new directions.
Learning by Doing The newly independent school offered drawing, tile painting, cooking, sewing and stenography. In the th late 19 century, the Manual Training Movement in education began to promote shop work and handcraft to develop students’ discipline, dexterity and logical reasoning. Deadlocked in a disagreement, the Eliot School’s trustees asked the State Supreme Court for permission to enact a radical change: the complete dissolution of the school’s academic curriculum, and its replacement with manual training classes. Boston Public Schools
Ellen Swallow Richards
The trustees estimated that the Eliot School taught more than 1,300 public school students from 1889 to 1894.
The wife of Eliot School trustee Robert Hallowell Richards, Ellen Swallow Richards was the first woman admitted to MIT and a pioneer in environmental and domestic science. Through her influence, the Eliot School initiated a two-year domestic science curriculum in the Boston Public Schools.
With permission granted in 1886, the school developed its own woodworking and mechanical drawing curriculum, testing it with classes of boys from the nearby Agassiz and Lowell Schools, and girls from the Bowditch School. In 1892, it published a four-year woodworking curriculum. By 1893, the trustees proudly reported that the Eliot School’s woodworking course had been adopted by selected schools, and its mechanical drawing course by all the public schools in Boston.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Eliot School trustee M.D. Ross helped solicit money and land for the founding of MIT, then located in Boston’s Back Bay. He also served on the original board of the Museum of Fine Arts.
Lowell School of Practical Design The Eliot School prepared prospective candidates in drawing for entrance to this school of applied arts, an offshoot of MIT.
Frank Leavitt Eliot School Principal from 1889, Frank Leavitt wrote prolifically about manual arts and vocational training. He later became Associate Professor of Industrial Education at the University of Chicago.
Robert Hallowell Richards 1844–1945 After graduating from MIT in its first class of 1868, Richards stayed on as professor of mineralogy, engineering and metallurgy. An Eliot School trustee for more than 60 years, Richards believed passionately in the importance of hands-on learning, and became a proponent of both co-education and manual arts. He visited schools throughout America and Europe, observing manual arts programs to help Eliot School develop its own model. Under his leadership, the Eliot School combined elements of two competing approaches, Swedish Sloyd, with its focus on personal development through making useful objects, and the Russian System, with its progression of logical exercises and focus on vocation.
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The Arts and Crafts Movement
1894–1914 At the turn of the century, the Arts and Crafts Movement promoted handcraft and artistic workmanship as an alternative to the fast pace and standardization of the Machine Age.
Engaging Hands, Head and Heart Once the public schools absorbed manual training as a standard part of their curriculum, a broad range of students flowed through the Eliot School. Teachers enthusiastic about joining—or starting their own—manual arts programs attended teacher training courses, including projects to pass on to children, while other men and women came to create frames, furniture and decorative objects in wood, wicker and metal. Children attended Saturday classes Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition The school exhibited its work at this 1893 World’s Fair, including a wood carving by Helen Thornton Comins, one of seven children of Roxbury Mayor Linus B. Comins.
Sophia Hayden
Glessner House
This first female graduate of MIT’s four-year architecture program taught mechanical drawing at the Eliot School. She soon left, designing the Woman’s Pavilion at the 1893 Chicago World Exposition and supervising its construction.
Woodcarving teacher Isaac Scott had carved architectural details for furniture and provided interior design for this Chicago masterpiece by renowned American architect H.H. Richardson. Scott remained a lifelong friend of the Glessner family.
who did not have manual training in their own, mostly private, schools. The Eliot School also provided vocational education for immigrants and the working class. By day, upper and middle class hobbyists practiced woodcarving and design. At night, dockworkers and factory employees arrived to learn mechanical drawing, carpentry and Business English. The school occupied an unusually versatile niche in Boston’s Arts and Crafts environment. North Bennet Street Industrial School (now North Bennet Street School) The Eliot School distinguished itself from this settlement house for immigrants by catering to a wider range of economic backgrounds, and by departing from the strict Sloyd method of education.
Pauline Agassiz Shaw Suffragist and educational reformer, Shaw welcomed Eliot School trustees to visit and learn from North Bennet Street Industrial School, which she had co-founded.
John Brodhead Having been a scholarship student at the Chicago Manual Training School, Brodhead came to Boston in 1893 and worked as a machinist and draftsman before joining the Eliot School. He served as Principal from 1910 into the 1920s.
Isaac Scott 1845–1920 Noted Arts and Crafts designer and woodcarver Isaac Scott moved from Chicago to Boston in 1883 to design forms for the American Terra Cotta Company. He became a central figure at the Eliot School, teaching woodcarving, drawing and design to hundreds of students for more than a decade. Scott’s designs were influenced by the Medieval and gothic forms of the English Arts and Crafts Movement. He held a philosophical conviction in the importance of hand carving, believing that machine-made perfection was too symmetrical and harsh on the eye. When Scott’s health forced him to retire, his former students collected a pension fund to support him in his old age.
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Through Hardship to Prosperity
1915–1999 Coming through the hard years of the Great Depression and World War II, Principal George Hatch defined the school: “It is not industrial benefit that chiefly attracts pupils, but, largely, that instinctive desire to create.”
Keeping the Flame Alive During World War I, recruitment of a skilled wartime labor force demonstrated the practical value of manual training. At the Eliot School, woodworkers made collapsible furniture for barracks, and sewing classes produced clothing for refugees. Short of paint, metals, steel wool—and cash, the school survived the Great Depression and World War II with classes making hats, lampshades, dresses, prints and home decorations from recycled materials.
Boston Public Schools
Madison Park High School
Many 20th century Eliot School faculty worked during the day as public school manual arts instructors and administrators, coming to teach at the Eliot School after hours.
The Eliot School’s upholstery equipment was first used in Madison Park’s High School industrial sewing classrooms.
As prosperity returned, Americans enjoyed more leisure time to pursue hobbies. Charismatic leaders like Herb Forsell and Charlie Sandler cultivated an atmosphere at the school that attracted students from a wide range of professions, and encouraged them to relax and lose themselves in craft. By the 1950s, a steady stream of children practiced woodworking and sewing after school, and adult students came from as far away as Maine and New York to learn skills like gilding and upholstery.
Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Agency (now Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association) Founded in 1795, with Paul Revere as its first chairman, this group has provided funds for much of the school’s equipment.
George Hatch
Herb Forsell
Replacing Sophia Hayden, Hatch taught mechanical drawing, woodworking and model-making, serving as Principal from 1919 through the 1940s. He pulled the school through the difficult years of the Great Depression and World War II.
Forsell taught mechanical arts at Roxbury High School and Boston Trade School in addition to the Eliot School. He trained, then managed the US Men’s Gymnastics Team, taking the team to the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Charlie Sandler 1932– A skilled cabinetmaker and public school teacher, Charlie Sandler came to the Eliot School as a woodworking instructor in 1966 and retired as superintendent in 2012, still serving as an advisor today. Whether hoisting equipment from a dumpster to institute the upholstery program or walking the halls of local hospitals to recruit doctors as students, Charlie’s energy and warmth have defined the spirit of the Eliot School for 50 years.
eliotschool.org eliotschool.org
Eliot School inspires lifelong learning in cra
rating skills and imagination, we encourage our st eart. The We bridge machineoftools with handwork, exp Resurgence Craftsmanship
2000–2016
t for all” is central to our work. We believe eve
ucation and the opportunity to make things by ha
classes are small, comfortable and welcomin
mall schoolhouse. Over 1,400 students pass throu Now in its 340th year, the ners to experienced artists.
Eliot School looks back on its historybring and forward into the art and woodworking into Boston’s 21st century, steadfast in its y centers. Our artists and artisans turn classroom mission to inspire lifelong ms. Each year, over 1,500 students in Grades K–8 learning in craftsmanship absorb math and literacy skills in the process, lea and creativity for all.
ships
Our Scholarship Fund bridges our two programs, am to take classes in our schoolhouse.
Drawing & Painting
Beginning classes are for those who haven’t dr n us with hammer, thimble, camera or brush. Sa or painted in a while, or who want to get started. manship. Learn or review fundamentals and gain confiden Handmade in the Digital Age with a variety of basic tools and techniques. M Drawing for Pleasure moves you to the next e center of Jamaica Plain, halfway between PO level and includes at least one session with a s’ Monument, where Eliot, South and Centre Bo model. Students may stay in any class for multip semesters, building skills and confidence over tim st Hills stop; walk or take Bus 39 or 48 to Eliot St. S By the start of the 21st century, most Boston public schools no longer housed shop classes, and many cut art programs as well. The Eliot School built a network of partnerships, sending instructors to teach in the city’s schools and community centers. Today, 2,000 children throughout the city learn woodworking and art from Eliot School teachers. As the Digital Age has given rise to a desire for the handmade, the DIY and Maker movements have
grown, and the fine arts have embraced materials and processes once reserved for craft. Inside the Eliot schoolhouse, classes have expanded from woodworking, sewing and painting to fashion and fiber arts, book arts, tinkering and beyond. Students of all ages and backgrounds mix, blending tradition and experimentation, enjoying a combination of physical activity, focus and personal expression often missing in our world of screens and sedentary jobs.
Boston Public Schools
Boston Public Library
Boys and Girls Clubs
Museum of Fine Arts
The Eliot School works closely with the Boston Public Schools Department of Visual and Performing Arts as it partners with numerous schools, teaching art and woodworking to children in Grades K–8.
The Eliot School runs children’s workshops in library branches throughout the city, teaching fiber arts, visual arts and woodworking.
The school’s partnerships extend to Boys & Girls Clubs in Roslindale and Dorchester.
The museum offers its Studio Art Class students the opportunity to enroll in Eliot School classes, along with Stonybrook Fine Arts and Diablo Glass, extending the museum’s outreach to Boston’s neighborhoods.
Commonwealth of Craft
Uforge Gallery
Additional classes and workshops focus on arking. Free lighted lot on Thomas St. behind media or techniques. Most are open to all levels, ck away. welcoming beginners as Eliot wellSchool as Staff experienced arti S Eliot School Partnership sites 2000–2016
Along with a group of colleges, museums and other organizations that teach and present craft, the Eliot School collaboratively presents MakeSpeak, a twice-yearly talk by artisans.
This local gallery hosts solo exhibitions and artists’ talks by Eliot School faculty.
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e Soldiers’ Monument, Eliot and Centre Streets.
& Each of our teachers has a different personality a Until the 21st century, a key trustee, director or charismatic teacher often defined the character of the Eliot School for decades at a time. The faculty now encompasses a hundred instructors, and the staff includes ten people, whose different backgrounds and interests reflect Boston’s diversity and who share a passion for inspiring the creation of “art by all.”
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approach. Check faculty links online. As you get 380 fax | info@eliotschool.org know us, you will find the teachers who suit you Kasey best.Davis Appleman | Inside Photographs: Maggie Carberry | Illu graph: eliotschool.org