Abigail Adams Eliot

Career[edit]

In January 1922, with the sponsorship the Woman's Education Association, Eliot co-founded the Ruggles Street Nursery School in Roxbury with Boston philanthropist Elizabeth W. Pearson. In addition to teaching children, the school trained teachers in early childhood education. Eliot served as Director until 1952. She also continued her education, earning her Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1926 and her Ed.D. in 1930. Eliot became a leading proponent of early childhood education, teaching at the Ruggles School and at Wellesley College and giving frequent talks to parent and church groups. In 1923 she helped found the Cambridge Nursery School.^[1] She helped organize the National Association for Nursery Education, which became the National Association for the Education of Young Children, and served for a time as its secretary-treasurer.^[4]


During the Depression, the Roosevelt Administration's Federal Emergency Relief Administration organized "emergency nursery schools" for needy children. Eliot became a member of the National Advisory Committee for the program, and supervised its New England operations.^[5]


The Ruggles Street Nursery School eventually became the Nursery Training School of Boston and moved to 355 Marlboro Street. In 1951 it became the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study at Tufts University and moved to Medford, Massachusetts. The Eliot-Pearson Award, given biennially to honor outstanding contributions in the field of children's media, is known as the "Abby".^[6]