Originally namedGirls' Latin School, it became the first college preparatory high school for girls in the United States.[4]Coeducational since 1972, the school is located in theRoxbury neighborhood ofBoston and is part ofBoston Public Schools (BPS).
Boston Latin Academy (BLA) was established on November 27, 1877[5] as Girls' Latin School (GLS). The school was founded with the intention to give aclassical education and college preparatory training to girls. A plan to admit girls toPublic Latin School was formed by an executive committee of the Massachusetts Society for the University Education of Women.Henry Fowle Durant, founder ofWellesley College and an advocate of higher education for women,[6] was instrumental in outlining the legal route for the school to be established. A petition with a thousand signatures was presented to the School Board in September 1877. The board referred the question to the subcommittee on high schools. Ultimately the subcommittee recommended that a separate school for girls be established. John Tetlow was unanimously elected by the School Committee on January 22, 1878 as its first headmaster.[7] On February 4, 1878, Tetlow accepted the first thirty-seven students.[8]
Girls' Latin School opened on West Newton Street in Boston'sSouth End on February 12, 1878 sharing the building withGirls' High School.[9] The thirty-seven students were divided according to aptitude into three classes; the Sixth, Fifth, and Third class. The first graduating class in 1880 included Alice M. Mills, Charlotte W. Rogers, Vida D. Scudder, Mary L. Mason, Alice S. Rollins, and Miriam S. Witherspoon; all six were accepted toSmith College.
In 1888,Abbie Farwell Brown, Sybil Collar, and Virginia Holbrook decided to create a school newspaper. The nameJabberwock was picked from a list that Abbie Farwell Brown submitted. It was taken from "Jabberwocky", the famous nonsense poem written byLewis Carroll inThrough the Looking Glass. They wrote to Lewis Carroll inLondon about the name and received a handwritten letter giving them permission for its use. TheJabberwock is one of the oldest school newspapers in the United States.[10]
With the number of students growing each year, in 1898 the school committee moved the first four classes to a building inCopley Square while the rest remained in the older building. In 1907, the school moved into a new building, shared with theBoston Normal School.
Girls' Latin School expanded from approximately 421 students in 1907 to 1,350 students in 1955. The City of Boston had turned over the entirety of the campus to the state in 1952, and whenState Teachers College at Boston (the former Normal School) expanded, Girls' Latin School was forced to relocate to the formerDorchester High School for Girls building located in Codman Square.[11][12]
In 1972, boys were admitted for the first time to Girls' Latin School. The school name was changed in 1975[13] and the first graduating class of Boston Latin Academy was in 1977.[14][15]
In 1981, Latin Academy moved back into the Fenway area, this time to Ipswich Street, across fromFenway Park. It remained there until the summer of 1991, when it moved again, this time to its present location in the formerRoxbury Memorial andBoston Technical High School building, located on Townsend Street inRoxbury.
In 2001, Boston Latin Academy became the first high school to form an official Eastern Massachusetts High School Red Cross Club.[16] The club is one of the biggest in the school with over 100 members. Latin Academy's Red Cross Club is also one of the biggest high school Red Cross Club in Eastern Massachusetts.
94% of its graduating students go on to attend four-year colleges. In 2010 Boston Latin Academy received a Silver Medal as one of the top public high schools in the nation byU.S. News & World Report.[17]
1878–1907 Built from 1869 through 1871, the building was home to Girls' Latin from its inception in 1878 (sharing space withGirls' High and Normal School) until 1907. It was razed in 1960 and a playground now occupies the site.
1898–1907 In February 1898, 240 students were moved to the formerChauncy Hall School building in Copley Square which had been vacated two years earlier. The remaining pupils continued studies at the West Newton Street location.
1981–1991 The school returned to the Fenway area in a former post office garage and afterward an annex ofBoston State College. After BLA was relocated this building housedBoston Arts Academy and was later razed in 2019.
Known class year listed. Non-graduate alumni noted asNG.
This is adynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help byediting the page to add missing items, with references toreliable sources.
Barbara Gould Henry (1949) – taughtRuby Bridges, the first African-American child to attend the all-white William Frantz Elementary School inNew Orleans, alone in a classroom guarded by Federal Marshals.[34]
^"MRS JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY MARKS DIED EARLY TODAY",Boston Globe, December 4, 1922
^Hult, Joan S.; Trekell, Marianna (1991).A Century of Women's Basketball: from Frailty to Final Four. Reston, Va: National Association for Girls and Women in Sport.ISBN978-0-88314-490-9.
^Roberts, David (2010).The Life and Adventures of Bradford Washburn, America's Boldest Mountaineer. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. pp. 184,190–191,192–204,226–235.ISBN978-0-06-156095-8.
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