Peabody Family

Elizabeth Palmer Peabody was born in Billerica, Massachusetts on May 16, 1804, the eldest of the seven children of Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Palmer) Peabody. She was educated at home by her father who taught her Latin at an early age and, later, at a school run by her mother. She developed interests in theology, philosophy, history, and literature, as well as proficiency in ten languages. She began teaching while in her teens, first at her mother's school. From 1823 to 1825, she was a teacher and governess to wealthy families in Gardiner and Hallowell, Maine. She went on to open a school in Brookline, Massachusetts, with her sister, Mary. During her years there, Elizabeth developed friendships with Bronson Alcott, William Ellery Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Jones Very and other New England intellectuals. This loose association of like minds led to the founding of the Transcendentalist Club in 1837, of which Elizabeth Peabody and Margaret Fuller were the only female charter members.

After her school closed in 1832, Elizabeth eked out a living by tutoring and from the limited proceeds from sales of her books (First Steps to the Study of History (1832) and related textbooks). In 1836, out of financial necessity, she went to live with her family in Salem, Massachusetts, where she remained for four years. In 1840, she moved the family to 13 West Street in Boston, where she opened a bookstore in the front parlor. It became a center for Transcendentalist gatherings, and some of Margaret Fuller's famous "Conversations" were held there. Elizabeth also established herself as a publisher, bringing forth children's stories by Hawthorne, important abolitionist literature, and, briefly, The Dial, a journal written for and by persons interested in transcendentalism. She published the sole issue of her own periodical, Aesthetic Papers, in 1849.

...