Elizabeth Peabody School

Now home to an apartment complex, this historic Chicago building was home to the Peabody School for over a century. The fifteen-classroom school opened in 1895 and served Chicago's West Town community (the near northwest side), which was home to the largest Polish community outside of Warsaw. The school is named in honor of national educator Elizabeth Peabody, an abolitionist and an early advocate for kindergartens in American schools. When it opened, this was one of only ten Chicago schools to include kindergarten classrooms. In addition to teaching numerous Polish American children during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, several children of German immigrants also attended Peabody School. As the neighborhood changed after World War II, the school population grew more diverse. Finally, in 2013, after functioning as a school for 120 years, a developer bought the structure and converted it into luxury apartments. German-born architect W. August Fielder, architect of the Chicago Board of Education from 1893 to 1896 and co-designer of the Chicago Cubs' first baseball home (prior to Wrigley Field), designed the school in the Queen Anne style mixed with a few elements of the Richardsonian Romanesque and Prairie School styles.

An extension of a horse car line along Chicago's Milwaukee Avenue spurred the development of the city's near-northwest side (including "West Town") during the mid-to late-nineteenth century. Germans first settled West Town region before the 1850s as farmland when the area sat on the northwest fringe of Chicago, removed from its urban expanse. The 1871 Great Chicago fire boosted the population of Chicago's outer neighborhoods, including West Town on the near-northwest side, as it motivated people to move away from the city's central business district. By the late nineteenth century, the arrival of the Galena & Chicago Union railroad line, followed by Chicago's infamous elevated railroad (the "el"), coincided with robust Polish immigration. Spurred by drought, economic struggles, political repression, and religious oppression, nearly three million Poles left Europe for North America between 1850 and 1914, with a significant percentage settling in Chicago, notably West Town. Indeed, Polish immigration to West Town quickly exceeded German populations, and the neighborhood eventually supported the largest Polish community outside of Warsaw, giving it the nickname "Polish Downtown" or, to Polish speakers, "Stanislowowo Trojcowo."

It did not take long for outer neighborhoods like West Town to become congested as Chicago's population soared during the late nineteenth century. Indeed, in a mere seventy years, Chicago grew from a town of 4,500 people to an expansive city with a population of $2,200,000. In just the decade of the 1890s, Chicago's population increased by 600,000. Architect William August Fiedler (or, simply, August Fiedler) took the position of Architect of the Chicago Board of Education in 1893 and quickly faced the issue of overcrowding and an unprecedented demand for more schools as Chicago's population skyrocketed. 

In 1894, the School Board approved and built nineteen new schools designed by Fiedler, including the Peabody School, which opened in 1895. Born in Elbing, Germany, Fiedler (1842-1903) received his education and training in Germany before emigrating to the United States in 1871. He worked as an architect in New York City for several years before moving to Chicago in 1874 as part of a large influx of architects who saw professional opportunity in the rapidly growing city, notably in the wake of the 1871 Great Chicago Fire. The Elizabeth Peabody Public School was one of Fiedler's first school designs. His design consisted of a mix of styles, notably Romanesque Revival and Queen Anne. He also took inspiration from such modern architects as Louis Sullivan and others associated with the Arts-and-Crafts theories and incorporated aspects of contemporary German architecture. 

During his three years as Architect to the Board of Education, Fiedler designed 58 new school buildings and dozens of additions. It was the most significant construction period in the school board's history until that time. After the Board of Education questioned him for the escalating budget associated with the construction costs and having to hire several new employees, Fiedler resigned and returned to private commissions, which included expanding the Chicago Cubs' first baseball home, West Side Grounds (they played there until they moved to Wrigley Field in 1916). 

West Town, like numerous other immigrant neighborhoods, dealt with limited resources due to its overcrowding. Akin to Jane Addams' Hull House, settlement houses grew popular in Chicago and other cities, supporting immigration and strong class divides. Northwestern University established a settlement house in West Town in 1892, which moved just east of the now-historic Peabody School in 1901. The proximity of the settlement house to the Peabody School permitted the two institutions to share resources such as 

By the 1950s and into the early 1960s, the ethnic makeup of the neighborhood profoundly changed, rendering the Peabody School inefficient, according to officials. Still, Peabody continued to serve the West Town area through 2013, when it was converted into an apartment complex, a legacy of education that spans 120 years. 

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Commission on Chicago Landmarks. "Elizabeth Peabody Public School." City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development. September 1, 2016. https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/zlup/Historic_Preservation/Publications/Elizabeth_Peabody%20Public_School.pdf.

Cramer, John Cramer. "Registraton Form: Elizabeth Peabody School." National Register of Historic Places. nps.gov. 2017. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/86025dd1-74dd-4bca-94cf-948fd1e24acc.

Library of Congress. "Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History: The Nation of Polonia." loc.gov. Accessed November 23, 2023. https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/polish-russian/the-nation-of-polonia/.

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Pacyga, Dominic A. American Warsaw: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Polish Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019.