The
Girls
School
Background: Seventh graders in 1918.
"The Girls Latin School of Chicago, parent owned since 1929, has freedom
and facilities to produce the best education possible for each of its students.
Policies are shaped by trustees, faculty and parents. Small classes and able
teachers promote individual progress. From kindergarten to graduation, it
instills the basic liberal education that continues to grow through a lifetime."
– Girls Latin School Brochure 1939
When Mabel Slade Vickery and Robert
Peck Bates initially incorporated Chicago
Latin School in 1898, it was a coeducational
institution, although there were only a
few girls and they were in the younger
grades. Once those girls reached eighth
grade this became problematic, however,
according to an account by Josephine
Wilkins '07, a former student and life-long
friend of Miss Vickery's.
"When the first girls reached eighth grade
another hurdle had to be cleared. The eighth
grade and high school boys sat in a large
study hall and Mr. Bates was unwilling to
have the girls there. So Miss Vickery on her
own initiative took two rooms in the old
Kirkland School building at 54 E. Scott
Street, then occupied by the Gertrude House,
and installed the older girls…There we
remained adding a class or two each year and
graduating the first class of girls in 1907.
In 1913 the present building at 59 E. Scott
Street was built and all the girls were gathered
together in their own building."
Mabel Slade Vickery was determined to
provide her students at the Chicago Latin
School for Girls with the same exemplary
education that the students at the Chicago
Latin School for Boys were receiving. She
was extremely proud of the school she built
on Scott Street, and it was the focus of her
energy and devotion (even though she also
The officers of the 1928 girls athletic association.
LATI N SCHOOL OF CHI CA GO
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