Boston Latin Academy (BLA) was established on November 27, 1877 as Girls' Latin School (GLS). The school was founded with the intention to give a
classical education and college preparatory training to girls. A plan to admit girls to
Public Latin School was formed by an executive committee of the Massachusetts Society for the University Education of Women.
Henry Fowle Durant, founder of
Wellesley College and an advocate of higher education for women, 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. On February 4, 1878, Tetlow accepted the first thirty-seven students. Girls' Latin School opened on West Newton Street in Boston's
South End on February 12, 1878 sharing the building with
Girls' High School. 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 to
Smith College. In 1888,
Abbie Farwell Brown, Sybil Collar, and Virginia Holbrook decided to create a school newspaper. The name
Jabberwock was picked from a list that Abbie Farwell Brown submitted. It was taken from "
Jabberwocky", the famous nonsense poem written by
Lewis Carroll in
Through the Looking Glass. They wrote to Lewis Carroll in
London about the name and received a handwritten letter giving them permission for its use. The
Jabberwock is one of the oldest school newspapers in the United States. With the number of students growing each year, in 1898 the school committee moved the first four classes to a building in
Copley Square while the rest remained in the older building. In 1907, the school moved into a new building, shared with the
Boston 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 when
State Teachers College at Boston (the former Normal School) expanded, Girls' Latin School was forced to relocate to the former
Dorchester High School for Girls building located in Codman Square. In 1972, boys were admitted for the first time to Girls' Latin School. The school name was changed in 1975 and the first graduating class of Boston Latin Academy was in 1977. In 1981, Latin Academy moved back into the Fenway area, this time to Ipswich Street, across from
Fenway Park. It remained there until the summer of 1991, when it moved again, this time to its present location in the former
Roxbury Memorial and
Boston Technical High School building, located on Townsend Street in
Roxbury. In 2001, Boston Latin Academy became the first high school to form an official Eastern Massachusetts High School Red Cross Club. 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 by
U.S. News & World Report.
Locations ==Heads of School==