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,[6] was instrumental in outlining the legal route for the school to be established.

In 1888, Abbie Farwell Brown, Sybil Collar, and Virginia Holbrook decided to create a school newspaper.

They wrote to Lewis Carroll in London about the name and received a handwritten letter giving them permission for its use.

The school name was changed in 1975[11] and the first graduating class of Boston Latin Academy was in 1977.

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.