Susan Elizabeth Blow (June 7, 1843 – March 27, 1916) was an American educator who opened the first successful public kindergarten in the United States.

[1] Her grandfather was Captain Peter Blow, the owner of the slave Dred Scott, who later challenged the slavery issue in court.

Blow received her education from her parents, various governesses, private tutors, and schools, due to her family's social status.

Blow tutored her younger brothers and sister, and she taught Sunday school at Carleton Presbyterian Church during this time.

Blow met and fell in love with a soldier named Colonel William Cole, at age twenty, but her parents found him to be unsuitable.

Susan was inspired to bring these ideas to St. Louis, and her father offered to set up a kindergarten as a private school.

With the help of her two assistants, Mary Timberlake and Cynthia Dozier, Blow directed and taught a kindergarten class consisting of forty-two students.

[1] In the kindergarten class, students learned from games and songs that Susan translated from Fröbel's original German.

In 1875, the school board attempted to close the kindergartens in order to save money, but 1,500 signed a petition to keep them open.

In 1876, the United States Centennial Commission in Philadelphia gave St. Louis and Blow an award for excellence of kindergarten in public schools.

Harris believed the greatest educational concern of the time was the number of young children who dropped out of school.

Blow believed a kindergarten system would improve the dropout rate, for children would be starting school at an earlier age.

[3] Only ten years after opening her training school Blow withdrew from teaching due to Graves' disease, which is a form of hyperthyroidism.

She also helped to found the International Kindergarten Union, and she held a three-year appointment to the Teachers College of Columbia University.

The organization did not last long, as many of Blow's ideas were German in origin and the United States entered World War I the following year.