Holbrook, Florence, 1860-1932

Florence Holbrook was an educator and author involved in the peace movement during the early years of the 20th century. She was a member of the Chicago Peace Society, chair of the Women's Peace Committee of the Chicago Political Equity League, and President of the Chicago Division of the Illinois State Teachers Association. Holbrook managed Rosika Schwimmer's antiwar lecture tour of the United States after the outbreak of war in Europe. Holbrook was also an occasional speaker on the theme of peace. She attended the 1915 International Congress of Women at The Hague as part of the small American delegation headed by Jane Addams, and participated in Schwimmer's Ford Peace Expedition of 1915-1916. Holbrook was born in 1860 in Peru, Illinois to Judge Edmund S. Holbrook, an early abolitionist, and his wife Anne, née Case. She spent most of her life in Chicago, attending the old Chicago University, which was originally founded by Stephen A. Douglas and closed its doors in 1886. Holbrook obtained an A.B. from the institution in 1879, and an A.M. in 1885. She began her fifty year career as an educator by teaching Greek and Latin for four years at Oakland High School in Hyde Park, after which time she became principal of the school. Following her time at Oakland, Holbrook served as principal at the Forestville Elementary School and then at the Phillips Junior High School. She was an early proponent of the arts and physical education as important elements of education, hosting student field trips to the Art Institute of Chicago, and bringing artists and performers to talk to the children in her school. As evidenced by the clippings and flyers in her scrapbooks, Holbrook was an ardent pacifist, a suffragist, and a believer in public education as the foundation for a democratic society. Florence Holbrook was the author of a number of children's books, primers and readers, among them The Hiawatha Primer; The Book of Nature Myths; Northland Heroes; and Cave, Lake and Mound Dwellers, and other Primitive People. Florence Holbrook passed away in 1932.