A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer
PEABODY, ELIZABETH PALMER,
Daughter of Dr. N. Peabody, is descended on the mother's side from the two Joseph Palmers, one of whom was President and the other Secretary of the first Provincial Congress that assembled in Massachusetts to consider British wrongs, and both of whom, the father as Brigadier-General, the son as his aid, were engaged in the battle of Lexington. Miss Peabody was born May 16th., 1804, at Billerica, and lived in her early life at Salem, Mass., but, since 1822, has resided principally in Boston, where she has been engaged in education and literary pursuits. She first published a "Key to Hebrew History," and a "Key to Grecian History;" she next wrote the "Records of a School," which went into the second edition; and also contributed to the early numbers of the "Journal of Education;" to the "Christian Examiner" of 1834, in which are some articles on the "Spirit of the Hebrew Scriptures;" and to the "Dial," in which she wrote the articles on Socialism. In 1849, Miss Peabody edited "The Æsthetic Papers," to which she contributed an article "On the Dorian Culture," more elaborate than anything else she has written; and a paper upon "The Significance of the Alphabet," besides several shorter articles and poems. Her latest work is a school-book, entitled the "Polish-American System of Chronology," being a modified translation of General Bern's method of teaching history on a Chronological System.
Miss Peabody's writings are of a class unusual to her sex. They evince great learning and research, a mind free from the trammels of prejudice, and capable of judging for itself on whatever subject its attention may be turned, one whose aim is high—no less than the progressive improvement of her race, and who presses forward to the end she has in view, with an earnestness and energy proportioned to its importance. Her poems are harmonious, and show more thought than is usually seen in such occasional effusions. Still we look for a greater work from her pen than any she has yet sent forth. Miss Peabody is of the transcendental school of writers, though not among the mystics. We do not endorse all her ideas, but only commend her philanthropic spirit.