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		B4: Portia School of Law 45-47 Mount Vernon Street Portia School of Law began in 1908 when two women who wanted to take the Massachusetts bar examination asked Attorney Arthur W. MacLean to tutor them. His wife Bertha named the nascent school after Portia who disguises herself as a lawyer in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. The informal school expanded and became the only school providing legal education for women exclusively. Portia Law was incorporated in 1919 and in 1920 the first L.L.B. degrees were awarded to 39 women. The school continued to grow, admitting a few men in 1930. The first woman dean was Margaret H. Bauer (1899-1985), who served in various capacities at the school from 1937 until 1962, becoming dean in 1952. In June 1972, the name of the school was changed to the New England School of Law. It moved to 154 Stuart Street in 1980. In 1923, Blanche Woodson Braxton (1894-1939), a graduate of Portia Law in 1921, became the first African American woman to be admitted to the Massachusetts Bar. She later became the first African American woman admitted to practice in the U.S. District Court in the state. The first woman president of the Board of Trustees of New England School of Law was Anna E. Hirsch (1902-1997), a 1928 graduate of Portia Law. Hirsch was elected register of probate for Norfolk County in 1954 and again in 1960 (see also C2).
		B5: Elizabeth Peabody's Kindergarten 15 Pinckney Street One of the locations for the kindergarten of Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1804-1894) (see C1), considered the founder of the kindergarten movement in the United States, was at 15 Pinckney Street which, although destroyed, was the mirror image of 17 Pinckney Street. Influenced by the ideas of Friedrich Froebel, Peabody became an advocate for kindergartens nationwide, publishing the Kindergarten Messenger and organizing the American Froebel Union. She was a link between the visionaries of the Transcendental movement and educational reforms. "My mother said, 'Every child should be taught as if he or she were a genius.'" -- Elizabeth Peabody
		B6: Home of Louisa May Alcott 20 Pinckney Street Although author Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) is best known for her book, Little Women, describing her family life in Concord, Massachusetts, she had several Boston homes. The daughter of famed Transcendentalist Bronson Alcott, she lived here in rented rooms as a child. As an adult, she often stayed with other reformist women in the "sky parlor" of the Bellevue Hotel on Beacon Street, owned by Dr. Dio Lewis, principal of Boston's Normal Institute for Physical Education, and near her publisher, Roberts Brothers. In the last decade of her life, Alcott purchased a home for her family at 10 Louisburg Square, but was too ill to enjoy it for herself. She died at the age of 55, probably of poison from the mercury used to treat the typhoid fever she contracted as a Civil War nurse (see D3). "So hard to move people out of old ruts. I haven't patience enough. If they won't see and work, I let 'em alone and steam along my own way." -- Louisa May Alcott