A high school for girls opened in 1852 after more than twenty-five years of efforts to provide high school education for girls. The new Girls’ High opened on this site in 1870. Girls’ Latin School was added as a separate school in the same building in 1877 (but with the same headmaster) after the first women elected to the Boston School Committee used their new political power to guarantee girls a Latin School education. The building was considered to be elegant with 66 classrooms, “all well lighted and cheerful”, and an assembly hall on the upper story. Girls’ High continued at this site until 1954, but by 1907 all Girls’ Latin School classes had moved into the new Boston Normal School building on Huntington Avenue. This site is now the Thomas F. O’Day Playground.
Girls continued to go to a Latin school separate from boys until 1972 when the Latin schools became coeducational, ending 337 years of a separate Latin school education for boys. Among the graduates of Girls’ Latin when it was at this site was Mary Antin (1881–1949). Born in Russia, Antin immigrated with her family to America in 1894. They eventually moved to the South End where Antin took advantage of the public schools and library. Her book, The Promised Land, was a best seller when it was published in 1912. A classic about the American immigrant experience, the book captures the heart of the South End of her youth, particularly in the New York streets area between what is now East Berkeley and the Massachusetts Turnpike, a community wiped out by urban renewal in the 1960s.
