Chapter Overview

This chapter introduced key historical figures who have had a significant impact on early childhood education. Major figures from Europe were Martin Luther, John Amos Comenius, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Johann Pestalozzi, Friedrich Froebel, Maria Montessori, Margaret McMillan, Lev Vygotsky, Sigmund Freud, and Jean Piaget. In the United States, John Dewey, Erik Erikson, Abraham Maslow, J. McVicker Hunt, Benjamin Bloom, Jerome Bruner, Arnold Gesell, Patty Smith Hill, Lucy Sprague Mitchell, and Abigail Eliot had a significant impact on early education.

The Child Study movement, America's major economic Depression of the 1930s, World War II, the launching of Sputnik, the 1960's War on Poverty, and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 were important events influencing early education.