ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the context in which the transfer of the kindergarten idea took place, as well as significant events that have enabled the spread. The American kindergarten movement is indeed a story of success. At the end of the 19th century, Friedrich Frobel’s small-scale experiment, more born out of despair as the last hope to save his educational legacy, had extended to the United States and become an accepted part of the American education system. The Free Kindergarten movement that started around the 1870s, was a reaction of the powerful elites to the perceived threat from the growing number of the poor and immigrants in the cities. It is often said that America in the middle of the 19th century was ripe for kindergarten. Even Frobel had thought so and contemplated emigrating to the United States. The very first kindergartens in the United States, however, had been established earlier and for different reasons.
