page_title: Abbot Academy
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Abbot Academy / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Abbot Academy students perform in an outdoor drama production of "Masque of the Flowers", circa 1874.
context_page_description: Abbot Academy was an independent boarding preparatory school for women boarding and day students in grades 9–12 from 1828 to 1973. Located in Andover, Massachusetts, Abbot Academy was notable as one of the first incorporated secondary schools for educating young women in New England. It merged with Phillips Academy in 1973 and campus buildings along School Street continue to be used for the combined school. Some Abbot traditions continue at the combined private boarding school such as Parents' Weekend. Since the 40th anniversary in 2013 of the merger of the two schools, there has been renewed interest in Abbot's history and traditions.
context_section_description: The school was founded during a time when the prevailing view was that women's education "should always be relative to men", with some believing that study of "higher subjects" such as philosophy and mathematics might render women to be infertile. One of the first formal discussions to propose a school for young women happened on February 19, 1828. The school was incorporated in 1829 with 70 or 85 pupils from eighteen to twenty years of age for the "exclusive work of educating women". According to one source, the official opening day was May 6, 1829.
  ...to regulate the tempers, to improve the taste, to discipline and enlarge the minds and form the morals of youth...
  — Abbot Constitution, 1829
caption: Students performing Masque of the Flowers circa 1874
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