Draft:Free Kindergarten Movement

The Free Kindergarten Movement was an attempt by like-minded education reformers and activists to initiate free kindergartens in western countries during the 1890s. By looking after the education and welfare of children in slum areas, free kindergartens were an enlightened approach to social reform.

Although the first kindegartens were developed to meet an urgent social need, even at that stage there were people who felt that kindergarten education had something to offer all children, regardless of their material circumstances.

USA
TODO

New Zealand
The movement started in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1889 with the establishment of a committee comprised of suffragists Lavinia Kelsey and Rachel Reynolds, the Anglican bishop Andrew Suter and Reverend Rutherford Waddell. This led to the opening of the first free kindergarten "Sunbeam Kindergarten" in 1889. Rachel Reynolds later became the president of the Dunedin Free Kindergarten Association, and oversaw the establishment of a further seven kindergartens in the city.

Later the New Zealand Free Kindergarten Union was created.

Australia
In Australia, Maybanke Anderson she established the first free kindergarten in 1895 at Woolloomooloo.

Later the Free Kindergarten Union (FKU) was created. See also Alice Creswick