On March 11, 1823, the first school for training teachers in the United States opened in Concord, Vermont.

Samuel Read Hall agreed to come to Concord as a pastor on the condition that he could open such a school, known as a Normal School. Classes for those who wanted to become teachers began in a small room on the second floor of a local store.

Read also wrote the first book for teachers in the U.S., and is said to have been the first to use blackboards in the classroom in 1829. He altered education through his teacher-training innovations. Ironically, Read was almost entirely self-taught.

Image courtesy the Vermont Historical Society.