author
Richard Green Parker
1798–1869
A longtime Boston educator, this 19th-century writer helped shape classroom learning with widely used textbooks on grammar, history, reading, and science. His books were practical, clear, and aimed at students as well as teachers.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Richard Green Parker was an American educator and textbook writer born in Boston on December 25, 1798, and he died on September 25, 1869. He is remembered for a long career in teaching and for producing schoolbooks that were used in many classrooms during the 1800s.
He studied at the Boston Latin School and at Harvard, then went into teaching in Boston's public schools. Alongside that work, he wrote instructional books on subjects including grammar, composition, history, reading, and natural philosophy, with a style meant to make school lessons more orderly and accessible.
Parker's reputation rests less on a single famous title than on the steady usefulness of his educational writing. For readers interested in the history of American schooling, his work offers a clear picture of the kinds of books that helped teach generations of students in the nineteenth century.