In 1913, seven graduates of the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics founded a school for the instruction of women in physical education. Their names were: Bessie Barnes, Caroline Baxter, Marjorie Bouvé, Marguerite Sanderson, Grace Shepardson, Mary Florence Stratton, and Miriam Tobey. These women did not have a building or a prospective list of students, but their alma mater had left Boston for Wellesley College in 1907, and they believed that an unmet need now existed in Boston.

To meet that need, they founded the Boston School of Physical Education and trusted that students would come. And come they did: eleven in the first year, and more as the School's reputation grew. The School underwent many changes, moving from place to place in Boston before finally settling at Northeastern University in the 1960s to become an integral Basic College. That college is now the Bouvé College of Health Sciences, with an enrollment of over a thousand, offering a myriad of degrees far beyond the original B.S.P.E. diploma.

The titles at left name the steps between the original founding of the School and its arrival at Northeastern. Clicking on each one will take you through the history of Bouvé.