Involving mothers in education, Harrison and Putnam founded the Chicago Kindergarten Club in 1883, influenced by the book Mothers at Play by Friedrich Fröbel. In 1886, Harrison founded a training school for kindergarten teachers in Chicago. Intrigued by the ideas used by a German woman working at her school, Harrison decided to find out more. She tracked these ideas back to the Pestalozzi-Fröbel-Haus in Berlin and in 1889 she traveled there to study. On her return she renamed her institution the Chicago Kindergarten Training College. Harrison's school became an innovative college of education. She was president of the college, expanded to the National Kindergarten and Elementary College, until her retirement in 1920. It is now part of National Louis University.
