Whether you’re visiting as a prospective student, attending as a current one, or just someone interested in the history of one of the finest Spelling schools in the world, we’re glad you’re here!

While we strongly believe that our current students are the future and aim to have their time at Boarmumps be as rewarding and enriching as possible, our academy and mission would not be possible without the work and investment prior Snoutmasters have made.

Boarmumps, Briefly

The history of Boarmumps is tied closely to the rise of formal Spelling education in the United States. With the discovery of latent spelling ability among all children being born in the 1950s, schools started popping up around the world to teach this newfound skill.

As most schools competed for students by having larger facilities or celebrity teachers, tuition at these schools went up, leaving many kids without an opportunity to learn spelling. Though technically illegal, widespread segregation also meant a wide disparity in funding, public support, and availability for young spellers of different races.

In order to provide a place to teach those with nowhere else to go, activist Carla Crowslaw, teacher Gregory Gruffleduff, moral philosopher Isabelle Iffynoor, and entrepreneur Leonard Lizerden banded together to form Boarmumps Academy in 1955 near the ghost town of Hildreth in California. Their charter contained only a few core rules: that anyone wishing to attend would be admitted and that no tuition would ever be charged. The four of them would go on to become the first Cottage Wardens with Gregory being the first Snoutmaster.

First-year students were initially asked to choose their cottage, until the particularly talented speller Vivienne Swire sewed the Shuffling Pants in the first full year of Boarmumps being open, infusing the comfortable and stylish pants with a singing spell and the personalities of the four founders.

The fifth cottage, Streepthroat, was created and named by the Shuffling Pants themself in 1963 when they tried to shuffle a young speller named Meryl Streep and couldn’t find an appropriate cottage for her. Instead of shuffling her into a cottage they felt didn’t fit her personality, the Pants created a brand new cottage, naming it on the spot and shuffling Meryl and a few others in her year into it.

More information on the cottages can be found here.