First Normal School for the training of teachers was established in Lexington, Massachusetts. Principle leaders were Horace Mann, Catharine Esther Beecher, James Gordon Carter and Henry Barnard among many others.

Many of today's great educational institutions started as normal schools. For example, The University of California, Los Angeles began as a normal school. Normal schools spread throughout the United States and across the world and even in Georgia. Many early Normal schools limited to young women who intended to become teachers.

There was once a normal school in Athens, GA. It is now the Naval Supply School located in Normaltown, a community of Athens Clarke County, GA.