McPhee was built on the Capitol School site (see Capitol School) as a joint project of the Lincoln Board of Education and the University of Nebraska Teachers College in order to serve as a campus laboratory school. Although the faculty and staff of McPhee were Lincoln Public Schools employees, they once received an additional stipend from the university to fulfill laboratory functions.
The school was named for Miss Clare McPhee, who became principal of Capitol School in 1918. Miss McPhee, a native of Quebec, was a woman of wide culture, a scholar and a writer. With her sister, Marguerite, she authored a child’s biography of George Washington (pub. 1930).
Miss McPhee retired from Capitol School in 1942 and passed away in 1960.
