Introduction: Was He a Man or a Reader?

The McGuffeyites' acts of remembrance seem out of proportion to McGuffey the man. In 1933 James Rodabaugh, a master's student at Miami University, wrote "McGuffey: A Revised Portrait." (1) Written when the McGuffey movement was just beginning, this essay countered the prevailing wisdom that McGuffey was a lone educational genius who rode heroically into Oxford to write his Readers and single-handedly reform American education. Rather, Rodabaugh humanized McGuffey by emphasizing his flaws and noting that the Readers' success was not simply the product of one man's genius.

Rodabaugh noted that McGuffey's strict discipline and ambition alienated some people. At Miami University McGuffey incited a power struggle with the University President, Robert Bishop. After the publication of his readers in 1836, McGuffey accepted the Presidency of Cincinnati College, where, according to Rodabaugh, he was a uniformly poor executive. At Cincinnati, he counseled parents not to send their children to Oxford because of the lack of discipline that prevailed there. Next he accepted the Presidency of Ohio University, where his greatest achievement might have been the planting of the McGuffey Elms. He disallowed animal grazing on the University lawn and thereby annoyed many in the town of Athens to the extent that he was forced to carry a horsewhip or cane around town to protect himself. In 1845 he accepted a professorship at the University of Virginia, where he taught until his death in 1873.

Another reason these acts of remembrance may seem excessive is that many of these commemorations attribute complete authorship of the Readers to McGuffey. For example, the memorial plaque at his birthplace reads: "Educator, Advocate of Free Public Schools, author of McGuffey Eclectic Readers, and founder of the graded studies system." In fact, it was not that simple. The publishers, Truman and Smith, first asked Cincinnati native Catherine Beecher to author the Readers. She declined and may have referred them to McGuffey, who had been planning such a work. The Readers were a group effort; the publishers and Catherine Beecher aided in the selection of materials and a number of other teachers and educators to experimented with the lessons. McGuffey compiled the First through Fourth Readers, while his brother, Alexander, compiled the Fifth and Sixth, which were the "most often quoted" and the "most dearly loved." (3) Also, family tradition held that McGuffey's wife, Harriet, wrote the Primer under her husband's name.

The Readers were only partially "written" per-se, and were mostly compilations of poems, songs, prayers, stories, and lessons penned by others. Indeed, soon after their printing in 1836, the books were criticized in the national papers for plagiarism of other schoolbooks. Rodabaugh argued that McGuffey foresaw this possibility, and this was why he agreed to be paid only a fixed sum of one thousand dollars for his work. The publishers paid off the complaints, and the publishing company's aggressive advertising campaign guaranteed the Readers' success. McGuffey's Eclectic Readers were only moderately successful through the mid-19th century. The publishers signifcantly revised the readers in 1857 and again in 1979, and these two revisions were key to the Readers' success. The 1979 edition was secularized with Victorian morality instead of Christian theology. (4) This edition saw the largest sales.

The majority of children who remembered the McGuffey Readers read an edition over which William Holmes McGuffey had only partial claim. The original edition sold only seven million copies, whereas the 1879 edition sold sixty million copies. (5) One writer claimed, "Professor William McGuffey, who died in 1873, would not have recognized the 1879 Readers." (6) McGuffey had become a successful brand name - more complicated than the simple attribution of a lone author. Several historians credit energetic advertising and expert revising as crucial components in the readers' success. (7) One might just as plausibly point to Winthrop B. Smith, the original publisher, or Obed Jay Wilson, who was responsible for the 1857 revision, or Henry Vail, who made the 1879 revisions, to explain the readers' success. (8)

Nevertheless, McGuffeyites gave disproportionate credit to McGuffey because they believed that great men shaped history. Following the Chronology, the section on Hero Worship explores this belief.

(1) Rodabaugh.
(2) Smith, William Holmes McGuffey Museum website.
(3) Ruggles, 129.
(4) Cram, 242.
(5) Berger, "Nothing Comes From Nowhere."
(6) Pick.
(7) Scully, 70; Vail, 65; Sullivan, William Holmes McGuffey, 140.
(8) Minnich, 86-7.
Image courtesy of the Smith Library of Regional History.