William Holmes McGuffey 18001873

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William Holmes McGuffey 1800-1873
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Personal Information

• 1800 -- Born in Washington Co., Pennsylvania
• 1802 -- Moved to Tuscarawas Co., Ohio
• To 1826 -- Attended country school. Received
  special instruction at Youngstown. Attended Old
  Stone Academy. Taught school and completed
  college course at Washington College, Pa.
• 1826-36 -- Professor at Miami University where he
  wrote his Readers (first four).
• 1827 -- He was married to Harriet Spinning of
  Dayton, Ohio. Five children were born of this
  union. Mrs. Harriet Spinning McGuffey died in
  1850.
• 1829 -- Ordained at Bethel Chapel minister in the
  Presbyterian Church.
• 1836-39 -- President of Cincinnati College where
  he added to his fame as a distinguished teacher
  and lecturer.
• 1839-43 -- President of Ohio University. He here
  justly assumed leadership as a thinker and
  lecturer in philosophy.
• 1843-45 -- President of Woodward College in
  Cincinnati.
• 1845-73 -- Professor of Philosophy at the
  University of Virginia. Though a Northerner, no
  hint of disapproval of his views has been found.
  He became much loved by the Virginians. He was
  especially kind to the African-Americans and the
  poor.
• 1851 -- He married his second wife, Miss Laura
  Howard, daughter of Dean Howard of the University
  of Virginia. One child was born of this union.
  She died when four years of age.
• 1873 -- He died after brief illness. His grave
  and that of his second wife are in the university
  burying ground, Charlottesville, Virginia.

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Education

• From 1820 to 1825 McGuffey attended Washington
  College. His funds ran so low that he had to
  leave school before graduation to open a private
  school in a smokehouse at Paris, Kentucky.
  Washington College, however, graduated him with
  honors in 1826. He was then considered qualified
  to teach moral philosophy and the Latin, Greek,
  and Hebrew languages. Robert Hamilton Bishop,
  President of Miami University at Oxford, Ohio,
  met the young teacher in Paris, and was so
  pleased with him that he recommended him to his
  Board of Trustees as a professor of languages.
  The following fall, William H. McGuffey,
  accompanied by his ten-year-old brother
  Alexander, rode into Oxford with his saddlebags
  stuffed with personal copies of books on moral
  philosophy and the languages he expected to teach.

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Employment History

• Roving Teacher at 14yrs. Old
• Prof. Of Lang. At Miami University
• President of Cincinnati College
• President of Ohio University
• Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University
  of Virginia
• Helped establish public schools in Ohio and
  Virginia

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Holmes McGuffey

• Compiled the McGuffey Electric Readers and sold
  130 mill from 1836-1960
• Taught an estimated billion people to read
• Elected into the Reading Hall of Fame in 2000