William Holmes McGuffey House photograph   Save
Works Progress Administration, Ohio Guide Photographs
Description: This photograph shows the front of the William Holmes McGuffey House, located in Oxford, Ohio. William Holmes McGuffey (1800-1873) was a Miami University faculty member in 1836 when he compiled the first edition of the McGuffey Eclectic Reader in this house. His Reader taught lessons in reading, spelling, and civic education by using memorable stories of honesty, hard work, thrift, personal respect, and moral and ethical standards alongside illustrative selections from literary works. The six-edition series increased in difficulty and was developed with the help of his brother Alexander Hamilton McGuffey. After the Civil War the Readers were the basic schoolbooks in thirty-seven states. By 1920 an estimated 122 million copies had been sold, reshaping American public school curriculum and becoming one of the nation's most influential publications. McGuffey built this brick home in 1833. In 1958, Miami University purchased it from the Wallace P. Roudebush family, and it was endowed by Emma Gould Blocker to serve as a museum of University history in honor of McGuffey's legacy. The museum opened to the public in 1960, and the house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966. This image of the McGuffey House was among the photographs produced by the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) between 1935 and 1943. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06390
Subjects: McGuffey, William Holmes, 1800-1873; Architecture--Ohio; Oxford (Ohio); McGuffey readers; United States. Work Progress Administration; National Historic Landmarks Program (U.S.)
Places: Oxford (Ohio); Butler County (Ohio)