William Holmes McGuffey

William Holmes McGuffey (September 23, 1800 – May 4, 1873) was an American college professor and president who is best known for writing the McGuffey Readers, the first widely used series of elementary school-level textbooks. More than 120 million copies of McGuffey Readers were sold between 1836 and 1960, placing its sales in a category with the Bible and Webster's Dictionary.

Early years Greersburg Academy, a college preparation academy in Darlington, Pennsylvania. William Holmes McGuffey, born September 23, 1800, was the son of Alexander and Anna (Holmes) McGuffey near Claysville in West Finley Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania, which is 45 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. His family, who had strong opinions about education and religion, immigrated from Scotland to the United States in 1774. His students generally brought their Bibles, because there were few textbooks at that time. He taught children from the age of six to twenty-one. He taught in frontier schools, often eleven hours a day and six days a week.

Career and life William H. McGuffey House in Oxford, Ohio. It is a museum and National Historic Landmark. McGuffey left Washington College in 1826 to become a professor of ancient languages at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. In 1832, he was transferred to the chair of moral philosophy. The McGuffey home while he was president of Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. In 1836, he left Miami to become president of Cincinnati College, where he also served as a distinguished teacher and lecturer. He left Cincinnati in 1839 to become the 4th president of Ohio University, which he left in 1843 to become president of what was then called the Woodward Free Grammar School in Cincinnati, one of the country's earliest public schools.

From 1843 to 1845, he was a professor in Woodward College in Cincinnati. While in Cincinnati he began the preparation of an "Eclectic" series of readers and spellers, which became popular, and have been many times revised and reissued. From 1845 till his death, he occupied the chair of moral philosophy and political economy in the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. (Although McGuffey was born in Pennsylvania and raised in Ohio, two free states which had abolished slavery, Virginia was at that time still a slave state.) According to anthropologist Benjamin Ford in Educated in Tyranny: Slavery at Thomas Jefferson's University, McGuffey and his first wife Harriet "did not embrace slavery".

Influences McGuffey was Henry Ford's favorite author and was always proud of his exposure to McGuffey's teachings, which "reinforced an ordered, rigid, and straightforward view of the world where white was white and black was black".

Legacy Named for William Holmes McGuffey's influential primers that first appeared in 1836 and remained in print until 1921, the McGuffey longevity awards recognize long-lived, still-in-use textbooks of excellence.

Places named after McGuffey: The William H. McGuffey Primary School in Charlottesville, VA bears his name. The historic building is currently an artist-run cooperative arts center, currently known as the McGuffey Art Center. Enslaved workers of University of Virginia faculty, including the McGuffey household, lived in McGuffey Cottage, which is preserved behind Pavilion IX at the University of Virginia. McGuffey High School and Middle School in Claysville, Pennsylvania. In 1998, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission installed a historical marker noting McGuffey's historic importance.

Ohio University's Department of University Advancement is housed in a building named McGuffey Hall. At Miami University, McGuffey Hall is a large academic building home to several education-related departments. The university ran the McGuffey Laboratory School from 1910 until 1983 on its campus. When the school closed, some of the parents started The William Holmes McGuffey School Foundation which operates an independent progressive school in Oxford called the McGuffey Foundation School. The school was later renamed the McGuffey Montessori School. The McGuffey School District in Washington County, Pennsylvania is named for William Holmes McGuffey. The McGuffey Wildlife Preserve in Coitsville, Ohio, is named for William Holmes McGuffey