Oxford in Butler County, Ohio — The American Midwest (Great Lakes)
William Holmes McGuffey House
Photographed By William Fischer, Jr., August 3, 2009
1. William Holmes McGuffey House Marker (Side A)
Inscription.
William Holmes McGuffey House. . 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 and by 1920 sold an estimated 122 million copies, reshaping American public school curriculum and becoming one of the nation's most influential publications., McGuffey lived at this site in a small frame house in 1828, and in 1833 built this brick home in the Federal vernacular style common to the area. The west wing was added about 1860 in the first of a series of renovations typical of nineteenth-century domestic architecture in the Miami Valley. From the 1850s to 1958 several Oxford families owned the property. At the Miami University Sesquicentennial in 1958, the University purchased the house 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. It exhibits such unique artifacts as the octagonal table upon which the McGuffey Eclectic Reader was designed and the lectern McGuffey used as professor of Ancient Languages and Literature and University Librarian.
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 and by 1920 sold an estimated 122 million copies, reshaping American public school curriculum and becoming one of the nation's most influential publications.
McGuffey lived at this site in a small frame house in 1828, and in 1833 built this brick home in the Federal vernacular style common to the area. The west wing was added about 1860 in the first of a series of renovations typical of nineteenth-century domestic architecture in the Miami Valley. From the 1850s to 1958 several Oxford families owned the property. At the Miami University Sesquicentennial in 1958, the University purchased the house from the Wallace P. Roudebush family, and it was endowed by Emma Gould Blocker to serve as a museum of University history
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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. It exhibits such unique artifacts as the octagonal table upon which the McGuffey Eclectic Reader was designed and the lectern McGuffey used as professor of Ancient Languages and Literature and University Librarian.
Erected 2002 by Ohio Bicentennial Commission, The Longaberger Company, Miami University, and The Ohio Historical Society. (Marker Number 14-9.)
Location. 39° 30.427′ N, 84° 44.15′ W. Marker is in Oxford, Ohio, in Butler County. Marker is at the intersection of Spring Street and Oak Street, on the right when traveling east on Spring Street. Touch for map. Marker is at or near this postal address: 410 East Spring Street, Oxford OH 45056, United States of America. Touch for directions.
Also see . . . William Holmes McGuffey. (Submitted on November 2, 2009, by William Fischer, Jr. of Scranton, Pennsylvania.)
Photographed By William Fischer, Jr., August 3, 2009
3. McGuffey House National Historic Landmark Marker
Photographed By William Fischer, Jr., August 3, 2009
4. William Holmes McGuffey House and Marker
Credits. This page was last revised on November 29, 2019. It was originally submitted on November 2, 2009, by William Fischer, Jr. of Scranton, Pennsylvania. This page has been viewed 2,233 times since then and 12 times this year. Photos:1, 2, 3, 4. submitted on November 2, 2009, by William Fischer, Jr. of Scranton, Pennsylvania.