Feb 4, 2019 2 min read

McGuffey reader

William Holmes McGuffey (1800-1873) was born near Claysville, and became a “roving” teacher in Ohio at the age of 14, teaching all grade levels in one-room schoolhouses. Between teaching jobs, he received a classical education, graduating from Washington & Jefferson College. McGuffey compiled and edited the series of four readers as primers for grade levels one through six. The readers emphasized developing reading skills, spelling, vocabulary and formal public speaking. The readers brought about the first mass-educated and mass-literate generation in the modern world.

The content of the readers changed drastically between the 1836-37 edition and the 1879 edition. McGuffey’s curriculum, based on his Presbyterian Calvinist beliefs, was revised to meet the needs of a more pluralistic, melting pot America.

In 1933, Henry Ford cited the readers as one of his most important childhood influences and published later editions, at his own expense, to be distributed to schools across the United States. In 1934, Ford had the log cabin where McGuffey was born moved to Greenfield Village, Ford’s Museum of Americana, at Dearborn, Mich.

It is estimated that 120 million readers were sold between 1836 and 1960. Since then, they continue to sell at a rate of 30,000 a year.

Alice Burroughs volunteers for Washington County Historical Society and is a member of the antiquities committee.