William Holmes McGuffey House and Museum

The William Holmes McGuffey House is a house museum located on the campus of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. It is dedicated the legacy of William McGuffey and his contributions to the field of education. The house was built in 1833 and served as McGuffey’s home while he was a faculty member at the university. McGuffey was living in the house when he compiled the first edition of his famed McGuffey Electric Reader. The Reader was an educational book meant to teach lessons in reading and spelling. The book was a success and had a substantial impact on how reading was taught in the United States and by 1920 nearly 122 million copies had been sold.

William Holmes McGuffey was born in 1800, to Alexander and Anna McGuffey of Washington county, Pennsylvania. As a child, he spent most of his time in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. He was exposed to the world of education very early at the behest of his mother. She made sure the young boy received a thorough education with the hope he would go on and join the clergy. This began his life-long connection to education. Later, a passing reverend, Thomas E. Hughs, happened upon McGuffey and allowed they boy to board with him and attend “Old Stone Academy. There he received the prerequisite education he needed to pass teacher examinations. As a result, McGuffey was able to start teaching at just fourteen. This was the start of career that lasted the rest of his life.

Between 1820 and 1826, McGuffey attended Washington College in Pennsylvania. During breaks he taught elementary school back in Paris, Kentucky to earn the money he needed for school. In 1825, when dwindling finances forced him to briefly withdraw from college, he started a private school in to earn the money to finish his college education. He returned to Washington College and graduated with honors in 1826. With his degree in hand, he was qualified to teach philosophy, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Shortly thereafter he was given a position as a professor of languages at Miami University. He moved to Oxford shortly after accepting the job. Life in Oxford went well for McGuffey, he married Harriet Spinning in 1827. The newly-weds spent the start of their marriage boarding out of a cramped house in Oxford. Unhappy with this state of living, McGuffey purchased a small tract of land on the edge of the university and built a house on it. In 1833, McGuffey expanded his house by adding a two-story brick house to the same lot. This lot is the same lot where the museum sits today.

While living in the house, McGuffey began developing a new method for teaching children to read. The end result was the McGuffey Eclectic Reader. The first four of the series were created while he lived in Oxford. These books contained reading and spelling lessons as well as high quality illustrations that helped capture the attention of children across the nation. Each subsequent edition of the Reader was meant to be more challenging than the previous, in order to foster growth. The Reader was meant to educate children beyond the basics of reading and spelling too. They contained passages about good ethics and behavior meant to instill religious values into the children learning from them. The Reader was an immense success and outsold all other textbooks during the nineteenth century. The book was used in schools across the United States between 1830 and 1920, before it was replaced by newer textbooks. However, the Reader still finds some use today in some homeschooling curriculums. To date, nearly 130 million copies of the Reader have been printed. The book is inextricably part of McGuffey’s legacy.

McGuffey’s career continued after the publication of the Reader. In 1836, resigned from his position at Miami to serve as president at the University of Cincinnati. When the university began to suffer financial hardships in 1839, McGuffey left and became the president of Ohio University. While serving he continually clashed with townsfolk and ultimately left the university when the university’s budget was slashed. He left Ohio University in 1843 and by 1845 he was teaching moral philosophy at the University of Virginia. This would be his final position, and he would work here until his death in 1873. His career was propelled by the success of the Reader, but he had an impact beyond it.

Since 1960, the McGuffey House and Museum has been displaying artifacts and educating the public on the life and impact of William Holmes McGuffey. Many relics from McGuffey’s time at Miami University are contained by the house museum. Notably, his famous octagonal desk where he wrote his first four Readers is a centerpiece of the museum’s collection. The building itself is also of historical note. It is the second oldest building on Miami University’s campus. The current structure was first built in 1833 as an addition to McGuffey’s first home on the property. The house is built in the Federal Vernacular architectural style that was common in Ohio between 1790 and 1840. After McGuffey left Oxford, the property and house was owned by various Oxford-area families until 1958 when the university purchased the property. While the house was owned by other families, it underwent several renovations and upgrades. In 1860 an additional wing was added and in 1866 and 1905 the house was modified. After Miami University purchased the house it was endowed as a museum dedicated to the legacy of McGuffey. In 1966 it was added to the National Registry of Historic Places. The accompanying historical marker highlights the widespread impact of McGuffey and his Eclectic Reader.

Smith, William E.. W. H. McGuffey, McGuffey House and Museum. Accessed November 18th 2021. https://www.miamioh.edu/cca/mcguffey-museum/wh-mcguffey/.

William Holmes McGuffey, Kentucky History. Accessed November 18th 2021. https://explorekyhistory.ky.gov/items/show/448.

William Holmes McGuffey House, The Historical Marker Database. November 29th 2019. Accessed November 18th 2021. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=24012.