Textbooks

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In the first half of the nineteenth century, most American girls and boys in the northern states came to study elementary arithmetic in school, often under women teachers. Arithmetic had previously been taught largely to boys beginning careers in business, frequently by the same writing masters who taught them handwriting. Teaching devices that became common after about 1820 included inexpensive textbooks. Several textbooks that survive in the collections were signed by the girls who owned them.

Smith's Second Book of Arithmetic. Practical and Mental Arithmetic, On a New Plan, in Which Mental Arthmetic is Combined With The Use of the Slate...by Roswell C. Smith.

First published in 1827, by the time of this 1850 edition, this volume sold as Smith's Second Book of Arithmetic.
Description
First published in 1827, by the time of this 1850 edition, this volume sold as Smith's Second Book of Arithmetic. Practical and Mental Arithmetic on a new plan, in which mental arithmetic is Combined With The Use of the Slate: containing Complete System for All Practical Purposes being in dollars and cents...A Practical System of Book-keeping. The book, by Roswell C. Smith, contains simple math exercises in plain language with questions and answers that were devised by Smith while teaching in Providence, R.I. with his brother Asher L Smith. The cover consists of paper covered boards and the remains of a brown leather spine. This copy was published in New York. It was used in Maryland and is inscribed "Sarah Lee Brandenburg, February 22, An 1855."
Roswell Chamberlain Smith (1797-1875) was brought up in Connecticut with his brother Asher L. Smith. While his first edition received praise, the second edition 15 months later resulted in controversy and an 1881 claim by Professor Daniel Adams of Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, that some of the changes “had been filched.” Smith also wrote grammar, geography, and other arithmetic textbooks and was a supporter of Prudence Crandall and her effort to educate African American students. He should not be confused with his namesake nephew who was a lawyer, publisher, and founder of Schribner’s Monthly Magazine and the Century Magazine.
Publisher Daniel Burgess and Company was founded in Hartford, Connecticut in 1830 by Daniel Burgess (1804-1856), who planned to provide textbooks and reference books for the common schools. The company worked independently but also partnered with John Paine, Spaulding and Storrs, Cady. In 1844 Burgess moved to New York, where he became a deacon in Henry Ward Beecher’s Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. He retained the operation in Hartford and opened a new headquarters in New York, which remained in business until 1883.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
after 1830
ID Number
CL.69.0256
catalog number
69.0256
accession number
282107

Colburn's First Lessons. Intellectual Arithmetic Upon the Inductive Method of Instruction by Warren Colburn

Warren Colburn (1792-1833) first published a version of this path breaking arithmetic textbook in 1821, the year after he graduated from Harvard College. The text bore the title An Arithmetic on the Plan of Pestalozzi, with Some Improvements.
Description
Warren Colburn (1792-1833) first published a version of this path breaking arithmetic textbook in 1821, the year after he graduated from Harvard College. The text bore the title An Arithmetic on the Plan of Pestalozzi, with Some Improvements. A revision and an extension appeared the following year, and by 1826 the volume had proved sufficiently popular to be known by the name of its author, the title being Colburn's First Lessons. Intellectual Arithmetic, Upon the Inductive Method of Instruction. This copy of the text, copyrighted in 1833 (the year Colburn died), was published in 1847 by William J. Reynolds Company of Boston. The volume has stiff paper covers held together by a like brown calfskin spine. The front has title and publication information and the back “RECOMMENDATIONS” from readers. Additional advertisements are included at the front on the book. Script on the front flyleaf gives the name of the student, "Julia Giddings / Mystic / Conn." and on the inside back cover "Julia Ann Giddings", both in ink.
Colburn, like the Swiss educator J.H. Pestalozzi, firmly believed that young girls and boys could and should learn do arithmetic in their heads (intellectually, as his title put it) even before they learned to write. Most previous formal arithmetic instruction in the U.S., including that Colburn had received at district schools in Massachusetts and from a private tutor, focused on working problems needed in trade. Those with the resources to attend these schools learned to write out problems by rote in handwritten cipher or cypher books.
Colburn did sufficiently well to obtain employment in factories in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and then entered Harvard College in 1816. Both as a student and after graduation, Colburn taught, particularly in mathematics. He was one of the founders of the American Institute of Instruction, which trained young teachers prior to the Civil War and the later development of normal school training of teachers. He also gave popular lectures and published other textbooks. in written arithmetic, in algebra, and in reading and grammar. None of these proved as popular as the First Lessons. In 1824, Colburn resumed his career in manufacturing, this time in the mills of Lowell, Massachusetts.
William J. Reynolds & Co. were Boston publishers in the 1840’s and 1850’s.
Location
Currently not on view
date published
1847
author
Colburn, Warren
ID Number
ZZ.RSN82667U31

Greenleaf’s New Primary Arithmetic, Embracing Mental and Written Exercises, For Beginners by Benjamin Greenleaf

Greenleaf’s New Primary Arithmetic, Embracing Mental and Written Exercises, For Beginners is designed to introduce analytical reasoning and the fundamentals of arithmetic to primary school students.
Description
Greenleaf’s New Primary Arithmetic, Embracing Mental and Written Exercises, For Beginners is designed to introduce analytical reasoning and the fundamentals of arithmetic to primary school students. Each lesson plan is centered on everyday objects and activities and incorporates related illustrations. The book has 104 pages. The green front cover depicts a 19th Century schoolboy reclining in a meadow while practicing his arithmetic lessons. The pastoral scene includes a house and church steeple in the background. The rear cover lists the names of other texts in the Greenleaf’s Series. The inside front cover page contains a handwritten inscription by the owner: “Grace M. Hackett,/ Shurborough,/ Vermont,/ 1889.”
Benjamin Greenleaf (1786-1864) was a prominent American educator and author. He graduated from Dartmouth with an M.A. in 1813. He served as the Preceptor of Bradford Academy in Vermont. Greenleaf was a celebrated writer of early mathematics textbooks. He also served in the Massachusetts state legislature from 1837-1839.
Leech, Shewell and Sanborn, based in Boston, was a distinguished 19th Century publisher of textbooks, atlases, and literary works.
date made
circa 1880
maker
Greenleaf, Benjamin
Leach Shewell and Sanborn
ID Number
2017.3049.38
nonaccession number
2017.3049
catalog number
2017.3049.38

Book, Ray's Test Examples: Three Thousand Test Examples in Arithmetic

This book is dated 1862, but it was first published at least as early as 1858. It may have been prepared by Joseph Ray before his death in 1855. Test Examples was to be an accompaniment to the third volume of Ray's arithmetic textbooks.
Description
This book is dated 1862, but it was first published at least as early as 1858. It may have been prepared by Joseph Ray before his death in 1855. Test Examples was to be an accompaniment to the third volume of Ray's arithmetic textbooks. The content is evenly balanced between computations and story problems. Despite the historical interpretation of Ray as playing a role in education similar to William McGuffey's, these exercises do not appear to impart moral lessons. Nonetheless, there are some subjects of interest in the story problems, from the mixture of medicines-including morphine-on page 41 to determining the price of beer on page 44 to more artificial topics such as adding together the fractions of a book read by a student over the course of a year on page 63. Another oddity is that, in the sections on finance, there are considerably more problems dealing with selling land or goods at a loss than with calculating a monetary gain.
This copy was electrotyped; that is, a wax mold of the type was dusted with graphite to impart an electrical charge and then coated with copper to make the final form. The boards of this book were covered with a paper lithograph rather than with leather. Although it is now very worn, the lithograph originally depicted a student performing multiplication at the blackboard before three other students and his male teacher. Everyone is holding a textbook.
This copy was signed by Burke Corbet and Myrta Corbett and stamped by German Snyder. There is a hand-drawn map of the western United States inside the front cover. There are childish scribbles, pencil marks of particular problems, and penciled answers throughout the book but especially after page 100. Pages 133-134 have been torn out; the lower half of pages 135-136 is missing.
Nineteenth century school children (and their parents) bout the textbooks they used and signed their names in them. Sometimes these were used – perhaps inherited from an older brother or sister. Census and other data suggests that these were Pennsylvania native Myrta Corbet (or Corbett -1857-1918) and her older brother Burke Corbett. A third signature is that of German Snyder – perhaps the New York state resident by that name who lived from 1869 to 1952.
See also 1986.3060.01.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1862
author
Ray, Joseph
publisher
Wilson Hinkle & Co.
ID Number
1982.3001.05
catalog number
1982.3001.05
nonaccession number
1982.3001

White's A Complete Arithmetic: Uniting Mental and Written Exercises in a Natural System of Instruction by Emerson Elbridge White

Author Emerson Elbridge White claimed he created White's A Complete Arithmetic: Uniting Mental and Written Exercises in a Natural System of Instruction to challenge the mind in a practical and philosophical manner.
Description
Author Emerson Elbridge White claimed he created White's A Complete Arithmetic: Uniting Mental and Written Exercises in a Natural System of Instruction to challenge the mind in a practical and philosophical manner. He summarized his work by stating that it was designed for students who had already mastered the elements of numbers. This 340-page hardbound grade school arithmetic text was used by Margaret Bacon Short in Illinois.
Emerson Elbridge White (1829-1902) was a native of Ohio. Educated at the Edinburg Academy and the University of Cleveland, he became the Superintendent of the Public Schools of Portsmouth, Ohio in 1856 and State Commissioner of Common Schools in 1863, as well as President of the Ohio Teachers Association. Three years later he was President of the National Superintendents Association and by 1872 he was President of the National Education Association. From 1876 to 1883 he was President of Purdue University and 1884-1886, he was president of the National Council of Education.
This book was published in 1870 in Cincinnati, Ohio by Wilson & Hinkle Co. which owned the copyright. This firm had been established toward the end of the Civil War to produce schoolbooks for the west and south out of Cincinnati as Sargent, Wilson & Hinkle Co. By 1866, Louis Van Antwerp, had joined the firm but in 1868 Mr. Sargent retired so the firm dissolved and is reformed as Wilson & Hinkle Co. By 1871, Caleb S. Bragg has joined the firm but when Wilson and the senior Hinkle retired in 1877, the company changed its name to Van Antwerp, Bragg & Company. Later editions of this book were published under this name. They took on more partners and began publishing in New York as well but by 1890 they had sold out to the American Book Company.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1870
user
Short, Margaret Bacon
ID Number
1979.0457.01
accession number
1979.0457
catalog number
1979.0457.01

Robinson's Progressive Primary Arithmetic, For Primary Classes in Public and Private Schools by Horatio N. Robinson

Robinson’s Progressive Primary Arithmetic for Primary Classes in Public and Private Schools is part of Robinson’s Series of Mathematics, and contains simple lessons for young children on addition, subtraction, multiplication, and fractions.
Description
Robinson’s Progressive Primary Arithmetic for Primary Classes in Public and Private Schools is part of Robinson’s Series of Mathematics, and contains simple lessons for young children on addition, subtraction, multiplication, and fractions. The lessons consist largely of word and practical problems, some with illustrations on currency and measurements. The book is 80 pages, with a tan front cover has a black and white illustration of a girl reading and a boy playing with numbered cards, while their mother watches over them. The back cover lists other textbooks in the American Educational Series for "schools and colleges" by the same publisher. This book is inscribed presubably by the student in script inside front cover and title page "Luella May Weirick." in graphite and ink. Additional marks throughout text such as the name Carrie Jane Hoffman on the top of page 44. There is also a partial legible inscription inside back cover about Kissing Mr...
The creator of this series is Horatio Nelson Robinson (1806-1867), mathematician. He attended common school as a child; at 16 he developed astronomical calculations for an almanac. He attended the College of New Jersey at Princeton at age 19, and then became a professor of mathematics at the Naval Academy. Robinson wrote his first math textbook in 1847 and followed it up with numerous other textbooks. He received an honorary A.M. degree from the College of New Jersey at Princeton in 1836.
Daniel W. Fish (1820-1899) was the prolific editor of this text, and numerous others on arithmetic for primary school students and teachers alike.
This volume was published by Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co. in 1873. Founder Henry Ivison (1808-1884) was one of the pioneers of the schoolbook industry in America. The business he established in New York City grew and prospered under several partnerships, with the name of Ivison always at the head of the firm. Intense competition in the American textbook industry caused several of the leading publishing houses to join forces. In 1890, the consolidation of Ivison, Blakeman and Co., Van Antwerp, Bragg and Co., A.S. Barnes & Co., and D. Appleton and Co. resulted in the creation of a new corporation known as the American Book Company.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1881
ID Number
DL.62.0299B
catalog number
62.0299B
accession number
240815

Book, The Normal Elementary Arithmetic

By the mid-nineteenth century, with the expansion of public elementary schools (common schools), some reformers advocated better formal education for teachers.
Description
By the mid-nineteenth century, with the expansion of public elementary schools (common schools), some reformers advocated better formal education for teachers. They noted the establishment of "Écoles normales" of normal schools in France and similar institutions in Prussia and parts of Great Britain. Philanthropic individuals, state legislatures, and teachers established a range of public and private normal schools, most of which enrolled female students. Ambitious educators found positions teaching and administering such institutions, and authoring suitable textbooks. One of them was Edward Brooks (1831-1912). Brooks had little formal education, having attended one session of Liberty Normal Institute in New York state and continued his studies briefly at the University of Northern Pennsylvania. There he quickly was made part of the faculty. From 1855 to 1883, Brooks was associated with newly established Pennsylvania State Normal School at Millersville (now Millersville University). He began as a professor and became president of the institution. At Millersville, Brooks wrote a sefies of mathematics textbooks for normal school students on such topics as arithmetic (several textbooks, from 1858), geometry (from 1865), and algebra (from 1874). He also would publish more general pedagogical works and volumes on teaching reading, elocution, and music. He also would be granted an honorary master's degree and honorary doctorates.
This particular book is the 1899 printing of the revised edition of Brooks' The Normal Elementary Arithmetic. . . . The first version of the book had appeared in 1866 and the revision is copyrighted 1888. The introduction provides suggestions for teachers. Brooks believed that study of his book would not train the pupil "to labor like a machine" but rather "teach pupils to think as well as to work problems." The volume includes an appendix on the metric system.
The book is signed in ink inside the front cover: Mary Donnelly. Unfortunately, there is no information about where she lived.
References:
"Edward Brooks," National Cyclopedia of American Biography, vol. 1, p. 423-424.
Geraldine J. Clifford, Those Good Gertrudes: A Social History of Women Teachers in America, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014, esp. 178-187.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1899
author
Brooks, Edward
publisher
Christopher Sowell Co.
ID Number
1982.3001.08
catalog number
1982.3001.08
nonaccession number
1982.3001

A Practical Arithmetic by George Albert Wentworth

A Practical Arithmetic by George Albert Wentworth is a 372-page mathematics textbook has a brown cover and a reddish binding. This copy was published by Ginn & Company in 1899. The title was originally published by 1881.
Description
A Practical Arithmetic by George Albert Wentworth is a 372-page mathematics textbook has a brown cover and a reddish binding. This copy was published by Ginn & Company in 1899. The title was originally published by 1881. The book contains a vocabulary list; notation examples; word problems; and examples for short processes of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, money, measurements, and percentages. At the end of the book are forty-one pages of answers. Inside the front cover is a graphite signature by "Ella W. King." The front and back endpapers are inscribed with equations and fractions, and a folded piece of lined paper handwritten with 10 "Arithmetic" problems is inserted between pages 306 and 307. There is also an inscription which reads “Arithmetic Varian, Harold.”
George Albert Wentworth (1835-1906) was an author of numerous math textbooks. He was born in Wakefield, New Hampshire and received elementary training in the district school and the local academy in Wakefield. In 1852 he entered Phillips Exeter Academy and later attended Harvard, graduating in 1858.
Edwin Ginn founded the publishing company Ginn Brothers in the City of Boston in 1867. The firm was reorganized under the name Ginn & Company in 1885 and became particularly known for its school texts. In 1895, the company built a new publishing factory, the Athenaeum Press, in Cambridge. Ginn & Company continued to be a successful publisher of educational texts for 70 years.
Location
Currently not on view
date published
1899
author
Wentworth, G. A. (George Albert)
publisher
Ginn and Company
ID Number
ZZ.RSN82667U27

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