The Cambridge Manual Training School for Boys was founded in 1888 by philanthropist, textile merchant, and real estate developer Frederick Hastings Rindge (1857-.1905). Cambridge had a long history of primary and then secondary education. In 1892 Cambridge English High School moved to a new building on land presented by Rindge and after a remodeling, the Manual training School moved to their old building along with Cambridge Latin School. In 1899 the school was renamed Rindge Technical School and Rindge had retired to a huge ranch on land that is currently Malibu, California.
The Cambridge Manual Training School for Boys presents a detailed account of the facilities and educational philosophy of the school. The fields of study offered included wood working, forging, mechanical drawing, and iron working. There was also a training program for a fire brigade. This 19th Century pamphlet includes 29 pages of text + 30 additional pages of black and white photographs. Tuition for sons of Cambridge citizens was free with an incidental charge of $3-$5 for drill suit, locker, and toilet articles. Non-residents were charged $150 a year. Admission requirements included an ability to read, write, spell, a command of grammar 5 and a good knowledge of history, geography, and arithmetic.
Author C. W. Parmenter (1852-1940) was a leading educator and authority on industrial education. He was the principal of the Mechanic Arts High School of Boston, Massachusetts for many years. Parmenter served as the President of the Boston Principals’ Association. As a prominent community leader, he was also a member of the Twentieth Century Club and the Boston City Club.
The Harvard Printing Company was an early publishing house based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
This textbook presents the terms and issues related to educational psychology. The author’s aim is to maintain a “strictly experimental, scientific viewpoint.” As such, he dwells less on topics of instinct and imagery, and includes then-new topics such as intelligence tests (e.g., Binet-Simon and Stanford) and the transference of training in school subjects. It also includes a discussion on gender education differences, such as was understood in the 1920s.
Author Daniel Starch (1883-1979) was a pioneer of modern marketing and consumer research. He received an M.A. degree (1904) and a PhD. in psychology (1906) from the State University of Iowa. Starch was a professor of experimental psychology at the University of Wisconsin (1908-1919) and professor of business psychology at Harvard (1920-1926). His Educational Psychology (1919) was the most widely used text in the field for many years.
In 1923, he founded the business consulting firm of Daniel Starch & Staff, which became the largest in its field in the country. Among his groundbreaking studies was one in 1926 that advanced the principle of stabilization in determining the size of samples in research. His market research techniques had a major influence on advertising.
Macmillan was founded in London in 1843 by Daniel and Alexander MacMillan, two brothers from Scotland. George Edward Brett opened the first Macmillan office in the United States in 1869. Macmillan later sold its U.S. operations to the Brett family in 1896, resulting in the creation of an American company, Macmillan Publishing, also called the Macmillan Company. In 1998, Pearson acquired the Macmillan name in America, following its purchase of the Simon & Schuster educational and professional group (which included various Macmillan properties).
Today, Macmillan is a global trade publishing company operating in over 70 countries, with imprints in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, and India. Macmillan is a division of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, which purchased it in 2001. McGraw-Hill continues to market its pre-kindergarten through elementary school titles under its Macmillan/McGraw-Hill brand.
Go Bob’s Little Reader is a mid-19th Century compilation of readings which emphasizes selections from American authors, both in prose and poetry. The editor’s goal was to correct the perceived imbalance in widely used readers of the time which emphasized British authors.
Lyman Cobb (1800-1864) was an influential author and editor of children’s readers and other textbooks. He attended the local public schools in Massachusetts and became a teacher upon graduation. After moving to New York City, he devoted himself to editing and publishing textbooks, chiefly in spelling, reading, and arithmetic. His widely used works included Go Bob’s Little Reader and Cobb’s Spelling Book. Besides children’s textbooks, he published The Evil Tendencies of Corporal Punishment in 1847. His arguments were adopted by leaders of the reform movement in American public schools.
This turn of the 20th Century textbook on physiology and introduction to comparative anatomy contains numerous illustrations, most in black and white in154 pages. An additional 6 pages feature advertisements. The front cover is illustrated with an elaborate brown floral pattern. The back cover is imprinted with the publisher’s insignia containing a lit torch, an open book, and eagle’s wings.
Jeannette Winter Hall was an early American author born in 1860 in Cicero, Illinois after her parents immigrated from England. She was a prolific author of textbooks on hygiene and physiology for the lower grades. In addition to guiding teachers, her books were designed to assist parents with the education of their children. Besides The New Century Primer of Hygiene for Fourth Year Pupils (1901), her works include: New Century Series of Anatomy, Physiology and Hygiene (1918); A Manual of Sex Hygiene (1913); and Girlhood and Its Problems: The Sex Life of Woman (1914).
Her frequent co-author was husband Dr. Winfield Scott Hall, a professor of physiology at Northwestern University. Together they were American pioneers in the field of sex education.
The American Book Company was an educational book publisher formed in 1890 and based in New York City that specialized in elementary school, secondary school, and collegiate-level textbooks. The company was absorbed into D. C. Heath in 1981. Any remaining K-12 assets of the American Book Company were acquired by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 1995.
School Reading By Grades: Baldwin Readers Fourth and Fifth Year by James Baldwin is a literary anthology designed to teach proper grammar and vocabulary, as well as to cultivate a taste for literature and appeal to the student’s sense of duty and patriotism. A further goal with this text was to expand knowledge of history, science, and art. Authors include William Blake, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Daniel Webster, and Charles Dickens. One story is titled “The English Slave Boys in Rome” and describes how St. Augustine supposedly converted the 6th Century English to Christianity. The Biblical parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son are also included. It makes an interesting comparison to 20th and 21st Century literary textbooks for this age group.
The 4th and 5th year texts are separated from each other, but bound together in one book. The 4th reader includes a story on the Declaration of Independence and features a black and white engraving of the 1817 John Trumbull painting of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence that was done by engraver E. Heineman and graphic artist E. H. Sison.
The book contains 208 pages and many black and white illustrations. The front cover features an elaborate floral border. The back cover is imprinted with the printer’s insignia of a lit torch, an open book, and eagle’s wings. The inside front cover page is stamped “Property of East Hempfield School District No. 3.” The reference could be to the town of the same name in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Student Mazie K. Baker inscribed on the front page of the book.
James Baldwin (1841-1925) was a leading educator, editor, and author of children’s textbooks on reading. After teaching in the local schools, he established one of the first graded school systems in Indiana in 1870. He also established a library for the use of his pupils that became a model for the state. Baldwin served as the Superintendent of Schools for Huntington, Indiana from 1873-1883. He became an assistant editor of Harper’s periodicals and later joined the editorial department of the American Book Company in New York. Besides compiling several series of standard readers, he authored over 50 books on a variety of subjects.
The American Book Company was an educational book publisher formed in 1890 and based in New York City that specialized in elementary school, secondary school, and collegiate-level textbooks. The company was absorbed into D. C. Heath in 1981. Any remaining K-12 assets of the American Book Company were acquired by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 1995.
Story Hour Readings Sixth Year by Ernest Clark Hartwell is an anthology of short stories, poems, and essays on a variety of topics dealing with history, civics, and geography. In addition to drills in reading and vocabulary, the selections were chosen to promote high standards of character and citizenship for a sixth grade student. Selections come from literary authors, statesmen, and distinguished citizens; and range from Oliver Wendell Holmes to William Shakespeare. It contains a poem about the Civil War, the Gettysburg Address, the Concord Hymn by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and a story about Valley Forge. The brown cover depicts a schoolboy in short pants reading outside in a garden. The inside front and back cover sheets are stamped: “Property of Vocational School, Conneautville, PA.” The date 1927 is handwritten.
Ernest Clark Hartwell (1883-1965) was a progressive school administrator, author, and editor of history textbooks. He graduated from Albion College with a B.A. in education in 1905 and earned an M.A. from the University of Michigan in 1910. He served as the Superintendent of Schools in St. Paul, Minnesota and in Buffalo, New York. Hartwell’s efforts raised compensation for teachers and increased public funding for school construction. Before editing Story Hour Readings – Sixth Year in 1921, he authored a popular monograph to guide teachers entitled The Teaching of History (1913) which is still in print.
This well-illustrated 399 page reader benefits from the contributions of several accomplished illustrators. George Varian (1865-1923) studied art at the Brooklyn Art Guild and Art Student’s League in New York. In addition to illustrating for various magazines and books, he exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1907.
Bernard Westmacott (1887- 1940) illustrated children’s readers, as well as other books and periodicals. He was also a painter and graphic designer of posters.
Enos Benjamin Comstock (1879-1945) specialized in illustrations depicting the old American West. He was also an author and painter.
Artist Joseph Franke (1893-1933) graduated from Brooklyn Commercial High School in 1911, studied at the Art Students League of New York and graduated from the Pratt Institute of Brooklyn School of Art in 1923. By 1915, he was working as a free-lance commercial artist, illustrating primary school textbooks, and advertisements for newspapers and magazines. During the 1920s, his illustrations appeared in nationwide magazines, such as Red Book, Woman's World, Boy's Life and The American Boy.
The American Book Company was an educational book publisher formed in 1890 and based in New York City that specialized in elementary school, secondary school, and collegiate-level textbooks. The company was absorbed into D. C. Heath in 1981. Any remaining K-12 assets of the American Book Company were acquired by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 1995.
The New Grammar School History of the United States by John J. Anderson examines American history from the age of exploration through the colonial, revolutionary, and constitutional periods (organized by terms of presidents.) The book is replete with colored maps, black and white illustrations, topical questions, and a comprehensive index. Several engravings are by J.S. Stearns. The dark green front cover is illustrated with the shield of the United States. The inside front cover pages contain the handwritten entries in pencil of former owner “Lilly De Lair, Oketo, Kansas” and “Lillie De Lair, M. H. College, age 16, 1898.” The reference is likely to Mount Holyoke College, which was founded in Massachusetts in 1837. John J. Anderson (1821-1906) was an innovative educator and historian who introduced modern techniques of pedagogy into the U.S. public schools. He was educated in the New York City school system, where he served as a principal beginning in 1845. Anderson wrote an important series of school histories, which evolved out of his own experience as a teacher. In addition to New Grammar School History of the United States (1892), he wrote histories of education in England, France, and Greece. Anderson is credited with integrating narrative into the geographical sections of his histories. He was the first history textbook author to incorporate sectional maps in his text and recommend that these be reproduced by pupils. He was awarded a medal for his exhibition of books at the International Exposition in Paris in 1875. The University of the City of New York conferred a PhD upon him in 1876.
Effingham Maynard & Co. was a New York-based publishing house that specialized in elementary school textbooks on history, vocabulary, and physics. In 1893, it was consolidated with Charles E. Merrill & Co., under the corporate name of Maynard, Merrill & Company.
J.J. Little & Co. was an early American printer based in New York City. Founder Joseph J. Little was born in Bristol, England, June 5, 1841. He immigrated to the United States in 1846 with his parents. Little established a printing business in 1867 in New York City called Little, Rennie & Co. The business was highly successful in the printing of books and magazines, employing about 500 persons. The title of J. J. Little & Co. was adopted in 1876. Little was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Congress and served one term from November 1891 to March 1893. He also served as the Commissioner of Education and President of the Board of Education of New York City. Little continued in the printing business until his death in New York City on February 11, 1913.
Barteau’s New and Improved Sunday-School Secretary’s Record is an 1877 record book with entries for students’ names and class numbers. It was designed for teachers to take attendance and keep track of assignments and grades. This ledger has entries up to page 68 and then is blank until page 152; entries continue on page 197. The cover is a mottled black and white pattern.
H.D. Barteau was an active member of the North Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Nelson & Phillips, based in New York City, was a publisher of books on church history, Christianity, and missionary journeys, as well as hymnals and record books. These materials were widely used in Sunday Schools during the latter part of the 19th Century.
This charming manual contains “instructions for the cultivation and preservation of the voice and use of gestures.” It features many short selections for reading and recitation. Most of the entries are anonymous rhyming verses, indicative of what passed for conventional wisdom at the time. Some selections were reprinted from popular periodicals, such as Harper’s Young People. A few are taken from acclaimed poets (e.g., William Wordsworth) or speeches (e.g. Walter Scott).
Pages 3–16 contain delightful illustrations of a young woman in a flowing gown adopting various theatrical poses. The front cover contains a color drawing of two little girls in proper evening dress with long white gloves and fans. The back cover has a black and white illustration of five young girls musing over a book in a classroom. These illustrations were very typical of the late 19th Century.
The W. B. Conkey Company was formed in Chicago in 1877. It later built a plant in 1897 at 617 Conkey Street, Hammond, Indiana. At the time, it was one of the most modern, largest, and best equipped printing plants in the world. Conkey won the coveted commission to print the Official Directory of the World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893. It also published the very first Sears Roebuck Catalog in 1898. After the original owner and president died in 1923, his son Henry P. Conkey took over controlling interest of the company. Numerous types of catalogs and books were printed at the plant, including textbooks, biographies, encyclopedias, fiction, and Bibles. The publishing house was sold to Rand McNally in 1949.
Adventures in Reading: Treasures is a post-World War II literary anthology for young readers that stresses vocabulary and comprehension, as well as interpretation. It contains short stories, poems, and essays by great Western authors such as Pearl Buck about immigrants after the rescinding of Chinese Exclusion Act, as well as by Robert Browning, Mark Twain, and William Saroyan. There is also a Memorial Address dedicated to the battle of Iwo Jima and a story by Nevil Shute about a World War II bomber crew.
Each entry contains a short summary and analysis. There are several color illustrations. The green front cover has an illustration of a pirate and a treasure chest, probably denoting “Kidnapped” by Robert Louis Stevenson. Reading program suggestions for the teacher are at the back of the book.
Editor Dorothy Nell Knolle was a reading specialist and teacher in the El Paso Public School System. She edited a series of literary anthologies for young readers: Adventures in Reading: Treasures i (1947); Adventures in Reading: Discovery (1950); and Adventures in Reading: Exploration (1951). Dora E. Palmer was an English teacher at Wellesley High School in Massachusetts. She co-edited the successful Adventures in Reading series, which featured collections of poems, short stories, and excerpts from well-known classics.
Commercial illustrator Robert Doremus graduated from Pratt Institute in 1936. His work has appeared in hundreds of publications, as well as children’s textbooks, young adult books, and educational materials. In addition to the Adventures in Reading Series, his credits include the Childhood of Famous Americans Series.
Closing Exercises For the Grades is designed to assist teachers tasked with developing and conducting commencement exercises for grammar schools. It contains inspirational poems, stories, short plays, and activities. There are some black and white illustrations of children in various dress and costumes. The front cover is illustrated with two large flowers. Both the front and back cover pages, and the back cover itself, contain lists of recommended patriotic songs, play, and exercises.
Harriette Wilbur was an editor and author of teachers’ guides for children. In addition to Closing Exercises For the Grades, she compiled and/or created other works to entertain and inspire a love of reading in children. These include Bird Gossip and A Dream of Mother Goose and other Entertainments. She also published original stories in The Youth’s Companion (1920), a family-oriented Reader’s Digest type magazine designed to appeal to the middle class and noted for their sponsorship of the creation of the Pledge of Allegiance as well as promoting a “flag over every schoolhouse” and images of patriotic figures in classrooms.
March Brothers publishing house was established in Lebanon, Ohio and was active in the Midwest. It specializing in teacher’s exercise books and educational materials.
The Illustrated Treasury of Children’s Literature is designed “for family use and for reading aloud with children, every selection has already earned the approval of real live boys and girls.” Many of this anthology’s entries are of complete stories, while others are excerpts. In addition to traditional nursery rhymes and fairytales, it includes great authors in the English language such as: Beatrix Potter, Lewis Carroll, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Louisa May Alcott. Most of the stories are illustrated, many in color. The front and back covers, as well as the inside cover pages, depict beloved characters, such as Alice in Wonderland and Humpty-Dumpty.
Editor Margaret Martignoni (1908-1974) graduated from Western Maryland College and Columbia University’s School of Library Science. She was an Assistant Professor of Library Science at the Catholic University in Washington, D.C. She later became the Superintendent of Works for Children in the Brooklyn Public Library. Martignoni was also the Executive Secretary of the New York Library Association. In addition to editing The Illustrated Treasury of Children’s Literature (1955), she edited the 10-volume set of Collier’s Junior Classics (1962) and similar Collier’s series.
In addition to being the compiler of illustrations for the Illustrated Treasury of Children’s Literature, P. Edward Ernest edited The Family Album of Favorite Poems (1956). Both of these popular titles were reprinted in new editions over the succeeding decades.
Grosset and Dunlap was founded in 1898 by Alexander Grosset and George T. Dunlap. Their partnership changed the focus of the publishing industry from expensive books for the few to cheaper books for the masses. It was primarily a hardcover reprint house. After Dunlap retired in 1944, Grosset & Dunlap was sold to a consortium that included Random House; Little, Brown; and Harper and Brothers. Grosset & Dunlap is historically known for its juvenile series books such as the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and The Bobbsey Twins. In 1982, Grosset & Dunlap was acquired by G. P. Putnam's Sons. Putnam subsequently merged with Penguin Group in 1996. In 2013, Penguin merged with Bertelsmann's Random House, forming Penguin Random House.
The Children’s Primer is a reader for the primary grades and a forerunner to the “Dick and Jane” and similar easy reader series. Each chapter is illustrated with drawings of children playing at home or in a natural setting. The front cover contains an intricate, puzzle-like pattern, with a large scallop shell and a seaside scene.
Author Ellen M. Cyr (1860-1920) taught in the Holmes Primary School in the township of Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was a prolific author of a series of children’s readers for the elementary grades.
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, Massachusetts. Ginn & Company continued to be a successful publisher of educational texts for 70 years.
This 19th Century textbook was designed to teach the effects of alcohol and other narcotics on the human body, in connection with other facts of physiology and hygiene. Pathfinder Physiology No. 1. Child’s Health Primer for Primary Classes with Special Reference to Effects of Alcohol Drinks Stimulants, and Narcotics Upon the Human System is the first of a three book health series that was endorsed by The Department of the National Women’s Christian Temperance Union. It contains 127 pages and numerous black and white illustrations. The front cover design is an intricate floral pattern along a grid, with a shield. The back cover is imprinted with the publisher’s insignia of a lit torch, an open book, and eagle’s wings. The front inside cover page contains handwritten names of previous owners: “Gladys Sechrist, West Salem, Ohio” and “Homer Sechrist, West Salem, Ohio.”
While no author is listed, there is an endorsement by American activist Mary Hunt (1830-1906), nee Mary Hannah Hanchett, National and International Superintendent of the Scientific Department of the Women's Christian Temperance Union and Life Director of the National Education Association and a list of four others on an advisory board. This book was one that Mary Hunt used to influence her national campaign on mandatory instruction of morality and temperance in the public school system.
The copywrite was assigned to A. S. Barnes & Co. in 1884.
The American Book Company was an educational book publisher formed in 1890 and based in New York City that specialized in elementary school, secondary school, and collegiate-level textbooks. The company was absorbed into D. C. Heath in 1981. Any remaining K-12 assets of the American Book Company were acquired by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 1995.
American History for Schools is a condensed history of the United States, encompassing the age of exploration in the 15th Century to the 1870s. The great majority of the text is devoted to analyzing events from the discovery of the New World to the War of 1812. There are numerous colored maps and detailed black and white prints of seminal events. Inside front and back cover pages contain lists of recommended “Educational Works.” An eagle image is impressed on the book cover. This text was known to have been used in segregated schools for black students.
Author George Payn Quackenbos (1826-1881) graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. (1843), an M.A. (1846). and a law degree in 1849. He also received an LL.D. in 1863 from Wesleyan. He became principal of the Henry Street Grammar School in 1847. He was editor of the Literary American from 1848-1850; Spier’s French Dictionary (1850), and several other foreign language dictionaries. Quackenbos authored many other children’s school books, including: First Lessons in Compositions (1851); Advanced Course of Rhetoric and Composition (1854); A School History of the United States (1857); American History for Schools (1878), First Lessons in Composition (1851), Natural Philosophy (1859); an English grammars series (1862-1864) and a mathematics series (1863-1874), which includes this book, and Language Lessons (1876). His son, John Duncan Quackenbos was also a graduate of Columbia, teacher and author of school texts.
D. Appleton & Company was an early American printer and publisher founded in New York City by Daniel Appleton (1785-1849). The firm’s publications gradually extended over a broad field of literature. The company grew to become one of the world's most important publishing houses. Appleton bought into American Book Company when it was formed but continued to publish under its name including Appleton’s Magazine and Appleton’s Booklovers and through reorganizing and a bankruptcy filing. In 1933, Appleton merged with Century to create a new company, D. Appleton-Century Co. Then in 1948, D. Appleton-Century Co. merged with F.S. Crofts, Inc. The new company was sold to Prentice-Hall in the 1960s.
