Chronology: Beginning of the McGuffey Revival

1873 - William Holmes McGuffey died and was buried in the University of Virginia's burial ground in Charlottesville, Virginia. One writer later remarked, "The grave was unmarked for years, and though the fame of his readers increased, the man seemed forgotten." (1)

1885 - McGuffey's son-in-law, Andrew Dousa Hepburn, became the dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Miami University. He brought McGuffey's distinctive eight-sided desk back to Oxford, Ohio. The desk became the most evocative symbol of McGuffey's time at Miami, finding a place in the small McGuffey Museum in the University's library.

1890s - Last years the McGuffey Readers were widely used in public schools.

c. 1900 - McGuffey Day was celebrated annually at Miami University. Also, "McGuffey Night" pageants were popular schoolroom reenactments.

1903 - Dr. Harvey C. Minnich came to Oxford, Ohio as Dean of the Miami University Teachers College. Afterwards, Miami's education building was named McGuffey Hall.

1910 - Miami University established the William Holmes McGuffey Training School. An article in the Hamilton, Ohio Republican-News exclaimed, "McGuffey's Third Reader! You remember it and all the other McGuffeys, don't you?"

1911 - Henry Vail of the American Book Company, the publisher of the McGuffey Readers, published his History of the McGuffey Readers.

1918 - The first McGuffey Society founded. John F. Carlisle, a Columbus attorney, and Edward Wilson, editor of the Ohio State Journal, formed the Fifth Reader Club. In 1921, the club became the McGuffey Society of Columbus. The society assembled an extensive collection of copyrights and revisions of the McGuffey Readers and presented it to the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society in 1927.

1924 - The Indianapolis McGuffey Society organized with 90 members. The society published a small periodical called The McGuffeyite. The society's membership grew to 1,000 by 1935. Their slogan was "Join the McGuffey Society and Grow Younger."

1925 - Harvey C. Minnich spoke to the Columbus society and raised the issue of a memorial to McGuffey.

1927 - Minnich began a campaign for $10,000 for a McGuffey memorial on the Miami University campus. Henry Ford, a collector of the Readers who considered them his alma mater, agreed to fund the remainder. Hugh Fullerton, a renowned sportswriter, wrote an article, "That Guy McGuffey" for the Saturday Evening Post. Also, Mark Sullivan, a respected historian who Fullerton described as an ardent McGuffeyite, introduced his second volume of his six-volume history, Our Times, with a chapter on McGuffey and the influence of the Readers.

1928 - Minnich published a biography of McGuffey, William Holmes McGuffey and the Peerless Readers.