Education

Discover one of the most influential textbooks of all time, considered the third-best selling book of all time in America and the most cherished guide to spelling in American history.

With its distinctive blue cover, it earned the nickname the blue-backed speller and was used over the span of nearly a century. This lovingly reproduced hardback is an exact reproduction of Noah Webster's 1824 edition of the American Spelling Book. An essential gift for any history or language lover, this guide remains an inspiration for new generations of spellers today.

The legacy of Arcadia University began in 1853, when Sylvania (Jones) Stevens and Juliet A. (Poundstone) Avery, along with several other students, left their family homes and accompanied Rev. Sheridan Baker to the Beaver Female Seminary in Beaver, Pennsylvania. After graduating in 1856, they were the first students to receive diplomas from the seminary. This book concentrates on the Glenside, Pennsylvania, campus up until the school’s name and status change to Arcadia University in 2001 and covers the many shifts in the school’s name and location.

Kenneth Samen graduated in 1992 with a bachelor of arts degree in communications from Beaver College/Arcadia University. For the past 27 years, Samen has worked for Prudential Insurance Company of America. This is Samen’s third title with Arcadia Publishing. His research for this book led him into his personal postcard collection and the university’s archives and, externally, to historical societies and institutional collections to locate images and items that have not been seen in years. Dr. Ajay Nair is a nationally recognized expert in student affairs and an accomplished scholar of social justice, race, and ethnicity. Dr. Nair was appointed president of Arcadia University in April 2018 and inaugurated in October 2018.

Using historical images and recollections, Evanston Hospital School of Nursing: 1898–1984 highlights the marketing, education, curriculum, and values of EHSN as well as the students’ experience and dormitory life.

Evanston Hospital was founded in 1891, followed by the school of nursing seven years later. Evanston Hospital School of Nursing (EHSN) provided education at a reasonable cost while the students provided care to patients in between studies. In its first 50 years, the school graduated 1,157 nurses, with the first class of two graduating in 1901. EHSN, like other diploma programs, flourished until educational cost escalated, technology boomed, training methods evolved, and a conversation about where and how nurses should be educated began. After 86 years of training nurses, EHSN closed.

Carolyn Hope Smeltzer and Barbara Ann McQuillan, 1972 EHSN graduates, are proud of their education and realize the historical value of the program. Having graduated 50 years ago, they are passionate about preserving the school’s history and capturing classmates’ memories. Their desire to keep alive EHSN history enables past generations of diploma graduates to cherish their own memories and future generations of nurses to look back on past teaching practices. This book will elicit familiar fond memories for all who attended or taught in any diploma school of nursing.

Wells College, founded in 1868 by businessman Henry Wells, boasts a storied history that spans over a century and a half. Using images and ephemera from the Wells College Archive and Special Collections, Tiffany Raymond, MLIS, and Daniel G. Renfrow, PhD, illustrate the college's rich history and the unique traditions that continue to inspire generations of students to pursue knowledge, leadership, and positive change in the world.

Established as a women’s college in Aurora, New York, Wells fulfilled the founder’s dream of making a “College Home” for students while simultaneously pioneering women’s education, providing opportunities for intellectual growth and leadership long before women’s rights were fully recognized. Throughout this history, the college has adapted to the evolving needs of the students and the wider society, including transitioning to coeducation in 2005 to better serve a diverse student body. Wells College’s commitment to academic excellence, social responsibility, and community engagement remains unwavering, making it a beacon of higher education in the picturesque Finger Lakes region.

Tiffany Raymond, MLIS, is director of the Louis Jefferson Long Library at Wells

College and a member of the class of 2010. Daniel G. Renfrow, PhD, is an associate professor of sociology and chair of the Social Science Division at Wells College. 

Home to the location where George Washington took command of the troops and to America's oldest Ivy League university, Cambridge is a city that feels like a town.

Hasty Pudding meetings were enlivened with mock trials spoofing happenings in Cambridge and among the faculty; by 1860 the trials had evolved into shows. In a corner of the Cambridge Common, across from Harvard Yard, a Gilded Age statue of a Puritan has been toppled several times. Letters home from Robert Kennedy were found stashed on a high shelf in a college room he occupied, over 30 years after he graduated.

From protests to the "Beer Garden Summit", author Jane Merrill shares the stories behind notable landmarks and some significant but little-known facts in and around town.

Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, celebrated its centennial anniversary in 2018.

Begun in 1918 as the Eastern Division of the Indiana State Normal School, Ball State remained a branch campus of Indiana State until 1929 when it became Ball State Teachers College, Indiana's fourth public institution of higher education. In 1965 the teachers college became Ball State University. Throughout its history, Ball State's distinguishing characteristic has been the positive interactions between students, faculty, and members of the community. This book will show how these interactions have worked out at Ball State in the classroom, on the athletic field, and in social organizations such as student government, fraternities, sororities, and clubs throughout the region. The book will also show how the members of the Ball family have played a major role in the growth and development of the university.

Princeton is only the fourth American college to celebrate a 275th anniversary.

Founded in 1746 as the College of New Jersey, it has long Presbyterian roots. The scene of notable events in the American Revolution, it was a classical college for another century. Then, at its 1896 sesquicentennial, it became Princeton University and in succeeding decades developed into a world-leading research university. Long an institution of males of European descent, its gender and ethnic makeup has changed dramatically in the last half-century. Today's Princeton combines a robust collegiate culture with a research profile near the top of international league tables--truly a rare combination.

Author W. Bruce Leslie is a New Jersey native and a 1966 alumnus of Princeton University. As the grandson of a Scottish immigrant, studying at an institution with deep Scottish roots was a natural path. The author fell in love with liberal education thanks to Princeton's wonderful faculty and fellow students. Inspired by them, he taught history for a half-century at the State University of New York at Brockport, seeking to bestow a similar affection for learning, especially about the past, on his students. Returning to his roots in retirement, he is rediscovering the richness of this cultural and intellectual community.

Ohio State University Student Life in the 1960s celebrates the flowering of the youth-oriented pop culture that dominated OSU in these heady days.

Students entering Ohio State University in the 1960s enjoyed a period of unprecedented prosperity and expanding freedom for young people. They partied in togas and twisted the night away. They gathered at Larry's, the Bergs and the BBF. They cheered on a national championship football team and grooved to folk singers, folk rockers and acid rockers, many of whom visited campus. They donned bold and sometimes outrageous new styles in clothing and bonded together as part of a cultural revolution unmatched before or since. Join author and OSU alum William J.Shkurti for a magical mystery tour through a decade when being young and in college meant you had a ticket to ride.