History of American Higher Education

Roger L. Geiger is Distinguished Professor of Higher Education at Pennsylvania State University.

Winner of the 2015 AERA Division J Outstanding Publication Award, American Educational Research Association "An encyclopedic history of American colleges and universities... A well-researched, detailed tome."--Kirkus Reviews "'At Last!' Etta James does not usually come to mind when you're reviewing a scholarly book. Her 1960 signature song on vintage vinyl, 45 rpm, however, expressed my sentiment when I received Roger L. Geiger's new The History of American Higher Education: Learning and Culture From the Founding to World War II. Many of us in the field have been waiting for this big book... Important."--John R. Thelin, Chronicle Review "Geiger's History of American Higher Education is an excellent survey of this complex topic. It is a very valuable addition to the historical literature on American higher education."--Steven Diner, H-Net Reviews "Geiger has successfully written about a major part of the history of higher education in the United States. This book will be of interest to both scholars and general readers interested in the subject."--John Sandstrom, Library Journal "Geiger has written a magisterial, almost encyclopedic history of higher education in the U.S. from its beginnings in the 17th century until 1940... Well-written and filled with copious detail."--Choice "To say that Roger L. Geiger has done his homework would be an understatement... Mr. Geiger packs decades of research into one exhaustive tome that tracks the evolution of American higher education from the 17th Century to 1940... Skimming would be rather pointless given the learning opportunity that Mr. Geiger has carefully crafted here, one rich paragraph at a time."--Amy Lyons, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "[A] remarkably rich and detailed history. Given Geiger's previous contributions to the field, this is the book that higher education historians have been looking forward to reading."--Charles Dorn, Journal of American History "This encyclopedic book is as readable as it is thorough, drawing upon voluminous monographs and articles. No pedantic study, it places the history of colleges and universities in the context of broader political, economic, and social trends, the author always showing a firm grasp of the general American narrative."--Justus D. Doenecke, Anglican and Episcopal History

• PREFACE ix PROLOGUE: UNIVERSITIES, CULTURE, CAREERS, AND KNOWLEDGE xiii 1THE FIRST CENTURY OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE, 1636 -1740 Harvard College 1 Yale College 8 The College of William & Mary 11 Conflict and New Learning in the Early Colleges 15 The Embryonic American College 25 2COLONIAL COLLEGES, 1740 -1780 New Colleges for the Middle Colonies 33 Enlightened Colleges 48 College Enthusiasm, 1760-1775 57 Colonial College Students 76 3REPUBLICAN UNIVERSITIES Making Colleges Republican 92 Educational Aspirations in the Early Republic 102 New Colleges in the New Republic 109 4THE LOW STATE OF THE COLLEGES, 1800 -1820 The Problem with Students 125 The Second Great Awakening and the Colleges 132 The Rise of Professional Schools 143 Who Owns Colleges? 160 5RENAISSANCE OF THE COLLEGES, 1820 -1840 New Models for Colleges 175 The Yale Reports of 1828 187 Denominational Colleges I 193 Higher Education for Women 206 6REGIONAL DIVERGENCE AND SCIENTIFIC ADVANCEMENT, 1840 -1860 The Early Collegiate Era in the Northeast 215 Sectionalism and Higher Education in the South 229 Denominational Colleges II: Proliferation in the Upper Midwest 243 Science and the Antebellum College 256 7LAND GRANT COLLEGES AND THE PRACTICAL ARTS Premodern Institutions 270 The Colleges and the Civil War 277 The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 281 Land Grant Universities 287 Agricultural Colleges and A&Ms 298 Engineering and the Land Grant Colleges 306 8THE CREATION OF AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES The First Phase 316 The Academic Revolution 326 Research, Graduate Education, and the New Universities 338 The Great American Universities 348 Columbia College and the University of Pennsylvania 350 State Universities 354 9THE COLLEGIATE REVOLUTION The High Collegiate Era 365 High Schools, Colleges, and Professional Schools 380 Higher Education for Women, 1880-1915 394 Liberal Culture 408 10MASS HIGHER EDUCATION, 1915 -1940 World War I 423 Mass Higher Education 428 Shaping Elite Higher Education 446 Liberal Culture and the Curriculum 455 Advanced Education of African Americans 467 11THE STANDARD AMERICAN UNIVERSITY Philanthropic Foundations and the Standardization of Higher Education 479 Research Universities in the Golden Age and Beyond 491 Students and the Great Depression 507 American Higher Education in 1940 514 The American System of Higher Education 532 12CULTURE, CAREERS, AND KNOWLEDGE 539 INDEX 553