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Roth, Adviser Professor Warren Van Tine Ad^ser Professor Andrew R. L. Cayton History Graduate Program UMI Number: 9931698 Copyright 1999 by Wheeler, Kenneth H. Ail rights reserved. UMI Microform 9931698 Copyright 1999, by UMI Company. Aii rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Copyright by Kenneth H. Wheeler 1999 ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the origins of a regional Midwestern culture through the study of the particular ways an institution, the college, developed during the antebellum decades. Working within the structure created by the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, town promoters and denominational leaders founded a large number of denominational colleges in towns throughout the Old Northwest (Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio). The founders of these colleges showed entrepreneurial ingenuity. In addition to more conventional forms of support, they used land speculation, agriculture, and manual labor education programs to fund their colleges and to allow poor students access to a collegiate education. College leaders emphasized a mental, moral, and physical education that frequently deviated from a classical curriculum, included religious revivals, and promoted productive manual labor. Students at these Old Northwest colleges differed from their counterparts in other American regions. While college students in other regions frequently rioted. Old Northwest college students never did, preferring, instead, to use ii negotiations, strikes, and even outright withdrawal as means of settling conflicts. Old Northwest college students were, on average, the oldest college students in the nation. Further, almost all coeducational colleges were located in the Old Northwest and greater Midwestern states, which meant that by 1861 a significant portion of Old Northwest college students were female. These colleges played a significant role in the growth of the region. Just as the towns in which the colleges were located influenced the colleges, the colleges also shaped the towns, by supplying civic and religious leadership, and by inducing people who valued education to move to these towns. Further, the influence of the colleges extended beyond the students who attended, as college students routinely taught common schools. Overall, people in the antebellum Old Northwest developed a regional self-identity that stressed their independent willingness to entertain new ideas, debate them vigorously, and act on their convictions. The ways in which these people built their colleges demonstrates that in many respects, self-identity became reality. Ill ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have received generous help as I have researched and written this dissertation. Chiefly, I thank my adviser, Randolph Roth, who has been constant in his support, and whose ideas continue to shape my thoughts. Warren Van Tine and Andrew Cayton willingly served on my committee and provided sound guidance. I also thank Margaret Newell and John Burnham, in whose seminars I composed individual chapters, and Amos Loveday, whose questions helped to define the dissertation topic. I thank both the Graduate School and the History Department of Ohio State University for awards that funded dissertation research. I thank Oberlin College for the Frederick B. Artz Summer Research Grant, and the Bentley Historical Library for a Bordin/Gillette Researcher Travel Fellowship. The Ohio Bicentennial Commission granted me a year-long fellowship, which benefitted me enormously. I am thankful for friends and family. I particularly thank Russ Coil and Jon Silva for their ideas and friendship; my parents, who have encouraged me from the first; and Amy Cottrill, my wife, whose steadfast support (and sense of humor) has made all the difference. IV VITA September 19, 1968 ... Born - Iowa City, Iowa 1991.................. A.B., History, Earlham College 1993.................. M.A., History, The Ohio State University 1993 - 1997 .......... Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University 1998 - 1999 .......... Instructor, State University of West Georgia PUBLICATIONS 1. Kenneth H. Wheeler, "Infanticide in Nineteenth-Century Ohio" Journal of Social History 31 (Winter, 1997): 407-418. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: History TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract .................................................. ii Acknowledgments .......................................... iv Vita ...................................................... V Chapters : 1. Introduction ......................................... 1 2. Structure, Culture, and the College ................ 28 3. Founders ............................................. 68 4. How the Colleges Operated .......................... 103 5. Students ............................................. 148 6. Town and Gown ....................................... 187 7. The College and Primary and Secondary Education ... 223 8. The College and Regional Character ................. 244 9. Conclusion ........................................... 283 Bibliography ............................................. 295 VI CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Between 1636 and 1776, American colonists founded nine colleges. After independence the pace of college-founding accelerated, and by the onset of the American Civil War Americans had established over three hundred colleges. In the history of American higher education and, indeed, higher education throughout the world, the creation of such a large number of colleges over such a small period of time was phenomenal. Significantly, the colleges that people built during these decades were not spread evenly throughout the nation. While the majority of Americans lived in the original thirteen states, people built most of the new colleges in the South and the West, particularly in the West. In this area, later called the Old Northwest, people founded scores of colleges in the decades following the 1803 admission of Ohio into the Union. By 1861 Ohio had two dozen colleges, the most of any state; other Old Northwest states were not far behind.* The colleges of the Old Northwest differed from their colonial predecessors. While most colonial colleges were located in large cities, most Old Northwest colleges were in small towns. While colonial colleges were invariably affiliated with dominant religious denominations, such as the Congregationalists or Episcopalians, colleges in the Old Northwest often drew sponsorship from new or small denominations, such as the Disciples of Christ or the Free Will Baptists. Because of the disestablishment of religion following the creation of the United States, denominations in the Old Northwest operated within a relatively unrestricted environment, which allowed a previously unknown degree of latitude in denominational actions. The structure of higher education in the antebellum Old Northwest not only differed from the system of higher education during the colonial period, but also differed from the patterns of higher education in other antebellum American regions. In New England and, to a lesser extent, in the Middle Atlantic states, established churches were disestablished over a period of decades. The lingering influence of an established church continued to retard the rate of the founding of colleges. In the American South, this same process had some effect along the Atlantic seaboard. Also, Southern state leaders generally preferred state universities to private colleges, with the result that Southern state universities set the standards in higher education. In the Old Northwest,