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To Give Instruction: Denominational Colleges in Antebellum Ohio

Filous, Joseph
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1670598428103863

Abstract Details

2023, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, History.
Between 1820 and 1860, dozens of new denominational colleges opened throughout the United States. Nowhere was this growth as dramatic as in the Old Northwest in general and in Ohio specifically. Through the mid-twentieth century, most historians saw these colleges as steps backward in the development of higher education in the United States, with faculty overly focused on theological minutiae. These denominational colleges served as the dismal backdrop against which educational reformers launched research universities, where academic inquiry was unimpeded by religious dogmatism. Since the late 1960s, however, historians have generally stressed the positive aspects of these colleges, praising them for anticipating later developments in higher education. Still, many of these newer histories neglected other aspects of antebellum colleges, such as their many non-classical programs. The college’s preparatory departments and ancillary courses provided interested students with at least some level of higher education beyond the common school. These programs helped expand the reach of these institutions far beyond the relative handful of students who graduated from their collegiate programs. Other histories also convey a limited view of campus life. While literary societies were certainly popular, students also played sports and games, staged picnics, went on nature excursions, and socialized with young townswomen. Some also cheated on exams, played pranks, tormented tutors, stole food, drank alcohol, and smoked tobacco. Contrary to both the traditional view that students attended these schools almost solely to become ministers and the revisionist view that many students left campus for modern careers in business and science, young men evidently flocked to antebellum Ohio’s denominational colleges in hopes of pursuing careers in one of the four traditional learned professions. Indeed, the vast majority of students who graduated from these schools became clergymen, lawyers, physicians, or educators. Moreover, those who matriculated but failed to graduate from the collegiate programs also gained a leg up on these ambitions, with between 33% and 60% typically entering the learned professions. Even those who merely attended the preparatory programs for a year or two were far more likely than men in the general population to enter one of these professions.
Daniel A. Cohen (Advisor)
Timothy Beal (Committee Member)
John Grabowski (Committee Member)
David Hammack (Committee Member)
261 p.
American History
antebellum higher education; Ohio colleges; antebellum Ohio; denominational colleges

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Filous, J. (2023). To Give Instruction: Denominational Colleges in Antebellum Ohio [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1670598428103863

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Filous, Joseph. To Give Instruction: Denominational Colleges in Antebellum Ohio. 2023. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1670598428103863.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Filous, Joseph. "To Give Instruction: Denominational Colleges in Antebellum Ohio." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2023. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1670598428103863

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1670598428103863
248
© 2022, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.
Release 3.2.12