Description
Book SynopsisExplores the contributions of Evan Pugh (1828-1864), founding president of today’s Pennsylvania State University, in quickly building it into America’s first scientifically based agricultural college.
Trade Review“The dedication of men such as Pugh to new frontiers in science and education helped create a vast educational system that is today the envy of much of the world.”
—Terry Crowley Journal of American History
“An engaging and immensely readable biography of a figure important not only to the history of American agriculture, but to the modern shape of higher education in the US.”
—Big Ten Network
“Williams’s book is an important reminder of the crucial role educators and educational reformers played in the formation of America’s infrastructure for agricultural research and extension. By resurrecting a figure, an institution, and a moment that helped forge this system, Williams draws our attention once again to the importance of agriculture for the history of science in America.”
—Amrys O. Williams Isis-Jrnl. History of Science Society
“This pathbreaking biographical study of Evan Pugh shows convincingly why Roger L. Williams is considered one of the nation’s outstanding historians of higher education. Using archival sources and heretofore neglected documents, Williams’s analysis of Pugh’s leadership at what we know today as The Pennsylvania State University shows how a president can make a difference and offers scholars a case study of how the distinctive American land-grant legislation and model came to fruition in the mid- and late nineteenth century.”
—John R. Thelin,author of A History of American Higher Education
“In this wonderfully readable and engaging biography, Roger L. Williams not only recovers the achievements of an important scientist and educational pioneer, but also gives us a much-needed deep history of the movement for land-grant universities. Scholars interested in the roots of public higher education, university-based scientific research, and agricultural modernization in the United States will welcome this outstanding contribution.”
—Ariel Ron,Southern Methodist University
“Williams’s study reminds us that chemistry was at the heart of the land-grant movement and that Evan Pugh was among its most persuasive leaders. Williams, a leading historian of the Morrill Land-Grant Act, weaves an important story about how higher education happened in America. The creation of Penn State—and land-grant universities generally—marked a significant departure in how the federal and state governments came together to foster their citizens’ futures. It is a cautionary tale for those who long for the mythical days of rugged individualism in the building of the United States.”
—Alan Marcus,author of Agricultural Science and the Quest for Legitimacy: Farmers, Agricultural Colleges, and Experiment Stations, 1870–1890
“With confident writing and astute analysis, Roger Williams resurrects Evan Pugh, international scientist, university reformer, and the formidable first president of Penn State. Readers seeking a fresh look at the history of the land-grant college movement will delight in Williams’s latest work.”
—Nathan Sorber,coeditor of The Land-Grant Colleges and the Reshaping of American Higher Education
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Preface
1. Evan Pugh: A Young Man Enamored of Science and Education
2. Study in Germany and France, Research in England
3. A New School, a New President, a New Movement
4. Beginning the Presidency
5. The Institution Hits Its Stride
6. Pugh’s Standing in the American Scientific Community
7. Campaigning for the Morrill Land-Grant College Act
8. The Disruptions of 1863
9. The Battle Royal
10. Death and Aftermath
11. Epilogue
Appendix A Report upon a Plan for the Organization of Colleges for Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts with Especial Reference to the Organization of the Agricultural College of Pennsylvania
Notes
Bibliography
Index
