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The People's School: A History of Oregon State University
The People’s School is a comprehensive history of Oregon State University, placing the institution’s story in the context of state, regional, national, and international history. Rather than organizing the narrative around presidencies, historian William Robbins examines the broader context of events, such as wars and economic depressions, that affected life on the Corvallis campus. Agrarian revolts in the last quarter of the nineteenth century affected every Western state, including Oregon.  The Spanish-American War, the First World War, the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the Second World War disrupted institutional life, influencing enrollment, curricular strategies, and the number of faculty and staff. Peacetime events, such as Oregon’s tax policies, also circumscribed course offerings, hiring and firing, and the allocation of funds to departments, schools, and colleges. 
 
This contextual approach is not to suggest that university presidents are unimportant.  Benjamin Arnold (1872-1892), appointed president of Corvallis College by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, served well beyond the date (1885) when the State of Oregon assumed control of the agricultural college. Robbins uses central administration records and grassroots sources—local and state newspapers, student publications (The Barometer, The Beaver), and multiple and wide-ranging materials published in the university’s digitized ScholarsArchive@OSU, a source for the scholarly work of faculty, students, and materials related to the institution’s mission and research activities.  Other voices—extracurricular developments, local and state politics, campus reactions to national crises—provide intriguing and striking addendums to the university’s rich history.
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The People's School: A History of Oregon State University
The People’s School is a comprehensive history of Oregon State University, placing the institution’s story in the context of state, regional, national, and international history. Rather than organizing the narrative around presidencies, historian William Robbins examines the broader context of events, such as wars and economic depressions, that affected life on the Corvallis campus. Agrarian revolts in the last quarter of the nineteenth century affected every Western state, including Oregon.  The Spanish-American War, the First World War, the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the Second World War disrupted institutional life, influencing enrollment, curricular strategies, and the number of faculty and staff. Peacetime events, such as Oregon’s tax policies, also circumscribed course offerings, hiring and firing, and the allocation of funds to departments, schools, and colleges. 
 
This contextual approach is not to suggest that university presidents are unimportant.  Benjamin Arnold (1872-1892), appointed president of Corvallis College by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, served well beyond the date (1885) when the State of Oregon assumed control of the agricultural college. Robbins uses central administration records and grassroots sources—local and state newspapers, student publications (The Barometer, The Beaver), and multiple and wide-ranging materials published in the university’s digitized ScholarsArchive@OSU, a source for the scholarly work of faculty, students, and materials related to the institution’s mission and research activities.  Other voices—extracurricular developments, local and state politics, campus reactions to national crises—provide intriguing and striking addendums to the university’s rich history.
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The People's School: A History of Oregon State University

The People's School: A History of Oregon State University

by William Robbins
The People's School: A History of Oregon State University

The People's School: A History of Oregon State University

by William Robbins

Overview

The People’s School is a comprehensive history of Oregon State University, placing the institution’s story in the context of state, regional, national, and international history. Rather than organizing the narrative around presidencies, historian William Robbins examines the broader context of events, such as wars and economic depressions, that affected life on the Corvallis campus. Agrarian revolts in the last quarter of the nineteenth century affected every Western state, including Oregon.  The Spanish-American War, the First World War, the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the Second World War disrupted institutional life, influencing enrollment, curricular strategies, and the number of faculty and staff. Peacetime events, such as Oregon’s tax policies, also circumscribed course offerings, hiring and firing, and the allocation of funds to departments, schools, and colleges. 
 
This contextual approach is not to suggest that university presidents are unimportant.  Benjamin Arnold (1872-1892), appointed president of Corvallis College by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, served well beyond the date (1885) when the State of Oregon assumed control of the agricultural college. Robbins uses central administration records and grassroots sources—local and state newspapers, student publications (The Barometer, The Beaver), and multiple and wide-ranging materials published in the university’s digitized ScholarsArchive@OSU, a source for the scholarly work of faculty, students, and materials related to the institution’s mission and research activities.  Other voices—extracurricular developments, local and state politics, campus reactions to national crises—provide intriguing and striking addendums to the university’s rich history.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780870718984
Publisher: Oregon State University Press
Publication date: 10/15/2017
Edition description: 1
Pages: 416
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range: 3 Months to 18 Years

About the Author

William G. Robbins, a native of Connecticut, served four years in the US Navy before attending college.  He holds graduate degrees in history from the University of Oregon and taught at Oregon State University from 1971 to 2002.  He retired as Emeritus Distinguished Professor of History. He has authored and edited many books, including A Man for all Seasons: Monroe Sweetland and the Liberal Paradox (OSU Press, 2015).
 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Prologue: Strategies for an Institutional History 1

1 Beginnings 13

2 Coming of Age 31

3 In War and Peace 55

4 Student Life, 1868-1940 77

5 The "Real" Civil War-Curriculum 101

6 The Academy in the Great Depression 121

7 Wartime: 1938-1950 145

8 Campus and Community in the Cold War 171

9 Civil Rights, Campus Disorder, and Cultural Change 195

10 Federal Policies Become Preeminent 221

11 Becoming a Modern University 249

12 Student Life, 1940-2010 277

13 Into the Future 303

Epilogue: A Twenty-First-Century University 329

Appendix 1 Presidents of Oregon State (1868-2017) 349

Appendix 2 Administrative Structure of Oregon State, 2017 351

Notes 353

Index 393

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