Land-Grant Colleges and Popular Revolt : The Origins of the Morrill Act and the Reform of Higher Education

The land-grant ideal at the foundation of many institutions of higher learning promotes the sharing of higher education, science, and technical knowledge with local communities. This democratic and utilitarian mission, Nathan M. Sorber shows, has always been subject to heated debate regarding the motivations and goals of land-grant institutions. In Land-Grant Colleges and Popular Revolt, Sorber uncovers the intersection of class interest and economic context, and its influence on the origins, development, and standardization of land-grant colleges. The first land-grant colleges supported by the Morrill Act of 1862 assumed a role in facilitating the rise of a capitalist, industrial economy and a modern, bureaucratized nation-state. The new land-grant colleges contributed ideas, technologies, and technical specialists that supported emerging industries. During the populist revolts chronicled by Sorber, the land-grant colleges became a battleground for resisting many aspects of this transition to modernity. An awakened agricultural population challenged the movement of people and power from the rural periphery to urban centers and worked to reform land-grant colleges to serve the political and economic needs of rural communities. These populists embraced their vocational, open-access land-grant model as a bulwark against the outmigration of rural youth from the countryside, and as a vehicle for preserving the farm, the farmer, and the local community at the center of American democracy. Sorber's history of the movement and society of the time provides an original framework for understanding the origins of the land-grant colleges and the nationwide development of these schools into the twentieth century. Clearly written and compellingly argued, Nathan Sorber's Land-Grant Colleges and Popular Revolt should be read by every land-grant institution graduate and faculty and staff member, and by all high government officials who deal with public higher education. ― Times Higher Education Sorber's history of the movement and society of the time provides an original framework for understanding the origins of the land-grant colleges and the nationwide development of these schools into the twentieth century. The land-grant ideal at the foundation of many institutions of higher learning promotes the sharing of higher education, science, and technical knowledge with local communities. This democratic and utilitarian mission, Nathan M. Sorber shows, has always been subject to heated debate regarding the motivations and goals of land-grant institutions. In Land-Grant Colleges and Popular Revolt , Sorber uncovers the intersection of class interest and economic context, and its influence on the origins, development, and standardization of land-grant colleges. The first land-grant colleges supported by the Morrill Act of 1862 assumed a role in facilitating the rise of a capitalist, industrial economy and a modern, bureaucratized nation-state. The new land-grant colleges contributed ideas, technologies, and technical specialists that supported emerging industries. During the populist revolts chronicled by Sorber, the land-grant colleges became a battleground for resisting many aspects of this transition to modernity. An awakened agricultural population challenged the movement of people and power from the rural periphery to urban centers and worked to reform land-grant colleges to serve the political and economic needs of rural communities. These populists embraced their vocational, open-access land-grant model as a bulwark against the outmigration of rural youth from the countryside, and as a vehicle for preserving the farm, the farmer, and the local community at the center of American democracy.

The land-grant ideal at the foundation of many institutions of higher learning promotes the sharing of higher education, science, and technical knowledge with local communities. This democratic and utilitarian mission, Nathan M. Sorber shows, has always been subject to heated debate regarding the motivations and goals of land-grant institutions. In Land-Grant Colleges and Popular Revolt, Sorber uncovers the intersection of class interest and economic context, and its influence on the origins, development, and standardization of land-grant colleges.

The first land-grant colleges supported by the Morrill Act of 1862 assumed a role in facilitating the rise of a capitalist, industrial economy and a modern, bureaucratized nation-state. The new land-grant colleges contributed ideas, technologies, and technical specialists that supported emerging industries. During the populist revolts chronicled by Sorber, the land-grant colleges became a battleground for resisting many aspects of this transition to modernity. An awakened agricultural population challenged the movement of people and power from the rural periphery to urban centers and worked to reform land-grant colleges to serve the political and economic needs of rural communities. These populists embraced their vocational, open-access land-grant model as a bulwark against the outmigration of rural youth from the countryside, and as a vehicle for preserving the farm, the farmer, and the local community at the center of American democracy.

Sorber's history of the movement and society of the time provides an original framework for understanding the origins of the land-grant colleges and the nationwide development of these schools into the twentieth century.

« A history of the origins and early years of the land-grant colleges of the northeastern United States. Land-grant colleges of this region were not "farm schools," and, indeed, were meant to offer a service distinct from the practical education most readily available to (and most often romanticized by later scholars) young men in rural America. The land-grant schools were premised on scientific education, high academic standards, and the training of professionals. Focusing on several newly created institutions, as well as some colleges of the Colonial and Early Republic eras that became land-grant schools, the book explores the social, political, and economic forces that propelled the land-grant movement in the Northeast states and the states of the Midwest where practical education predominated. These broad regional trends point toward a fundamental tension in the Morrill Act itself, which left implementation to the states. Mixing the promotion of science and middle-class professionalism while at the same time serving a population keel on marketable skills, paying jobs, and social equity (all encapsulated in the Grange Movement of the same era), land-grant colleges were fraught with ideological and practical difficulties. (This lack of a unified mission was further highlighted by questions of inclusion and role of women and African Americans.) These divisions are nowhere more present than in the land-grant colleges of the Northeast, and thus these institutions deserve special attention in a literature that has often associated the Morrill Act with the Grange Movement and focused on the institutions of the Midwest. »-- Résumé de l'éditeur "A history of the origins and early years of the land-grant colleges of the northeastern United States. Land-grant colleges of this region were not "farm schools," and, indeed, were meant to offer a service distinct from the practical education most readily available to (and most often romanticized by later scholars) young men in rural America. The land-grant schools were premised on scientific education, high academic standards, and the training of professionals. Focusing on several newly created institutions, as well as some colleges of the Colonial and Early Republic eras that became land-grant schools, the book explores the social, political, and economic forces that propelled the land-grant movement in the Northeast states and the states of the Midwest where practical education predominated. These broad regional trends point toward a fundamental tension in the Morrill Act itself, which left implementation to the states. Mixing the promotion of science and middle-class professionalism while at the same time serving a population keel on marketable skills, paying jobs, and social equity (all encapsulated in the Grange Movement of the same era), land-grant colleges were fraught with ideological and practical difficulties. (This lack of a unified mission was further highlighted by questions of inclusion and role of women and African Americans.) These divisions are nowhere more present than in the land-grant colleges of the Northeast, and thus these institutions deserve special attention in a literature that has often associated the Morrill Act with the Grange Movement and focused on the institutions of the Midwest"-- Provided by publisher Contents Preface Introduction: Reconsidering the Origins and Early Years of the Land-Grant Colleges Chapter 1. Experimentation in Antebellum Higher Education Chapter 2. Justin Morrill, the Land-Grant Act of 1862, and the Birth of the Yankee Land-Grant Colleges Chapter 3. The Land-Grant Reformation Chapter 4. The New Middle Class and the State College Ideal Chapter 5. Progressivism and the Rise of Extension 6. Coeducation and Land-Grant Women Conclusion: Land-Grant Memories, Legacies, and Horizons Notes Bibliography Index