INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF THE UNIVERSITY IN SOCIETY

Publications

Institute | Print | Other | Web-based

Authored by Institute Staff

Case Western Reserve University Office of Student Affairs, 2004. The Little Blue Book, 2004-2005 (published for incoming first-year students). Introductory page and information on the University's history and traditions, pp. 7-44.

In process at this time: Updated history of Case Western Reserve University from its beginnings in the 19th century through the modern era. Click here to review the information.

Information about the History of Case Western Reserve University

Web-Based Resources

“Stories of the University,” www.case.edu/artsci/isus/storieshome.htm

“Selected Philanthropic Families of Case Western Reserve University,” developed by Kelvin Smith Library in cooperation with Gladys Haddad of the Western Reserve Studies Program, library.case.edu/ksl/ecoll/exhibits/chp/

Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, edited and maintained on-line in fully searchable form by John Grabowski of the Department of History, ech.cwru.edu/

Stuart Kollar, “The Once and Future University,” CWRU Magazine, August 1997,  www.cwru.edu/pubs/cwrumag/fall1998/departments/mail/past_stories/time.html

“The Story of Case Western Reserve University,” 26-minute video produced in 2007. Streamed at tv.case.edu/actions/tv2/tv?play=true&id=7723&filter=stories,%20working%20at%20case.

Western Reserve Historical Society Library, a valuable resource for information about almost anything about this region, www.wrhs.org/library/default.asp

Thomas L. Vince, History of Western Reserve Academy: 175 Years of Distinction. (Hudson: Western Reserve Academy, 2001). Located at www.wra.net/visitors/history.html. Note that WRA, a private secondary school, operated as part of Western Reserve College for the first several decades of its existence, and continues to occupy the original campus in Hudson.

Print Resources (from the annotated bibliography being developed along with the history text)
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Thomas F. Campbell, SASS: Fifty Years of Social Work Education (The Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1967). Campbell, now deceased, was Professor of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University and a graduate of the Ph.D. program in history at Case Western Reserve University.

Case Institute of Technology-Western Reserve University Study Commission, Vision of a University (The Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1967). The final report of the commission formed by the two institution to study the potential for federation.

C. H. Cramer, Case Institute of Technology, A Centennial History, 1880-1980 (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University, 1980). Cramer was a long-time member of the University’s Department of History, and for many years as Dean of Adelbert College. This history was commissioned on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Case School of Applied Science.

C. H. Cramer, Case Western Reserve: A History of the University, 1826-1976. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1976.) This is the most recent history of the institution, issued on the 150th anniversary of the founding of Western Reserve College in Hudson. It's well written and very useful, though it is primarily a history of the undergraduate programs.

C. H. Cramer, The Law School at Case Western Reserve University. (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University, 1977). Excellent narrative history.

C. H. Cramer, The School of Library Science at Case Western Reserve University. (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University, 1979). The SLS was a truly innovative program, and is well described in this well-written narrative.

C. H. Cramer, The Story of Dentistry and the School in University Circle. (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University, 1982). Cramer's last installment on the University's history, it is perhaps the most challenging because of the school's unusual history.

Rev. Carroll Cutler, D.D., History of Western Reserve College, 1826-1876. (Cleveland: Crocker’s Publishing House, 1876.) Cutler was president of Western Reserve College (and of Western Reserve University, as it was known after 1884) from 1871 to 1886. He clashed with the institution’s Board of Trustees on two principal issues: the proposal to relocate the College from Hudson to Cleveland, which he opposed, and the value of coeducation, which he supported.

Margene O. Faddis, The History of the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing (Cleveland: Alumnae Association of the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, 1948). Faddis was Professor of Medical Nursing at the Bolton School of Nursing.

Dennis Harrison, “Case Western Reserve University: From Liberal Arts and Applied Science to a National Research University,” in John William Oliver, Jr., James A. Hodges, and James H. O’Donnell, eds., Cradles of Conscience: Ohio’s Independent Colleges and Universities. (Kent & London: The Kent State University Press, 2003). Includes relatively short histories of each of the independent colleges and universities in Ohio. Harrison is former University Archivist.

Hiram Collins Haydn, Western Reserve University from Hudson to Cleveland, 1878-1890: An Historical Sketch (Western Reserve University, 1905). Haydn was President of WRU from 1887-90, and served for many additional years as a member of the Board of Trustees. He earlier served as pastor of The Old Stone Church, Cleveland’s premier Presbyterian congregation of the era, where one of his parishioners was Flora Stone Mather.

Walter B. Hendrickson, The Arkites and Other Pioneer Natural History Organizations of Cleveland (Cleveland: Press of Western Reserve University, 1962). The Arkites, led by Leonard Case, Jr., and his brother William, constituted Cleveland’s principal cohort of scientifically knowledgeable leaders between the 1830s and the 1880s.

Robert H. Kargon and Scott G. Knowles, “Knowledge for Use: Science, Higher Learning, and America’s New Industrial Heartland, 1880-1915,” in Annals of Science, 59 (2002). Taylor & Francis. Compares the founding and early history of three technical institutions: Case School of Applied Science, Armour Institute of Technology (now Illinois Institute of Technology), and Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University).

Helen H. Kitzmiller, One Hundred Years of Western Reserve (The James W. Ellsworth Foundation, Hudson, Ohio, 1926). According to its subtitle, this history was “published as a part of the observance of the centennial of the founding of Western Reserve Academy and College, April 26, 1826, at Hudson, Ohio.”

Frederick Clayton Waite, History of the School of Dentistry of Western Reserve University. (Cleveland: Western Reserve University, 1940). Waite was Professor and Chair of Histology and Embryology at Western Reserve University from 1901 until 1940.

Frederick Clayton Waite, Western Reserve University Centennial History of The School of Medicine (Western Reserve University Press, Cleveland, 1946). Waite looks at the heritage of the medical school just as it was about to be transformed by the “new curriculum” introduced in 1952.

Frederick Clayton Waite, Western Reserve University, The Hudson Era: A History of Western Reserve College and Academy at Hudson, Ohio, from 1826 to 1882 (Western Reserve University Press, 1943). WRC from its birth until its move to Cleveland in 1882, an event that deeply affected its mission and future directions. Waite’s affection for the institution is rivaled only by his knowledge of its ways.

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Other information about Higher Education

American Association of University Professors. 1940. AAUP Statement of Principles. ASHE (American Society for Higher Education) Reader, pp. 562-567. Available on the web at http://www.aaup.org/statements/Redbook/1940stat.htm.

Vannevar Bush. 1945 (reissued in 1990). Science - The Endless Frontier. National Science Foundation. Available on the web at http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/nsf50/vbush1945.htm.

Clark Kerr. 2001 (5th edition). The Uses of the University. Harvard University Press.

Christopher J. Lucas, 1995. American Higher Education: A History. St. Martin's Press.

Sheila Slaughter and Larry L. Leslie. 1999. Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies, and the Entrepreneurial University. Johns Hopkins University Press.