A School for the People tells the story of OSU's nearly 150 years as a land grant institution through more than 500 photographs, maps, documents, and extensive captions. A capsule history includes many of the iconic photographs associated with the university. Other chapters focus on themes such as campus development, the growth of academics, the evolution of research as a major focus of the university, campus life and organizations, and, of course, athletics. As one of the first colleges and universities to offer photography as part of its curriculum in the early 1890s, OSU is well documented visually. Most of those photographic treasures have made their way into the holdings of the Special Collections & Archives Research Center at OSU's Valley Library. Gleaned from hundreds of thousands of images at the Center, many of the photos included here have never before been seen by the general public. Several were scanned from the original glass and film negatives and color transparencies to ensure the highest-quality reproductions. Written by a longtime archivist at OSU's Special Collections & Archives Research Center, A School for the People does not obscure the inevitable ups and downs of the institution with the manicured gloss of recruitment brochures, but aims to tell the full, dynamic story of this multi-faceted and living university. Overflowing with visual riches, it will appeal to OSU alumni, faculty and staff, and anyone with an interest in the history of higher education in Oregon or land grant institutions generally.

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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