Essential Documents in the History of American Higher Education ed. by John R. Thelin (review)

“The coincidence of a rich heritage and great success in American higher education coexists with clear evidence of unfulfilled promise and unfinished business at hand” (p. 352). This quotation summarizes the purpose of Essential Documents in the History of American Higher Education, a collection of higher education documents in which John Thelin takes the reader on a historical journey that showcases the dynamic evolution of American higher education and attempts to capture its evolving ethos.

Thelin has been one of the leading historians of higher education for decades. Indeed, his A History of American Higher Education (2004) is a standard course text in many higher education graduate programs across the country. This anthology, Essential Documents in the History of American Higher Education, serves as a valuable companion reader to his primary text and is organized using the same section headings as his A History of American Higher Education. However, Essential Documents in the History of American Higher Education can also be read independently or complement another seminal higher education history text, such as Cohen and Kisker’s (2009) The Shaping of American Higher Education.

Readers of the anthology will find Thelin’s commentary insightful. He does a fine job of weaving each chapter into the broader historical narrative, as well as integrating the topics with those discussed in A History of American Higher Education. Although a useful supplement, this book stands on its own as a higher education history text. The lack of author footnotes (unless included in the original document) may appeal to a broader readership interested in educational history, though a few (admittedly, such as myself) would likely enjoy footnote commentary and clarifications.

In the introduction, Thelin allows the reader to gain a better understanding and appreciation of the importance of historical archival work. The book is meant to serve as a tribute to previous higher education archivists; and while Thelin pays homage to his predecessors’ work, his interest lies in advancing, rather than replicating, scholarship.

He understands that his readership is most likely graduate students and researchers, encourages them to engage with the primary sources, and provides a useful 15-item checklist on guidelines for analyzing historical documents. Thelin also includes several secondary sources in his anthology which offer the reader an opportunity to consider how “historical memory is passed on and revived—and altered—over time and according to diverse, often conflicting and polemical perspectives” (p. xviii).

Essential Documents is divided into nine chapters. In each, Thelin discusses not only the legislation, court decisions, campus codes of conduct and college presidential speeches that have shaped higher education history, but also other artifacts, such as advertisements, pictures, and memoirs that capture the collegiate experience of that time, down to mundane day-to-day activities.

Each chapter’s introductory commentary about the particular era to be addressed in that chapter provides an exceptional overview of the main issues facing colleges and universities. This format may remind readers of law book commentary. In addition, each of the chapter’s four to six documents includes commentary about its importance, what it represents, and, in most instances, how it is connected to the broader higher education context.

Chapter 1, “Colleges in the Colonial Era,” provides four document types that one would likely expect but which also serve as good representations of contemporary issues, such as town and gown (Wood’s Riot at Oxford College is literally a battle scene), campus charters, code of conduct, and finances. Thelin’s commentary focuses the reader’s attention on the creation of college governance through trustees and how student consumerism is not a modern creation; students were quite concerned about their dining options, living accommodations, and even social status in the colonial era. Thelin provides an interesting historical contrast with the College of Rhode Island’s (now Brown University) pre-American Revolution college charter and post-Revolution code of conduct.

In Chapter...