October 27, 1999
New Book Recounts History of Middlebury College
— “The College on the Hill: A Browser’s History for
the Bicentennial,” by Middlebury College Lecturer David Bain,
Now Available
How did Middlebury College evolve from its first
day of operation on Nov. 4, 1800—with seven students and a 27-year-old
former Yale tutor, Jeremiah Atwater, presiding as president—into
a national college of approximately 2,200 students from over 70
countries and 50 states?
A new, richly illustrated book, “The College
on the Hill: A Browser’s History for the Bicentennial” by
David Haward Bain, is a fresh account of Middlebury College’s
history. The book introduces the reader to the numerous individuals
who shaped the College, describes the evolution of the campus,
and traces the close connections between the College and the town
of Middlebury—without which the College would not exist.
The oversized volume is 464 pages long with more
than 600 photos. Middlebury College is publishing “The College
on the Hill” in celebration of its Bicentennial in November
of the year 2000.
“The College on the Hill” draws on many
sources, including the vast repositories of the College archives.
Bain pairs photographs with excerpts from the archival materials—correspondence,
records, publications, and other items. These sources also provided
much information for the capsule biographies of College graduates,
faculty, and administrators that appear throughout, contributing
to the book’s personal point of view.
Bain recounts the struggles of early Middlebury presidents,
such as Henry Davis, who was president from 1810 to 1817, and
Benjamin Labaree, who was president from 1840 to 1866, to keep
the financially precarious College afloat. Under Labaree, enrollments
were so depressed and money so scarce that, “
in 1847,
serious negotiations over merging with the University of Vermont
broke down when Middlebury officials refused to discuss relocating
to Burlington.”
The book also includes profiles of notable alumni,
from retired Senator Stafford of Vermont to the late Ron Brown,
who was the nation’s secretary of commerce at the time of his
death. As a student at Middlebury, Brown broke racial barriers
when he joined the fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon; his fellow fraternity
members accepted expulsion from the national organization rather
than bar Brown, an African-American, from joining the Middlebury
College chapter.
“The College on the Hill” includes many
of the major milestones that have defined student life at Middlebury
College, from the dropping of the classical Greek requirement
in 1875 and the decision to admit women in 1883 to the founding
of the Mountain Club in 1931 and visits to campus by such notable
figures as statesman William Jennings Bryan in 1921 and bandleader
Glenn Miller in 1938.
From the beginning, when town business and civic
leaders joined together to found an institution of higher learning,
the College’s history and fate were inextricably intertwined with
the town of Middlebury. During the early, lean years, it was the
townspeople whose donations ensured the College’s survival. “The
College on the Hill” gives the reader a glimpse into Middlebury’s
history, recalling such aspects of the past as the wooden bridge
that once spanned Otter Creek, the fire of 1875, and the townspeople
who provided room and board to students prior to the existence
of dormitories.
David Bain is a writer, editor, reviewer, and member
of the Middlebury College English department. He has been associated
with the College’s Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in varying capacities
since 1980. He is the author of another new book, “Empire
Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad,” which
will be published in November 1999 by Viking, and will be a main
selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club. His previous books include
“Whose Woods These Are: A History of the Bread Loaf Writers’
Conference” (1993); “Sitting in Darkness: Americans
in the Philippines” (1984, 1986), which received a Robert
F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award; and “Aftershocks” (1980,
1986). His short work has appeared in publications ranging from
Smithsonian, Prairie Schooner, and TV Guide to Glamour, The New
York Times Book Review, and the Los Angeles Times. He lives in
Orwell, Vt., with his wife, Mary Smyth Duffy, and their two children.
“The College on the Hill” is available
for sale at the Middlebury College Store. To place an order, call
the College Store at 802-443-3036. The price is $29.95 through
Dec. 31, 1999, and $35.00 thereafter. There will be a $5.00 fee
for shipping and handling charges. The book is published by Middlebury
College Press (9” x 12”; 464 pp; over 600 photos).
For more information, contact the public affairs
office at 802-443-5198.