Oberlin History Essays and Impressions by Geoffrey Blodgett 2006, 280 pp ISBN 978-0-87338-887-0 Paper, $22.95 courtesy of our partner, Atlas Books Call (419) 281-1802 to order by phone.

A long-awaited compilation of historical essays

“Geoffrey Blodgett was a much-loved professor and a distinguished scholar of American history who dedicated his entire academic career to Oberlin College and its students. This anthology . . . of subtle and sophisticated work . . . illuminates the history of a great college, the intellect of a gifted historian, and the character of an extraordinarily humane and gentle man.”
— from the Foreword by Nancy S. Dye, president of Oberlin College

It was during the tumultuous years of the late 1960s and early 1970s that Geoffrey Blodgett turned his attention to the rich history of Oberlin College and its surrounding northern Ohio community. He understood that well-researched and thoughtfully interpreted history can help a community better understand its mission and values and address its current dilemmas, and his aim for these essays was to help put contemporary campus crises and conflicts into historical context.

Although several essays included in Oberlin History were originally published in scholarly journals, Blodgett clearly wrote these for an Oberlin audience. Elegantly written and grounded in wide-ranging historical scholarship, Blodgett’s work is far more sophisticated than most local and institutional histories.

Geoffrey Blodgett (AB Oberlin, 1953; Ph.D. Harvard, 1960) was the Robert S. Danforth Professor of History at Oberlin College. His specialties included American intellectual history, American political history, and the social history of American architecture. He was the author of Oberlin Architecture, College, and Town: A Guide to Its Social History (Kent State University Press, 1985) and Cass Gilbert: The Early Years.

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