Museum News
McGuffey House in 1960
Photo by Arthur F. Conrad. Courtesy of Calvin Conrad.
Images of the McGuffeys
Learn how the McGuffey House and Museum is taking steps to preserve rare daguerreotypes of the McGuffey family. Images of the McGuffeys
Fall 2019 in Review
We enjoyed music and fellowship, welcomed enthusiastic visitors, and learned about fascinating local history from distinguished guest speakers. Fall 2019 Highlights
Hubei University Delegation Visits
Faculty & staff from Hubei University in Wuhan, China recently visited Miami. Their itinerary included a tour of the museum.
McGuffey Descendants Visit the Family Homestead
Kathy Queitzsch and Ben Ross, descendants of William Holmes and Harriet McGuffey, enjoyed a lengthy visit to the museum. Each year McGuffey House and Museum welcomes several descendants of the McGuffey and Hepburn families.
Love and Honor
Steve Lindsey, MU '69, his daughter Shana and her children after a tour of the museum. Steve is a fifth generation Miamian and former Oxford resident.
Collection Curiosities
Boot Jack
Note: A fascinating aspect of everyday household objects is how they frequently incorporated contemporary fashion with function. This column shares one of McGuffey House and Museum’s many collection curiosities.
It is winter 1833. Oxford’s weather is rainy and raw. Professor McGuffey enters through the front door of his new house on Spring Street after a long day teaching and preparing class lectures in Old Main. Careful not to track in mud from the unpaved walks and street, not to mention the ire of Harriet McGuffey, William Holmes McGuffey pauses over a simple yet invaluable household object. It is a bug-like artifact by the fire place known simply as a boot jack. Produced by numerous local foundries during the 19th century, boot jacks were used to easily remove boots hands free. Read more about the boot jack »
From our collections
Unidentified Portraits
? John Insco Williams (1813-1873)
These portraits depict two unknown individuals, believed to have been residents of Richmond, Indiana, during the early 1830s. The female subject, seated in a Queen Anne chair, is distinguished by her Apollo hairstyle, diamond earrings and black dress. The male subject, presumably her husband but possibly a brother, wears a black wool coat, cravat and tie pin. Both subjects may have been painted by John Insco Williams (1813-1873) an itinerant painter in eastern Indiana from 1832-1835.
Information on the unidentified couple is welcome! Contact Steve Gordon
Bishop Sideboard
Mahogany, 1790–1815
This sideboard belonged to the first president of Miami University, Robert Hamilton Bishop. Brought to Oxford by the Bishops in 1824, it stood in the entry hall of the Bishop home until the 1930s.
In 1991, Dr. Jonathan S. Bishop donated the sideboard to Miami University and the McGuffey Museum.
Peter Bruner's top hat and hatbox
Overcoming years of slavery, voluntary service in the Union Army, and decades of manual labor, celebrated Oxford citizen Peter Bruner's life is a story worth telling and re-telling. The Museum collection includes his top hat and hat box.
Octagonal table
It is thought that McGuffey wrote the first four books in the series in this house, very possibly on this table.
1840s pie safe
Poplar with pierced tin panels, 1840–1850
Cupboards of this type were used for food storage. The pierced tin panels allowed air circulation without letting rodents and large insects foul the foodstuffs.