Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues that colleges of the period between the Civil War and World War I were at the intersection of powerful social forces and emerged as one of the winners in the resulting changes. Colleges began the period as agents of ethnoreligious subcultures and local boosterism. The book examines the relationships between the colleges and their communities and their impact on faculty, curriculum, and student life. It also examines the broader implications of the case studies for understanding American educational and social development between the Civil War and World War I. The social role of the American college has received relatively little attention from historians, especially for the period between the Civil War and World War I. By 1917 a small number of private colleges had forged a model that continues to influence American higher education and society.