Caleb Bingham
Caleb Bingham was a notable American educator, author, and bookseller born in 1757 in Salisbury, Connecticut. Growing up in a challenging frontier environment with limited educational resources, he dedicated much of his life to enhancing access to education and literature. Bingham attended Dartmouth College, where he excelled academically and delivered the valedictory address in 1782. After graduating, he worked in various educational roles, including master of Moor's Indian Charity School and a private school for girls in Boston, which was the city's first full-time institution for female education.
Bingham is particularly recognized for his influential textbooks that were widely used in schools for decades. His works included subjects such as English grammar, astronomy, and public speaking, with the aim of fostering a love of reading and oratory among students. His most prominent publication, "The American Preceptor," achieved significant popularity, appearing in numerous editions until 1875. Beyond his teaching career, he contributed to the establishment of public libraries, founding the Boston Society Library and donating books to create the Bingham Library for Youth in Salisbury. Bingham's legacy includes his pivotal role in shaping public education in Boston and promoting literacy, leading to his lasting recognition in American educational history. He passed away in 1817.
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Caleb Bingham
Author
- Born: April 15, 1757
- Birthplace: Salisbury, Connecticut
- Died: April 6, 1817
Biography
Caleb Bingham was born in 1757 in Salisbury, Connecticut, to parents Daniel Bingham and Hannah Conant Bingham. At that time, Salisbury, in the northwest corner of Connecticut, was part of the colonial American frontier, a relatively dangerous place with few educational opportunities and no access to a library. Bingham spent much of his life helping others gain access to both education and books through his work as an educator, a writer of textbooks, a bookseller, and a benefactor to public libraries.
With some local schooling, further preparation by the local minister, and a family connection to Dartmouth College founder Eleazar Wheelock, Bingham entered Dartmouth College in 1779. He did well there, was chosen to deliver the 1782 valedictory address, and received an M.A. from the College. Bingham married Hannah Kemble in 1786, and the couple had two daughters.
Bingham spent the thirteen years after his graduation from Dartmouth as an educator in a variety of schools in Connecticut and Massachusetts. In 1782 he became master of Moor’s Indian Charity School, a school Wheelock had founded in 1754 to prepare Indians to enter Dartmouth. Bingham left for Boston in 1784 and began a private school for girls, the city’s first such full-time school. Bingham was instrumental in the development and reorganization of the Boston public schools. He closed his private school to become the master at one of the new reading schools, a position he held for seven years before he retired from teaching in 1795.
Bingham is probably best remembered for his influential and popular textbooks for young people. From the beginning of his teaching career, Bingham also had been writing and publishing textbooks, some of which were used in schools until the 1870’s. Bingham’s first textbook in 1785 was an introduction to English grammar aimed at young women, The Young Lady’s Accidence. He wrote textbooks on astronomy, geography, and public speaking. Bingham also became well known for his popular readers that were widely adopted in the schools. He selected speeches, essays, plays, and poetry of interest to both boys and girls, often with religious and moral content, and with the intent to provide material that would promote a love of reading and public oratory. He rejected ordering his readers into a graded progression of exercises that increased in complexity in favor of more random collections that seemed less like schoolbooks. The American Preceptor, published through at least seventy editions until 1875, was Bingham’s most successful reader.
After Bingham retired from teaching, he turned to publishing and bookselling, among other occupations. He opened a bookshop in Boston that became a meeting place for educators and a headquarters for the Jeffersonian Republicans for more than twenty years. He ran unsuccessfully for public office, but was eventually appointed director of the Massachusetts state prison by Governor Elbridge Gerry.
In addition to being an influential figure in developing public education in Boston, Bingham played a significant role in establishing public libraries in the area. He helped found the Boston Society Library in 1793. In 1803, he donated his collection of 150 books for young people to his hometown of Salisbury as the foundation for the new Bingham Library for Youth, named in his honor. The town’s 1810 subsidy for the library marked the first time a city had supported a public library in America. Bingham died in 1817.