Minor Myers

President and Professor of Political Science Illinois Wesleyan University

Bloomington, Illinois 61702

Born August 13, 1942, Akron, Ohio Married to Ellen Achin Myers; two children, Minor Myers, III, Joffre V.A. Myers

Education:

1965-1968 Princeton University
Ph.D. (Politics-Political Philosophy), 1972
M.A., 1967

1964-1965 Duke University

1960-1964 Carleton College
B.A., 1964

Positions:

1989-Present President and Professor of Political Science
Illinois Wesleyan University

1984-1989 Provost and Dean of Faculty,
Professor of Political Science
Hobart and William Smith Colleges

1968-1984 Connecticut College

1981-84 Professor of Government
1976-81 Associate Professor of Government
1971-76 Assistant Professor of Government
1968-71 Instructor in Government

Other positions:

Board of Directors, National Merit Scholarship Corporation, 1999-
Board of Directors, The Foundation for Independent Higher Education, 1999-
President, Associated Colleges of Illinois, 1999-2001.
Trustee and sometime Vice Chairman, Institute for the International Education of Students, 1993-1999.
Secretary General, Society of the Cincinnati, 1986-1988.
President, Lyman Allyn Museum Fund, Inc., 1982-1984.
Chairman of the Board, Lyman Allyn Museum, 1976-1981, 1982-1984.
Advisor, Numismatic Collection, Yale University, 1975-1984.
Advisory Board, Princeton University Chapel, 1968-1971.
Organist, Calvary Episcopal Church, Stonington, Connecticut, 1969-1978.
American Council on Education Fellow in Academic Administration, Brown University, 1981-1982.

Who's Who in America

Phi Beta Kappa

Sigma Xi

Collections: Books, especially Eighteenth century books (significant groupings in political philosophy, music, gardening, cookery), decorative arts, nineteenth century cookery. Musical instruments of the eighteenth century. College related materials, though my earlier group of 11,000 items once in the American Antiquarian Society is now part of the Illinois Wesleyan University Library.

Recreations: numismatics, harpsichord, piano, tennis.

Publications:

Books

History of Calvary Church, Stonington (Stonington: Calvary Episcopal Church, 1973), 122 pp. Reprinted 1985. (with Edgar de N. Mayhew) New London County Furniture, 1640-1840 (New London: Lyman Allyn Museum, 1974), 134 pp. Reprinted 1981.

(with Willard Thorp and Jeremiah Stanton Finch) The Princeton Graduate School: A History (Princeton University, 1978), 230 pp., Second edition with revisions by Thomas P. Roche, jr. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996)

(with Edgar de N. Mayhew) A Documentary History of American Interiors from the Colonial Era to 1915 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1980), 399 pp.

Liberty without Anarchy: A History of the Society of the Cincinnati (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1983), 280 pp.

The Insignia of the Society of the Cincinnati (Washington: The Society of the Cincinnati, 1998), 120 pp.

(with Arnold Thackray) Arnold O. Beckman: One Hundred Years of Excellence (Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2000), 379 pp.

(with Carl Teichman) Illinois Wesleyan University: Continuity & Change 1850-2000 (Illinois Wesleyan ( University Press in cooperation with WDG Publishing, 2001), 242 pp.

Books forthcoming and in progress

Polymath: The Creative World of the Multi Talented.
A survey of the multi-talented in Europe, the Americas, and Japan since the Renaissance.

An Evening with Peter Pelham: An American Harpsichord Manuscript of 1744. A manuscript of 19 pieces copied out by Peter Pelham for use of a Boston harpsichord student in 1744. Pelham would later be organist at Bruton Parish, Williamsburg. This manuscript is arguably America's oldest secular music and includes an unknown song by Charles Theodore Pachebel, who was Pelham's own teacher. There are five pieces likely by Pelham.

A Dictionary of American Academics before 1830. An ongoing biographical dictionary of faculty who taught at all American colleges before 1830.

Baroque Cuisine: English Cookery in the Time of Handel and Haydn. A culinary companion to the eighteenth century aspects of the interiors book, based on my seventeenth and eighteenth century cookery collections. General analysis of cookery, table service, and table ware, with recipes and notes on period varieties of fruits and vegetables. Essentially cookery as analogous to early music performance practice.

Articles

"Showing the Flag in 1832" (A Manuscript of the Frigate United States), Connecticut College Library Bulletin, Number One, 1973, pp. 25-36.

Introduction and edition of John Stuart Mill, "Intended Speech at the Cooperative Society," Connecticut College Library Bulletin, Number Two, 1975, pp. 15-28.

"Letters, Learning and Politics in Lyme, 1760-1800," A Lyme Miscellany, ed. George J. Willauer, Jr. (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1977), pp. 48-80.

"Libertas in the Roman Imperial Coinage," Numismatic Review (Summer, 1977), pp. 2-6.

"Political Symbolism on the Coinage of the French Revolution, Numismatic Review (Winter, 1977-78), pp. 18-22.

"Notes on Crime and Punishment in Colonial Connecticut," Publication of the Genealogical Society of Connecticut, Fall, 1978.

"Thomas Hollis: A Numismatic Defender of Liberty, Numismatic Review (Fall, 1979), pp. 13-19.

"A Source for Eighteenth Century Harvard Masters' Questions," William and Mary Quarterly (April, 1981), pp. 261-67.

"The 'Polish Order' of 1783 Identified," in A Miscellany of Honours, Orders and Medals Research Society, London, No. 3, 1981, pp. 11-19.

Education

"Science, Politics, and the University," Connecticut College Alumni Magazine (Spring, 1974), pp. 14-16.

"Towards Greater Breadth and Integration," Connecticut College Alumni Magazine (Fall, 1977).

"To Honor a Friend: Endowed Book Funds and Gift Funds," Connecticut College Library Bulletin, Number Three, 1977, pp. 11-16.

"The Graduate School," A Princeton Companion, edited by Alexander Leitch (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1978), pp. 224-28.

"George S. Palmer: The Benefactor as Collector," Connecticut College Library Bulletin, Number Four, 1978, pp. 1-7.

"Wadawanuck Young Ladies Institute: Connecticut's First Women's College," Publication of the
Stonington Historical Society (Fall, 1978).

Art History

"Furniture and the Growth of American Society," Connecticut College Alumni Magazine (Fall, 1975), pp.4-7.

"Who Bought Webster and Parkes's Encyclopaedia of Domestic Economy?," Antiques (May, 1979), pp. 1028-31.

"The Migration of Style: Blockfront Furniture in Connecticut Towns," Art & Antiques (March-April,
1980), pp. 80-87. Reprinted in Early American Furniture, ed. Mary Madigan., New York: Art & Antiques, 1983.