Interesting Facts

  • The appointment of professors Charles Elliott and Orange Nash Stoddard as hall residents was the predecessor by eighty years of the resident adviser system.

  • Miami is known as the "Mother of Fraternities", with the Miami Triad Beta Theta Pi, Phi Delta Theta, and Sigma Chi being founded in Oxford.

  • In the 1830's Miami was the fourth largest college in the United States trailing only Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth.

  • William Holmes McGuffey, whose readers sold over 130 million copies, received only $1,000 and a ham every Christmas for sales of his readers. Only the Holy Bible has had greater sales.

  • The official seal of Miami was adopted in 1826.

  • The total cost of attending Miami during its first year was $93, including board, room, tuition, laundry, candles, and wood.

  • The oldest building on the Miami campus is the DeWitt log cabin built in 1804.

  • Oxford, Ohio is the first Oxford in North America.

  • In 1920 Miami appointed the first Artist-in-Residence at a public institution, the poet Percy MacKaye.

  • The first intercollegiate football game in the state of Ohio was played in 1888 between Miami and Cincinnati.

  • In 1917 Miami played an eight-game schedule without a loss and outscored the opposition by 202-0.

  • Arthur Wickenden headed the first Department of Religion on a public campus in America.

  • Miami is one of the very few universities in the country with its own cemetery.

  • In 1888 the Republican candidate for President, Benjamin Harrison, and the Democratic candidate's campaign manager, Calvin Brice, were both Miami graduates.

  • In 1892 the Republican candidate for President was Benjamin Harrison and his Vice Presidential candidate was Whitelaw Reid; both were Miami graduates.

  • Miami produced ten Union generals and three Confederate generals in the Civil War.

  • In the 1850's there were five colleges in Oxford.


If you are interested in reading more about Miami History we recommend the following books.

Miami University: A Personal History

by Dr. Phillip Shriver

Miami Years

by Walter Havighurst

Men of Old Miami

by Walter Havighurst