William B. Guitteau papers

William Backus Guitteau was born in Toledo, Ohio, on November 27, 1877. He attended Toledo public schools including Toledo Central High School from which he graduated in 1894. Guitteau studied at the University of Michigan for one year and then enrolled at Ohio State University in 1896. In addition to his law studies at OSU, Guitteau passed the Ohio State Bar Exam. Postponing his career in law, Guitteau was awarded the President White Fellowship from Cornell University where he spent one year and earned a Master of Arts in Economics. Also, that same year Guitteau served as a Special Clerk to the U.S. Industry Commission in Washington, D.C.

In 1902, Guitteau resumed his graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania where he completed a PhD in History in 1904. Guitteau's dissertation was written about municipal politics and foreshadowed a public career that was to span nearly thirty years. Guitteau was profoundly influenced by progressivism and was to emerge as "the archetype Progressive."

In 1905 Guitteau returned to Toledo where he became principal of Toledo Central High School. Guitteau spent the next twenty-five years serving the Toledo School District in various capacities. In 1911 Guitteau became Superintendent of Toledo Public Schools, later serving as Director of Schools from 1923 through 1925. In addition to his administrative functions, Guitteau lectured about municipal reform and published several textbooks--among them the highly controversial Our United States, which was deemed too "pro-British" and subsequently banned in several school districts. Guitteau also led a highly successful movement to provide better education for those stricken with tuberculosis culminating in the establishment of an "Open Air" School.

Guitteau attained his first position in city government in 1926 when he served briefly as City Service Director. One year later he made an unsuccessful mayoral bid. Guitteau's pinnacle of public achievement occurred in 1930 when President Herbert Hoover named him U.S. Collector for the Internal Revenue Service in northwest Ohio, a position he held until 1932.

With the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the onset of the New Deal, Guitteau retired from public life accepting a job as Executive Secretary and Lobbyist for the Ohio Crushed Stone Association. In 1946, Guitteau returned briefly to public service with his unsuccessful proposal for the reorganization of Toledo City Government. Guitteau retired from the Ohio Crushed Stone Association in 1949 and resumed private law practice until his death on July 25, 1963.

Guitteau is survived by his two daughters, Mary Jane of Cleveland, Ohio, and Joanne Pat of Tiffin, Ohio. Shortly after his death, Guitteau's private library was donated to Heidelburg College. This collection consists primarily of secondary sources and contains few personal papers.