BALDWIN, JOSEPH (1827-1899). Joseph Baldwin, teacher and author, son of Joseph and Isabel (Cairns) Baldwin, was born in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, on October 31, 1827. He attended Bartlett Academy in Newcastle and prepared for ministry in the Disciples of Christ (Christian) Church at Bethany College, where he received the B.A. degree in 1852. After his marriage to Ella Sophronia Fluhart of Ohio, he decided to become a teacher and began his career in Platte City, Missouri, in 1852. In 1856 he helped found the Missouri State Teachers Association. He studied in Millersville Normal School and was principal of Lawrence County Normal School. He taught in Indiana for nine years and served a year in the Union Army before he established a private normal at Kirksville, Missouri, in 1867. The school became a state normal in 1870. In 1881, while on a lecture tour in Texas, Baldwin was elected principal of Sam Houston Normal Institute (now Sam Houston State University) at Huntsville. He served there until 1891, when he was selected as the first professor of pedagogy at the University of Texas. While living in Texas he wrote several books on education: Art of School Management (1881), Elementary Psychology and Education (1887), Psychology Applied to the Art of Teaching (1892), and School Management and School Methods (1897). He died on January 13, 1899.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dictionary of American Biography.