Special Collections & University Archives Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Growing Up on A College Campus

1913-1927:

 Elinor Gordon Blair and the Indiana Normal School

Elinor Gordon Blair is the daughter of McClellan Gordon, Mathematics professor at Indiana Normal School from 1892-1927, and Emma Elizabeth Reinhardt, teacher and graduate of Indiana Normal  School. 

Born in 1913,  when faculty lived as well as worked on campus, her life was closely intertwined with that of the Normal School.   As a child she was widely known by students and faculty alike. Above is an image from the 1916 Instano yearbook that jokingly listed her as the president of the freshman class.

Her father,  McClellan Gordon  taught  Mathematics at Indiana Normal School from 1892 to 1927.   In 1910, he married Emma Reinhardt, a school teacher and IUP alumna. Elinor, their only child,  was born in 1913.  He taught mathematics, but he also ran the bookstore and coached a number of sports including baseball and women’s tennis and field hockey.  To an even greater extent than for modern University professors,  Professor Gordon’s life was centered on the  school.

 Before he married, he lived on-campus in rooms in Sutton Hall.  After their marriage, the Gordons lived in a the Smith Mansion overseeing twelve Normal School students, and ate their meals in the school dining room, then Thomas Sutton Hall.

Professors and students eating in Normal School Dining Hall.

• Pages  1 to 23
• Pages 24- 42
• Pages 42 - 61

For more information on the history of the University, you may also wish to consult the following secondary sources:

• Juliette, Ron  and Dale E. Landon.  Indiana University of Pennsylvania : our homage 
  and our love. 1991 Call number: LD2485 .J85 1991 

• Merryman, John Edward. The Indiana story, 1875-1975: Pennsylvania's first state university. 
  1976. Call No. Special Collections LD2481.I67 M420