Josiah H. Shinn (1849–1917)

Josiah H. Shinn was a leader in education in Arkansas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as a national figure in education and history. Perhaps most notably, he authored the 1908 book Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas.

Josiah Hazen Shinn was born in Russellville (Pope County) on March 29, 1849, to Josiah Carlock Shinn and Elizabeth Frances Gilpin Shinn. His father, a veteran of the War of 1812, died just a few months before Shinn’s fifth birthday. Shinn later wrote that he had “learned to read at his father’s knee” when he was only three and credited his mother with ensuring that he received a good education after his father’s death.

Shinn received his early education in Louisville, Kentucky, until his mother married Samuel Reed Judd in Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 28, 1859. He completed his intermediate and high school education in Cincinnati, graduating from the Ohio Normal School in 1869. Normal schools, common in mid-nineteenth-century Ohio, focused on training teachers in pedagogy. Although he never practiced law, Shinn was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati in 1872.

He dedicated eighteen years to teaching in Ohio, Kentucky, and Arkansas. While in Kentucky, he married Mildred Carlton Williams in Franklin on January 7, 1875. They had a daughter, Grace Electra Shinn, in 1875 and a son, Joseph Roy Longsworth Shinn, in 1880. The family moved to Russellville in 1882. Grace died from typhoid–malarial fever just after her tenth birthday.

Despite personal tragedies, Shinn excelled professionally. He served as Arkansas state superintendent and was president of the State Teachers’ Association in 1887. From 1885 to 1890, he acted as chief clerk in the office of the secretary of state. In 1890, he was elected superintendent of public instruction, establishing Arkansas’s first normal schools aimed at standardizing teaching methods. In his first year, Shinn organized seventy-six teacher institutes, attracting over 2,200 participants.

After his term ended in 1894, Shinn continued to influence Arkansas’s educational landscape. From 1898 to 1901, he served as president of Springdale College and initiated the state’s first Chautauqua sessions, in Springdale (Washington and Benton Counties), Mammoth Spring (Fulton County), and Fort Smith (Sebastian County). Chautauqua, inspired by a Christian educational movement, provided lectures on various topics and became popular in the early twentieth century. His son managed the Chautauqua sessions in Mammoth Springs and Fort Smith. By the end of 1901, Shinn had accepted a position with the Department of the Interior in Washington DC.

Shinn’s influence extended beyond the state. He served as vice president of the National Educational Association in 1892 and was a judge in the Liberal Arts Department at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. A member of the National Society Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) and the American Institute, Shinn described himself simply as a “member of the Christian Church, a good speaker, and a Democrat.”

Shinn wrote for the Arkansas Gazette and the Arkansas Teacher and Southern School Journal, and he authored numerous books and pamphlets on topics ranging from Arkansas history and education—such as History of Education in Arkansas, published by the U.S. government in 1899, and Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas, published in 1908—to works on American and Russian history. He was also a member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and the Imperial Russian Historical Society and was introduced to the Russian emperor Nicholas I at the Anichkov Palace around 1894.

Shinn died at his home in Washington DC on September 2, 1917, and was buried in his hometown of Russellville, but his remains were later reburied in Roselawn Cemetery in Little Rock.

For additional information:
“Josiah H. Shinn Dies in Washington.” Arkansas Gazette, September 4, 1917, p. 12.

“Josiah H. Shinn Dies; Was Capitol Employe[e].” Evening Star (Washington DC), September 3, 1917, p. 14.

Lemke, W. J. “The Men Who Made History.” Arkansas Gazette Sunday Magazine, May 23, 1937, p. 1.

Shinn, Josiah H. The History of the Shinn Family in Europe and America. Chicago: Genealogical and Historical Publishing Company, 1903. Online at https://archive.org/details/historyofshinnfa00shin (accessed July 29, 2025).

Dustin Bywater
Arkansas State University