author
S. Proctor Thayer
A little-known figure in American educational publishing, S. Proctor Thayer helped shape a widely used series of nineteenth-century school readers. His work offers a glimpse into how reading instruction was introduced to generations of young students.
1 Audiobook
New National First Reader
by Charles J. (Charles Joseph) Barnes, Harlan Hoge Ballard, S. Proctor Thayer
About the author
S. Proctor Thayer was an American educational writer active in the late nineteenth century. He is best known as a coauthor of the New National Readers, a series of schoolbooks published by the American Book Company during the 1880s.
Thayer worked with Charles J. Barnes and Harlan H. Ballard on several volumes, including the New National First Reader, Second Reader, and Third Reader. These books combined short lessons, stories, poems, and exercises designed to build reading skills for children.
Biographical details about Thayer’s personal life are scarce, but his contribution to the era’s schoolbook publishing is preserved through the readers that carried his name into classrooms across the United States.