Speech Communication, History of

Abstract

The field of speech emerged out of changing teaching practices in US higher education in the early twentieth century. Between 1880 and 1920, many of the academic fields in the US formed associations and university departments. University education, with the rise of the research university and the land‐grant schools, was becoming accessible to a larger and more diverse group of Americans. Higher education was outstripping its traditional function of reproducing an elite class, qualifying them only for the “gentle professions” of the clergyman, the lawyer, and the politician. Speech instruction had traditionally been integrated into the general, liberal education of the private colleges, with students writing and speaking as part of the study of classics and philosophy. But as the nineteenth century came to a close, speech instruction, focused mainly on delivery, became a separate course in the curriculum. Speaking as a performance art, that of the “platform entertainer,” had become lucrative and popular, and college instruction reflected that reality.