Thomas Trueblood

Thomas Clarkson Trueblood
Trueblood from the 1948 Michiganensian
Born	(1856-04-06)April 6, 1856 Salem, Indiana, US
Died	June 5, 1951(1951-06-05) (aged 95) Bradenton, Florida, US
Occupation	Professor

Thomas Clarkson Trueblood (April 6, 1856 – June 5, 1951) was an American professor of elocution and oratory and the first coach of the University of Michigan golf and debate teams. He was affiliated with the University of Michigan for 67 years from 1884 to 1951, and was a nationally known writer and speaker on oratory and debate. He founded UM's Department of Elocution and Oratory as well as the campus debate program. He became the subject of national media attention in 1903 when the Chicago Tribune ran an article stating that he was offering a new "course in love making." His golf teams won two NCAA National Championships and five Big Ten Conference championships. He was posthumously inducted into the University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor in 1981.

Trueblood was a native of Salem, Indiana. He attended Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana and received an A.M. degree. In 1878, Trueblood and Robert I. Fulton established the Fulton and Trueblood School of Oratory in Kansas City, Missouri, which became "one of the largest and best known institutions of its kind in the United States." In 1884, Trueblood came to Ann Arbor as a lecturer on public speaking, intending to give a six-week course. The next year he was invited back. At the time he also was lecturing at Missouri, Kentucky and Ohio Wesleyan, and working out of Fulton and Trueblood School. Michigan asked him to join the faculty, and he stayed for 67 years. In 1892, he founded the Department of Elocution and Oratory and became its first chairman. Michigan's Oratory and Elocution Department was the first such unit in any major university or college in the country. He also established the first credit course in speech at any American university. At the turn of the century, speech and oratory played an important role in American society and academia, so much so that Trueblood was the highest paid professor on the University of Michigan faculty, and students were required to take Trueblood's courses.