Where does the name “Oberlin” come from?
Oberlin was named after John Frederic Oberlin (1740-1826), a minister and social reformer in the Alsace region of France. He was passionately committed to universal education and imposed on his parish a universal tax to support free public education. Among other things, he also improved existing transportation infrastructure and advocated business and vocational training for men and women. He worked to improve agricultural knowledge, importing new breeds of livestock and experimenting in horticulture and and grafting “standard” varieties of fruit trees onto local indigenous plants. He encouraged village residents to be trained in medicine and midwifery, promoted good hygiene and sanitation, including litter collection, and, when it became available, made the smallpox vaccine obligatory for residents of his parish.
