The Story of the Timeline

by Kate Desmarais

Once upon a time (i.e. 2003) I started an education publishing company with one product: The Classical Education Timeline. I was operating a retail company and selling materials for a classical education. Use of a timeline is paramount for classically educated students' history studies. And educators were, at that time, adorning their dining rooms and classrooms with homemade ones created with a ruler, a Sharpie, and a roll of butcher paper taped to their walls: Practical but labor intensive and not very appealing. So in an effort to beautify houses and schools everywhere, I created an attractive and functional timeline tool. Being my first product and not having quite the understanding of the market and publishing savvy that I now posses, I took out a second mortgage, ordered 10,000 timelines, and had them all shipped to my house. Hmmm...hindsight is so 20/20!

Despite the fact that it took almost five years to build up a customer base that would support an inventory of 10K, and boxes of timelines became furniture in my house, The Classical Education Timeline is, to this day, Pandia Press's best selling product. But when the time came that I exhausted my supply of timelines, besides breathing a huge sigh of relief and purchasing some real furniture, I decided to not print another run. Why? Well I can't remember exactly why... but I'm sure I had some good reasons. I was busy with a full-time publishing company, introducing two new curriculum lines: History Odyssey and R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey. And the idea of taking out a 3rd mortgage wasn't very appealing. But mostly there were some issues with the timeline design that bothered me almost immediately after its release and were still keeping me up at night.

The Classical Education Timeline, following the recommendations outlined in The Well-Trained Mind (the first edition), was designed with even spacing between dates from 6000 BCE to present day. Even spacing was used to give students an accurate view of time passing and the length of time between events. That's all well and good in theory, but in reality it meant that three of the four timelines were devoted to that long span of history called Ancients between 6000 BCE and 500 AD. And only one timeline covered the Middle Ages, Early Modern, and Modern Times. Well guess where most human history happened? You got it: the Middle Ages, Early Modern, and Modern Times. Students had roughly ten inches for recording history from 1600 to present. Compare that to 15 feet for ancient history.

So fast forward to 2010. Ten courses in the History Odyssey line have been published, and the series has become a leading choice in nonsectarian history curriculum. For the past two years, Pandia Press has received daily emails from customers requesting (sometimes demanding) the availability of the timeline that is used in History Odyssey. (Yes that's right, we required a timeline that didn't exist. Nice!) And the second edition of The Well-Trained Mind also recognized the date spacing issue.

I knew that the timeline had to be republished; but I had no idea how I was going to pay for it. The timeline is crazy expensive to produce. It is printed full color on paper that is uniquely over-sized, heavy stock film coated, and has to be specially manufactured. The timeline has to be ordered in huge print runs to get the cost down so I don't have to charge a hundred bucks for it. Trusting finances would somehow work themselves out, I began working with Michelle M. White (an awesome graphic designer who happens to be a customer) on a new layout design. The new design we came up with perfectly addressed all my concerns with the last timeline, and so much more. The new timeline looks amazing and is beautifully designed to match History Odyssey in both usage and aesthetics.

Because this timeline needed to be published, because I had no way to fund it, and because everyday I asked for a way to present itself--an angel phoned me. She was a customer calling to find out when I was going to get off my butt and make the timeline available again. When I explained my situation, she immediately offered to provide the funds and invest in its publication. A way presented itself, just like that.

So clearly I have a lot of people to credit for the publication of The History Odyssey Timeline. I especially want to acknowledge the loyal customers who kept up the pressure and encouragement to get the job done. Thank you for your patience. I hope you like it.