Birth Day of Clifton K.Hillegass

Clifton Keith Hillegass gave American college students their favorite study guide and colleges the fear of an easily accessible cheat sheet.

Ninety years ago, today, Clifton Keith Hillegass was born in Rising City, Nebraska. A voracious reader from early childhood, Clifton was a gifted student and popular with his peers. However, he quit college just short of getting a master’s because he did not write the required thesis.

In 1946, Hillegass became manager of the wholesale division of Nebraska Book Co. During his work with there he met Jack Cole who sold a line of study guides in Canada. The guides were called Cole’s Notes. He offered Hillegass the opportunity to reprint them and sell them in the United States. Hillegass decided to accept the offer and borrowed $4,000 to start his business. He reprinted the study guides, changing the name to Cliff’s Notes, which he later changed to Cliffs Notes when he broke all business ties with Jack Cole.

In the first year, he sold 18,000 study guides by 1964 he was selling 1 million guides per year. Cliffs Notes are written with the understanding that students aren’t looking for an in-depth analysis of material. What students want is something that gives them the information they need to understand and pass without extraneous information. Hillegass said it this way "Someone involved in 20 years of teaching Shakespeare often has too specialized a knowledge. Eventually we found that the best Notes were written by graduate students.”

Many colleges view Cliffs Notes as cheat sheets but Hillegass always maintained that they were supplemental study aids. Until Hillegass sold Cliffs Notes, every study guide had the following statement "These notes are not a substitute for the text itself or for the classroom discussion of the text, and students who attempt to use them in this way are denying themselves the very education that they are presumably giving their most vital years to achieve."