Angell, James Rowland (08 May 1869–04 March 1949), academic psychologist and fourteenth president of Yale University, was born in Burlington, Vermont, the son of James Burrill Angell, president of the University of Vermont and later the president of the University of Michigan, and Sarah Swope Caswell, daughter of ...
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Angell, James Rowland (1869-1949), academic psychologist and fourteenth president of Yale University
Dan A. Oren
Article
Berry, Edward Wilber (1875-1945), paleobotanist, teacher, and university administrator
Ellis L. Yochelson
Berry, Edward Wilber (10 February 1875–20 September 1945), paleobotanist, teacher, and university administrator, was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Abijah Conger Berry and Anna Wilber. Berry is a classic example of the self-trained scientist. He received elementary courses in biology and botany in high school that roused his interest in nature. Berry completed the three-year course in two years and finished his formal education at thirteen. From 1890 to 1897 he worked for a cotton goods company, rising from stock boy to traveling salesman. Berry then entered the newspaper world as business manager for the ...
Article
Bolton, Henry Carrington (1843-1903), chemist and historian
Herbert T. Pratt
Bolton, Henry Carrington (28 January 1843–19 November 1903), chemist and historian, was born in New York City, the only child of Jackson Bolton, a physician, and Anna Hinman North. Bolton graduated from Columbia College in 1862 after showing aptitude in mathematics and chemistry. Over the next four years he studied chemistry with some of the best minds in Europe: Jean-Baptiste-André Dumas at the Sorbonne and Charles-Adolphe Wurtz of the École de Médicine in Paris; Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, Hermann Franz Moritz Kopp, and Gustav Robert Kirchhoff at the University of Heidelberg; Friedrich Wöhler at Göttingen; and August Wilhelm von Hofmann of the University of Berlin. In 1866, the year his father died, he was awarded a Ph.D. at the University of Göttingen for his work “On the Fluorine Compounds of Uranium.” Throughout his stay in Europe, Bolton traveled the whole of the Continent, particularly in Switzerland, where he became an expert alpine climber....
Article
Bouchet, Edward Alexander (1852-1918), educator and scientist
H. Kenneth Bechtel
Bouchet, Edward Alexander (15 September 1852–28 October 1918), educator and scientist, was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of William Francis Bouchet, a janitor, and Susan Cooley. Part of New Haven’s black community that provided much of the city’s unskilled and domestic labor, the Bouchets were members of the Temple Street Congregational Church, which was a stopping point for fugitive slaves along the Underground Railroad, and both Edward and his father were active in church affairs. During the 1850s and 1860s New Haven had only three schools that black children could attend. Edward was enrolled in the Artisan Street Colored School, a small (only thirty seats), ungraded school with one teacher, Sarah Wilson, who played a crucial role in nurturing Bouchet’s academic abilities and his desire to learn....
Article
Bronowski, Jacob (1908-1974), mathematician and historian and philosopher of science
David Topper
Bronowski, Jacob (18 January 1908–22 August 1974), mathematician and historian and philosopher of science, was born in Łódź (in what is now Poland), the son of Abram Bronowski and Celia Flatto, occupations unknown. During his childhood his family moved first to Germany (1912) and then to England (1920). In 1927 he entered the University of Cambridge to study mathematics, receiving his Ph.D. in 1933. He also helped found and edit a literary magazine, ...
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Burkhardt, Fredrick Henry (13 Sept. 1912–23 Sept. 2007), educational administrator and historian of science
Steven C. Wheatley
Burkhardt, Fredrick Henry (13 Sept. 1912–23 Sept. 2007), educational administrator and historian of science, was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Louis Burkhardt, a butcher and shopkeeper who had deserted from the German Navy, and Marie Neumeier. Burkhardt attended public schools in Queens, suffering anti-German prejudice during World War I. The family relocated to Staten Island after the war, but when his father’s grocery shop became a speakeasy during Prohibition, it was decided that Burkhardt should return to Queens to live with his grandparents. Against the advice of his family, who had secured him an appointment to the New York City Fire Department, Burkhardt began undergraduate study at Columbia University. Upon graduating with a B.A. in ...
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Caswell, Alexis (1799-1877), science professor and administrator
Elizabeth Noble Shor
Caswell, Alexis (29 January 1799–08 January 1877), science professor and administrator, was born in Taunton, Massachusetts, the son of Samuel Caswell and Polly Seaver, farmers. The boy attended an academy in Taunton, then entered Brown University. There he “bore the highest honors of his class,” said his biographer William Gammell. He gave the valedictory address at his graduation in 1822. During his college years he joined the First Baptist Church in Providence, Rhode Island, with which he was associated for the rest of his life....
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Chardón, Carlos E. (28 Sept. 1897–7 March 1965), mycologist, university chancellor, government administrator, and historian of science
Darryl E. Brock
Chardón, Carlos E. (28 Sept. 1897–7 March 1965), mycologist, university chancellor, government administrator, and historian of science, was born Carlos Eugenio Chardón Palacios in Ponce, Puerto Rico, one of two sons to Carlos Félix Chardón, a notary and successful planter, and Isabel Palacios Pelletier. Chard...
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Cope, Arthur Clay (1909-1966), chemistry professor and administrator
D. Stanley Tarbell
Cope, Arthur Clay (27 June 1909–04 June 1966), chemistry professor and administrator, was born in Dunreith, Indiana, the son of Everett C. Cope and Jennie Compton, grain storage operators. Cope received the bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1929 from Butler University in Indianapolis. He then worked with ...
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Cushing, Harvey Williams (1869-1939), neurosurgeon, medical historian, and bibliophile
Jeremiah A. Barondess
Cushing, Harvey Williams (08 April 1869–07 October 1939), neurosurgeon, medical historian, and bibliophile, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in the Western Reserve of Connecticut, the son of Henry Kirke Cushing, a physician, and Betsey Maria Williams. In addition to his father, Cushing’s paternal grandfather, great grandfather, and great-great grandfather were all physicians in general practice. Cushing’s childhood was a happy and full one with strong parental role models. He found opportunities at home to consort, through books, with the world of ideas, and to explore history. His early education was in the public schools of Cleveland and from his mother, who taught him French and introduced him to general literature and poetry. In 1887 Cushing entered Yale University, where he spent four happy years, achieving election to Scroll and Key (a matter of considerable importance to him) and securing the short-stop position on the Yale freshman baseball team and, later, membership on the varsity nine....
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Dabney, Charles William (1855-1945), educator, college president, and agrichemist
Kevin Grace
Dabney, Charles William (19 June 1855–15 June 1945), educator, college president, and agrichemist, was born in Hampden-Sydney, Virginia, the son of Robert Louis Dabney, a Presbyterian theologian, and Margaretta Lavinia Morrison. His mother and father were both from prominent southern families, and his father served as chaplain to ...
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Edelstein, Ludwig (1902-1965), classical scholar and historian of medicine
William M. Calder
Edelstein, Ludwig (23 April 1902–16 August 1965), classical scholar and historian of medicine, was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Isidor Edelstein, a wealthy Jewish businessman, and Mathilde Adler. Taught first by private tutors, Ludwig Edelstein later entered the Joachim Friedrich Humanistic Gymnasium in Berlin, where he received grounding in Greek and Latin. He studied from 1921 to 1924 at the Friedrich-Wilhelms University in his native city. From the start he concentrated in philosophy and classics and was especially influenced by the classicist ...
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Eiseley, Loren Corey (1907-1977), anthropologist, writer, and philosopher of science
William R. Stott III
Eiseley, Loren Corey (03 September 1907–09 July 1977), anthropologist, writer, and philosopher of science, was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, the only son of Clyde Edwin Eiseley, an amateur actor turned hardware salesman, and Daisey Corey, a self-educated artist. The family’s financial instability and his mother’s handicap (she was deaf and, as he later wrote, “always on the brink of mental collapse”) made his formative years in Nebraska a time of profound isolation. For solace, he turned to the Nebraska prairie and its fauna. He enrolled in the University of Nebraska in 1925, but physical and psychological crises kept him from graduating until eight years later. Near the end of his life, he recalled dropping out of college at least three times—to work in a poultry hatchery, to recuperate from tuberculosis in Colorado and the Mojave Desert (1928–1929), and to drift, riding the rails in the West (1930–1931). His father’s death in 1928 brought Eiseley to the brink of mental collapse. During this period, however, he worked on his first archaeological dig, published his first poetry, and cultivated a deep affinity for animals and landscape. In the same year he finished college (1933) Eiseley went to the University of Pennsylvania for graduate work in anthropology. He earned his Ph.D. in 1937, completing a dissertation titled “Three Indices of Quaternary Time and Their Bearing upon Pre-History: A Critique.” With this work an intensely private man began an unexpected career as a prominent public intellectual and literary naturalist....
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Flick, Lawrence Francis (1856-1938), physician, historian, and early leader in the campaign against tuberculosis
Barbara Bates
Flick, Lawrence Francis (10 August 1856–07 July 1938), physician, historian, and early leader in the campaign against tuberculosis, was born in Carroll Township, Cambria County, Pennsylvania, the son of John Flick, a mill owner and farmer, and Elizabeth Schabacher (changed to Sharbaugh). Flick grew up on the family farm, but poor health excused him from the usual chores. A bookish boy and a devout Roman Catholic, he first attended local schools. For most of his teenage years, he studied at St. Vincent’s, a Benedictine college in Beatty (now Latrobe), Pennsylvania, but symptoms suggesting tuberculosis cut short his classwork, and he returned home. After a period of indecision and various jobs, he entered Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and graduated in 1879. He then completed an internship at Philadelphia Hospital and opened an office for the practice of medicine. His persisting illness, however, was finally diagnosed as tuberculosis and, following his physicians’ advice, he traveled to the West for his health. By 1883, improvement allowed him to resume his practice, which soon included increasing numbers of patients with tuberculosis. “When I recovered from tuberculosis as a young man,” he wrote, “I consecrated my life to the welfare of those afflicted with the disease and to the protection of those who had not yet contracted it” ( ...
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Fred, Edwin Broun (1887-1981), bacteriologist and university president
Marianne Fedunkiw Stevens
Fred, Edwin Broun (22 March 1887–16 January 1981), bacteriologist and university president, was born in Middleburg, Virginia, the son of Samuel Rogers Fred, a landowner, and Catherine “Kate” Conway Broun. Fred’s interest in science began as a boy in Virginia. Having completed his B.S. at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI) in 1907, Fred stayed on to complete his M.S. at the same institution in 1908. While pursuing this first phase of graduate work, he held an appointment as an assistant in bacteriology. For his doctoral work Fred went abroad in 1909, getting his Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen in Germany in 1911. This was a natural decision given that the virtues of German graduate education were extolled by many at VPI, including bacteriology professor Meade Ferguson, who himself received a Ph.D. at Göttingen. Fred studied under some of the leading scientists of the day, including bacteriologist Alfred Koch....
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Garrison, Fielding Hudson (1870-1935), medical librarian, bibliographer, and historian
Nancy Whitten Zinn
Garrison, Fielding Hudson (05 November 1870–18 April 1935), medical librarian, bibliographer, and historian, was born in Washington, D.C., the son of John Rowzee Garrison II, a comptroller for the federal government, and Jennie Davis. Garrison graduated from Washington Central High School in 1886. After a year’s concentration at home on music and college preparation, he matriculated at Johns Hopkins University in 1887. There he focused on classical and modern languages, with some physics and mathematics, graduating in 1890. Garrison’s facility in languages and literature was apparent throughout his career and in his correspondence....
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Gould, Laurence McKinley (1896-1995), educator, geologist, and explorer
Richard Harmond
Gould, Laurence McKinley (22 August 1896–21 June 1995), educator, geologist, and explorer, was born in Lacota, Michigan, the son of Herbert Gould and Anna Updike, farmers. In 1914 he left the family farm and moved to Boca Raton, Florida, where he taught in a one-room schoolhouse. He also helped to found a Sunday school class and with his students published the ...
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Greenwood, Isaac (1702-1745), professor of mathematics and experimental philosophy
Rick Kennedy
Greenwood, Isaac (11 May 1702–12 October 1745), professor of mathematics and experimental philosophy, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Samuel Greenwood and Elizabeth Bronsdon (occupations unknown). Baptized and raised in Increase Mather and Cotton Mather’s North Church, Greenwood followed the Mathers in their scientific interests. At Harvard College he became a favorite of tutor ...
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Griffis, William Elliot (1843-1928), educator, clergyman, and author
Edward R. Beauchamp
Griffis, William Elliot (17 September 1843–05 February 1928), educator, clergyman, and author, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Captain John Limeburner Griffis, a coal dealer, and Anna Maria Hess, a pious young woman who for many years taught at an infant’s nursery school and at a Bible school for young women at the First Independent Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia....
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Holmes, William Henry (1846-1933)
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William Henry Holmes. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-48333).
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