History of the University of Pennsylvania

This series deals mainly with the history of the University of Pennsylvania. The topics covered in this series cover a range of subjects that would be of interest to anyone interested in the history of the University of Pennsylvania.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 10
  • Publication
    Portraits in the University of Pennsylvania
    (1940) Addison, Agnes
    This volume includes descriptions of the two hundred and sixty-seven portraits in oil and pastel owned by the University of Pennsylvania, of which one hundred and two are here illustrated. Portrait statues, busts, and medallions, pen-and-ink, charcoal, and pencil drawings have been omitted. The subjects are arranged chronologically by date of birth. At the end of the brief biographies, the measurements of the portraits are given in inches, height by width, together with the name of the artist where available, and the location of the portraits in the University buildings. Numerals provide cross references to the biographies and illustrations. Where there is more than one portrait of a subject an asterisk (*) in the descriptive details indicates which is illustrated. The portraits were photographed in black and white and in color by Carlton D. Fambrough of the Graduate Department of Anatomy, and the prints are now on file in the University. The biographical information for the subjects has been obtained from the Dictionary of American Biography, Who's Who in America, the Trustee and Alumni Records of the University, obituaries, and from subjects and their relatives who have been generous in their cooperation. The staff of the Frick Art Reference Library has aided in obtaining dates of artists. Many thanks are due to all who have helped to assemble the volume, especially to Dr. Edward W. Mumford and Mr. William DuBarry, Secretary and Vice-President respectively of the University of Pennsylvania, for their assistance in preparing the manuscript and selecting the illustrations. Lastly, publication has been made possible by the generous assistance and interest of Mr. John Frederick Lewis, Jr., of Philadelphia.
  • Publication
    Graduate Study and Research in the Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania
    (1959) Keniston, Hayward
    The present Report is in large part based upon the individual studies of graduate training and research which have been prepared under the direction of The Educational Survey. Three of these-on the Humanities, the Physical Sciences, and the Social Sciences-deal in detail with the program in these quadrants. In addition, the studies on the Engineering Schools and the Medical School have contributed to the picture of graduate work in these professional schools and the study of the College has provided important data. Because the separate studies were organized in different ways and with different criteria, the data which they present are not always comparable nor is their coverage uniform. In a few cases I have tried to supplement their materials with additional information. But I have not attempted to repeat their specific evaluations and recommendations. I have, however, discussed briefly certain problems which did not receive attention in any of the prior studies, such as the administration of research and the publication of research.
  • Publication
    The University of Pennsylvania Faculty: A Study in American Higher Education
    (1959) Shryock, Richard H
    Excellence in the University of Pennsylvania, as in other universities, exists or can be attained only by virtue of excellence in its faculties. Policies and procedures which improve the quality of the faculties are therefore vital to the well-being of the institution; and this conclusion - though a seeming truism - must be central to all thinking about the University's future. The present study deals with this essential theme, which for the sake of brevity may be termed the faculty program. The subject relates to all the major purposes of the University, since these must be carried out - ultimately - by the academic staff. Moreover, it transcends the interests of particular schools or areas of learning, and cuts across the resulting boundaries of institutional structures and functions. Under these circumstances, a faculty program may seem so all-embracing as to be almost the equivalent of university policy as a whole. Yet faculties must admit, with becoming modesty, that they alone do not constitute the University of Pennsylvania. Studies of other essential elements in this or any similar institution - as of administrators or of students - will also ramify in all directions. Delimitation of themes here is a matter of focus and emphasis. The present study concentrates on the academic staff and considers other categories only in so far as they enter the resulting picture.
  • Publication
    A Faculty Survey of the University of Pennsylvania Libraries
    (1940) Philadelphia, Bibliographical Planning Committee,
    This survey of the resources of the University of Pennsylvania libraries forms a small part of a large plan for the survey of library resources in the whole Philadelphia Metropolitan area. It was undertaken at the instigation of the Bibliographical Planning Committee of the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area, a joint committee of the University of Pennsylvania and the Union Library Catalogue of the area, created to plan for the closer integration of Philadelphia library resources and made possible by a generous grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. This survey differs from most surveys of the same sort in that it was made, not by the distributors of books, but by the users of books; not by librarians, but by scholars. It represents an appraisal of the library collections of the university by the experts in the several fields of knowledge represented on the university faculties. To some extent it reaches beyond the university libraries and calls attention to other valuable collections of books in other Philadelphia repositories. It serves, of course, to show at once the strong points and the weak points of the university libraries. It will be valuable to the university itself as a guide in rounding out its collections. It will be valuable to other librarians in the metropolitan area as a check list upon existing resources. And it will be of considerable value to students inside and outside of Philadelphia as a revelation of the very considerable treasury of books at the University of Pennsylvania. The Bibliographical Planning Committee hopes to use it as a pattern for the survey of other great collections in the Philadelphia area, and as a basis for determining the contributions which the university may make and the responsibilities which the university should assume in any integration of metropolitan library resources. In the opinion of the Bibliographical Planning Committee it marks a significant step forward in library appraisals, and may perhaps suggest the appropriate technique for a realistic estimate of library resources in the country at large.
  • Publication
    The Board of Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania
    (1960) Belcher, Donald R
    In January 1953, the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania appointed three trustee committees to report on administrative, educational, and athletic phases of the University's activities. This action subsequently led to the creation of The Educational Survey-a study in depth. During the past five years, the Survey has enlisted the aid of some 300 persons from the University itself and approximately a hundred individuals of special competence from other institutions, foundations, corporations, and governmental agencies. Under its aegis, twenty-six separate major studies have been completed, centering upon the activities of individual schools, departments, and areas of University activity. Inasmuch as the Survey was directed toward any influence which affected education and research, a study of an important sector of the University-the Board of Trustees-was initiated with the unanimous consent of the Trustees themselves in February 1957. Donald R. Belcher, formerly Treasurer of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, Assistant Director of the United States Bureau of the Budget, and Regents Professor at the University of California (Berkeley), was persuaded to undertake the study. A committee of the Board of Trustees was appointed to serve as an advisory group; later all members of the Board were utilized as an advisory committee.
  • Publication
    Innovation and Traditional at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine: An Anecdotal Journey
    (1990) Cooper, David Y; Ledger, Marshall A
    This book was not commissioned, nor was the author assigned the task of writing a history of the School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. The idea to write this history arose after I read the critique of a grant request to the National Institutes of Health, which gave my proposal an unfundable priority score. The reviewers' criticisms of the proposed experiments were so contrary to concepts that I thought lead to great discoveries that I wondered what factors are involved in making scientific advances. Realizing that a number of important advances in medical science had been made from time to time by my colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, I decided to examine systematically how these scientists' ideas originated and their advances were made. What I thought would be a relatively easy task soon became a complex one, for I soon found that, in addition to the many scientific contributions made by the faculty, the School of Medicine had a history that was richer and more distinguished than I or anyone I talked with realized. To my surprise, my investigations uncovered the fact that, even before the end of the eighteenth century, the faculty of the Medical "Department" had begun original experimentation and, within a short time, had made discoveries equaling those of their colleagues in Europe. As the new country developed, the Medical Department made every effort within its often meager means to improve its teaching, rebuild its facilities, and meet the medical challenges of a growing nation.
  • Publication
    History of the University of Pennsylvania, 1740-1940
    (1940) Cheyney, Edward Potts
    In writing this book Dr. E. W. Mumford, Secretary of the University, has given me invaluable assistance at every turn and I find it difficult to express adequately my sense of obligation and gratitude to him. I can only say that without his advice and help, generously offered and unsparingly given, I would not have begun and could not have finished the book. Other officers of the University and of the alumni societies, especially Dean Pepper, Mr. George E. Nitzsche, Recorder, Mr. C. S. Thompson, Librarian, Mr. C. J. Miel, Manager of the University Fund and Mr. Horace M. Lippincott, Editor of the Pennsylvania Gazette and General Magazine have offered and given me much help. Colleagues in the Faculty, some of them now in retirement, responded promptly, fully, and thoughtfully to my questions about their respective departments. I collected in this way much information that it has proved impossible, unfortunately, to include in this book. I hope they will not be disappointed. Limitations of space soon asserted themselves and it became evident that a single volume could include little more than an account of the establishment and early circumstances of departments that have had a long and interesting history, and a mere mention rather than a full discussion of much that was significant. Limitations of time stood equally in the way. The two years or somewhat more that have been given to the preparation of the history did not give time to gain familiarity with such a complex body as the University has come to be, beyond the vague knowledge gained by one who has grown up with it. The volume entitled The University of Pennsylvania Today provides a partial corrective to these deficiencies, and contains much material I have with a heavy heart laid aside.
  • Publication
    Radiology at the University of Pennsylvania, 1890-1975
    (1981) Radiology, Department of
    Shortly after he became Chairman of the Department of Radiology in July, 1975, Stanley Baum expressed interest in a departmental history to Francis James Dallett, Archivist of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Dallett passed that information on to me, and I began my research in December of that year. Dr. Baum's enthusiasm for the project and the willingness of current and former staff members to speak with me made the work possible. Eugene P. Pendergrass, M.D., was especially cooperative in answering my questions and passing along materials from his files. Their encouragement, plus that of Robert M. Stein, Associate Dean of the School of Medicine, then Department Administrator, permitted me to investigate the department's history at length. I presented two lectures to the department's staff on my research: "The Department before World War I" on May 27, 1976, and "The Pendergrass Era" on September 22, 1976. A first draft of the manuscript covering the period through Dr. Pendergrass's chairmanship was completed in the fall of 1976, but it has taken me until now to revise and complete the work. My full-time position as an Assistant Curator at Independence National Historical Park has kept me busy, and I would not have been able to complete the project yet, were it not for the professional support and understanding of my supervisor, John C. Milley, Chief, Division of Museum Operations.
  • Publication
    Gladly Learn and Gladly Teach: Franklin and His Heirs at the University of Pennsylvania, 1740-1976
    (1978) Meyerson, Martin; Winegrad, Dilys Pegler
    Shakespeare in The Tempest wrote that "past is prologue." When I returned to the University of Pennsylvania in 1970 as its president, I realized once again how much of its past - often a glorious one - had influenced its present and yet was insufficiently appreciated by many of my colleagues and by students and alumni of the University. It was intriguing to observe that this condition was shared by the citizens of Philadelphia, who were often little acquainted with their fascinating community. Cheyney's History of the University of Pennsylvania, published for the University's bicentennial in 1940, like almost al1 university histories was a diplomatic history of the institution and a splendid one. What seemed to me to be needed was an intel1ectual and social history - an intellectual history dealing with ideas and scholarship, the transformation of education at a major American university, and a social history relating what was going on at Pennsylvania to the city of which it was a part, to student life and the life of the young in general, and to the cultural currents of this tempestuous new nation and its ties elsewhere in the world. That aim remains, but it must be left to others, perhaps to some future University historian. Instead, I became more attached to the dramatis personae - the cast of characters in the evolution of the University - and to some extent the physical setting in which they performed. My collaborators and I could only choose a few from among many notable contributions. Within this framework, I hope we have also reflected some of the cultural sense of their times. The account which fol1ows is uniquely that of the University of Pennsylvania, but it is something of a microcosm of the development of higher education at major independent institutions as well. The essays are grouped according to four main periods since the University's foundation. After an introduction to the community of which the University has always been a part, we deal with the eighteenth century col1egiate departments. In the nineteenth century, while the University remained small, its early scientific bent was reinforced by the prominent scientists on the faculty. The transition to the recognizably "modern" university with changes in educational philosophy as wel1 as the introduction of new programs is described in association with the leaders who oversaw this period of change.
  • Publication
    The University of Pennsylvania Today
    (1940) Dowlin, Cornell M
    The present volume has been prepared in the hope that it will be of interest to visitors to the University of Pennsylvania and also to undergraduates, alumni, and other friends of the University who would be glad to have a brief outline of its present organization and activities, the extent of its physical equipment, and something of the origin of its many divisions. In the arrangement of the material, it was found advisable not to give a strictly geographical account of the Campus and its buildings and of the departments of the University. Because of the belief that visitors and others will especially wish to learn how the University of Pennsylvania functions, the book has been organized on the basis of departments. Strangers to the Campus are urged to examine the map printed on the end-papers and to make full use of the index. If a considerable amount of space has been devoted to current research activities, which change from year to year, the reader will realize that no picture of the University at work would be complete without a description of the varied contribution to human knowledge that is continually being made. For a full account of the growth of the University from its Colonial roots to the present, the reader is referred to the History of the University of Pennsylvania, 1740-1940, by Edward Potts Cheyney, for fifty-one years an active member of the Department of History and since 1935 Professor Emeritus and Curator of the Lea Library of Medieval and Church History.