Author White Andrew Dickson

ntil her death in 1887. Together, they had three children: Frederick Davies White, who committed suicide in 1901 after a prolonged series of illnesses while A.D. White was in Germany, Clara (White) Newbury, whom Andrew also outlived, and Ruth (White) Ferry. Following Mary's death in 1887, White went on a lecture tour and traveled in Europe with his close friend, Cornell's librarian, Daniel Willard Fiske.[6] In 1890, White married Helen Magill, the daughter of Swarthmore College's second president, Edward Magill She holds the distinction of being the first female Ph.D. recipient in the United States. Like her husband, Helen was a successful social scientist and educator and the two met at a conference where she was presenting. Together, Helen and Andrew had one daughter, Karin White.[6] His cousin was Edwin White, an artist of the Luminism/Hudson River schools, [7], and his nephew was Horace White, governor of New York. Beginning in the fall of 1849, White spent his first year of college at Geneva College (known today as Hobart and William Smith College) at the insistence of his father.[8] He was inducted as member of Sigma Phi. In his autobiography, he recalled that he had felt that his time at Geneva was "wasted" at the small Episcopalian school, instead of "one of the larger New England universities".[8] Rather than continue "wasting" his time, White dropped out in 1850. After a resulting period estrangement from his father, White successfully convinced his father to allow him to transfer to Yale University. At Yale, he was a classmate of Daniel Coit Gilman, who would later serve as first president of Johns Hopkins University. The two were members of the Skull and Bones secret society and would remain close friends, traveling together in Europe after graduation and serving together on the Venezuela Boundary Commission (1895-96). His roommate was Thomas Frederick Davies, third bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan, 1889–1905.[4] Other members of White's graduating year included Edmund Clarence Stedman, the poet and essayist, Wayne MacVeagh, Attorney General of the United States and U.S. Ambassador to Italy, and Hiram Bingham II, the missionary, collectively comprising the so-called "famous class of '53". [9] According to White, a great influence on his academic career was Professor Noah Porter (later, Yale's president), who personally instructed him in rhetoric and remained a close personal friend until Porter's death.[10] Alpha Sigma Phi inducted White as a member in 1850 and he served as editor of the fraternity's publication, The Tomahawk. White remained active in the fraternity for the rest of his life, founding the Cornell chapter and serving as the national president from 1913-1915.[11] He also served as an editor of The Lit., known today as the Yale Literary Magazine and belonged to Linonia, a literary and debating society.[4] As a junior, White won the Yale literary prize for the best essay, writing on the topic "The Greater Distinctions in Statesmanship", a great shock to the campus as a senior traditionally wrote the winning essay.[4][12] Also as a junior, he joined the junior society Psi Upsilon. In his senior year, White won the Clark Prize for English disputation and the De Forest prize for public oratory, speaking on the topic "The Diplomatic History of Modern Times". A medal valued at $100, the De Forest prize was, at the time, the largest prize of its kind at any educational institution American or otherwise. [13] In White's honor, an anonymous donor later gave money endowing a prize for the best senior essay in American, European, or Third World history to be awarded in his name annually.[14][15] In addition to academic pursuits, White was on the Yale crew team and competed in the first running of the Harvard–Yale Regatta in 1852.[16] After graduation, White left with his classmate Daniel Coit Gilman to travel and study further in Europe. Between 1853 and 1854, he studied at the Sorbonne, the College de France, and the University of Berlin. Following his time in Europe, White returned to Yale to earn an M.A. in History and be inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in 1856.[17] Earned degrees Honorary degrees In 1858, White accepted a position as a Professor of History and English literature at the University of Michigan, where he remained on faculty until 1863. White made his lasting mark on the grounds of the university by enrolling students to plant elms along the walkways on The Diag.[18] In 1863, White returned to reside in Syracuse for business reasons and, in November, was elected to the New York State Senate running on the Union Party ticket.[19] In the senate, White made the acquaintance of fellow upstate senator Ezra Cornell, a self-taught Quaker farmer from Ithaca who had made a modest fortune in the telegraph industry.[6] Around this time, the task came upon the senators to decide how to best use the higher education funding provided by the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act, which allocated money in the form of timber land in the midwest that could be sold as states saw fit. Through effective management by Cornell, New York generated about $2.5 million (~$43 million in 2008 dollars) from its allotted scrip, a greater yield per acre than any state, except, perhaps, California.[20] The initial push in the senate was to divvy the funds amongst the numerous, small state colleges. White fervently opposed this proposal, arguing that the money would be more effectively used if it endowed only one university. Ezra Cornell agreed, telling White "I have about half a million dollars more than my family will need: what is the best thing I can do with it for the State?" To which, White immediately replied "The best thing you can do with it is to establish or strengthen some institution of higher learning."[6] The two thus combined their efforts to form a new university. White pressed that the university should located on the hill in Syracuse (the current location of Syracuse University) due to the city's attractive transportation hub, which would ease the recruitment of faculty, students, and other persons of note. Cornell, however, insisted that the university be located in Ithaca on his large farm on East Hill, overlooking the town and Cayuga Lake. White ultimately relented and convinced Cornell to give his name to the university "in accordance with [the] time-honored American usage" of naming universities after their largest initial benefactors.[6] On February 7, 1865, White introduced a bill "to establish the Cornell University" and, on April 27, 1865, after a many month long debate, Governor Reuben E. Fenton signed into law the bill endowing Cornell University as the state's Land-Grant institution. White became the school's first president and served as a professor in the Department of History. He commissioned Cornell's first architecture student William Henry Miller to build his mansion on campus. While at Cornell, in 1871, White took leave to serve as a Commissioner to Santo Domingo along with Benjamin Wade and Samuel Howe at the request of President Grant in order to determine the feasibility of an American annexation of the Dominican Republic. Though their report (available here) supported the annexation, Grant failed to gain political support to take further action. Later, White was the first U.S. Minister to Germany (1879-1881), and first president of the American Historical Association (1884-1886). Upstate New York Republicans unsuccessfully attempted to nominate him for governor in 1876 and for congress in 1886. Following his resignation as Cornell's President in 1885, White served as Minister to Russia (1892-1894), President of the American delegation to The Hague Peace Conference (1899), and as the first U.S. Ambassador to Germany (1897-1902).[21] While serving in Russia, White—a noted bibliophile—made the acquaintance of author Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy's fascination with Mormonism sparked a similar interest in White, who had previously regarded the Latter-Day Saints (LDS) as a dangerous, deviant cult. Upon his return to the United States, White took advantage of Cornell's proximity to the original Mormon heartland near Rochester to amass a collection of LDS memorabilia (including many original copies of the Book of Mormon) unmatched by any other institution save the church itself and its university, Brigham Young University. In 1891, Leland and Jane Stanford asked White to serve as the first president of the university they had founded in Palo Alto, CA, Stanford University. Although he refused their offer, he did recommend his former student David Starr Jordan. On October 26, 1918, White suffered a slight paralytic stroke following a severe illness of several days.[6] On the morning of Monday, November 4, White died at home in Ithaca.[22] Three days later, on November 7, on what would have been White's 86th birthday, White was interred at Sage Chapel on the Cornell campus. The chapel was filled to capacity by faculty, trustees, and other well-wishers.[23] White's body resides in the Memorial Room with other people deemed influential in the founding and early years of the university, including co-founder Ezra Cornell and benefactor Jennie McGraw-Fiske. The Art Nouveau marble sarcophagus that holds his body features crests of countries and institutions that played important roles in White's life. For example, the picture on the right shows the crests of the two countries where White was an ambassador; the coat of arms of Imperial Germany is on left and Saint George, a variation on the coat of arms of Moscow, representing Russia, is on the right.