Elms and Magnolias: The 20th Century Continued

Yale's Changing Face
Woodbrige Hall & the White House

Yale's Changing Face

Mary C. Wright (1917-1970)
b. in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Professor of History

Professor Wright was the first tenured woman in the arts and sciences at Yale. She and her husband came to Yale from Stanford in 1959, where she was China curator for the Hoover Library. While at Yale she focused on the processes of revolution in China. She helped found the Society for Ch'ing Studies and its journal Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i. Perhaps her most enduring contribution to Yale was her instrumental role in the choice of Jonathan Spence, Sterling Professor of History, to become a historian of China. Through her teaching, Jonathan Spence, Sterling Professor of History, chose Chinese History as his field of specialization.

John K. Fairbank, Chairman of Far East Studies at Harvard,
to George W. Pierson, Chairman of the Yale History Department, March 2, 1959

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. b. in Piedmont, West Virginia, Professor of English, Class of 1973
Presently, Professor Gates is Harvard's W.E.B. DuBois Professor of Humanities and the Chairman of the African American Studies Department. While serving as an Assistant Professor of African-American Studies and English at Yale in 1982, he discovered the first book written by an African-American woman. Published in Boston in 1859, Our Nig: or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, in a Two-Story House, North: Showing That Slavery's Shadows Fall Even There, is Harriet E. Wilson's fictionalized account of a black servant abused by her mistress. He was awarded the MacArthur Foundation Prize in 1981, and his latest book, Colored People, has received wide acclaim.

Eric Weischaus, b. In Birmingham, Alabama, Professor and Scientist, Ph.D. 1974
Weischaus won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work in developmental genetics. He is presently a professor at Princeton.

Woodbridge Hall to the White House

William C. DeVane (1898 -1965 ) b. in Savannah, Georgia, Professor of English & Dean of Yale College, Class of 1920 & Ph.D 1926
A professor of English from 1922-1944 and Dean of Yale College from 1938-1963, DeVane was one of the most influential figures on the Yale campus for a large part of the twentieth century. He is among the most well-respected administrators in American academia. Yale College's DeVane Lectures given by a prominent Yale scholar and teacher every semester are in his honor.

Howard R. Lamar b. in Tuskegee, Alabama, Professor of History & Dean of Yale College, Ph.D. 1951
Sterling Emeritus Professor Howard Lamar is one of the leading scholars on the American West and has served as Dean of Yale College and President of the University. His Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West is a central reference book on the American West. Lamar also has contributed to the study of American History through positions, such as President of the Western History Association, Editor of the Yale Western Americana Series, and Chairman of the Yale History Department.

Linda Koch Lorimer, b. in Virginia Beach, Virginia, University Secretary, LAW '77
As Secretary and Vice-President of Yale University, Mrs. Lorimer is one of the important decision makers for the University. She has been the spokesperson for much of Yale-New Haven relations in President Levin's administration. She has served as Associate General Counsel and Associate Provost of Yale, as well. Before becoming Secretary in 1993, she served as President of Randolph-Macon Women's College in Virginia.

William Jefferson Clinton b. in Hope, Arkansas, LAW '73, President of the United States
After attending Georgetown and later Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, President Clinton came to Yale Law School. The forty-second President of the United States met the First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, LAW ‘73, while they were both students in the Law School.

Narrative Overview
The Eighteenth Century
The Nineteenth Century
The Twentieth Century

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