Many institutions of higher learning in America were funded by forward thinking individuals. Post Civil War, Cornelius Vanderbilt, in a rare philanthropic moment, gave the largest gift in history to that date to an institution that would "contribute to strengthening the ties which should exist between all sections of our common country." The Stanford family, in a time of religious, male oriented education, funded a co-educational, non-denominational university to produce “cultured and useful citizens." My personal favorites, Simeon and Amanda Reed, worked in tandem—he wanted something that would “contribute to the beauty of the city and to the intelligence, prosperity, and happiness of the inhabitants” while she left instructions for the Reed Institute, with a mission insistent on equality and secularism.
My all time favorite institution of higher learning never came to fruition.
In 1921, Dr. Bethenia Owens-Adair signed her Last Will and Testament. Section Seven instructs the formation of the “Dr. Owens-Adair Institute of Eugenics .” Ninety percent of her estate was to be invested and the income devoted to the maintainance of the Institute, and the other ten percent was to be used in raising “necessary buildings” on Sunnymead, her farm in Clatsop County, Oregon. It was her express wish that her estate “be used for the benefit of humanity along the lines on which I have been workingfor so many years: “The Betterment of the Human Race through Propagation”
Unfortunately for Dr. Adair, her debts were so great at the time of her death, that after the gifts made to her heirs, there was nowhere near the $100,000 she thought it would take to begin the Institute.
However, if Dr. Adair’s dream had come to fruition, one ponders: Would A.E. Doyle or the Olmsteds designed the campus? Would students arrived via a Hogwarts type Eugencis Express de-embarking at Dr. Adair’s special stop? The achievements of her alumni—Nobel prize winners?
One will never know, but it doesn’t mean one will cease to wonder.
1. http://www.vanderbilt.edu/about/history/
2. http://www.stanford.edu/about/history/
3. http://www.reed.edu/about_reed/history.html
4. Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. wikipedia.org
5. Last Will and Testament, Bethenia Owens-Adair, signed June 23, 1921
My all time favorite institution of higher learning never came to fruition.
In 1921, Dr. Bethenia Owens-Adair signed her Last Will and Testament. Section Seven instructs the formation of the “Dr. Owens-Adair Institute of Eugenics .” Ninety percent of her estate was to be invested and the income devoted to the maintainance of the Institute, and the other ten percent was to be used in raising “necessary buildings” on Sunnymead, her farm in Clatsop County, Oregon. It was her express wish that her estate “be used for the benefit of humanity along the lines on which I have been workingfor so many years: “The Betterment of the Human Race through Propagation”
Unfortunately for Dr. Adair, her debts were so great at the time of her death, that after the gifts made to her heirs, there was nowhere near the $100,000 she thought it would take to begin the Institute.
However, if Dr. Adair’s dream had come to fruition, one ponders: Would A.E. Doyle or the Olmsteds designed the campus? Would students arrived via a Hogwarts type Eugencis Express de-embarking at Dr. Adair’s special stop? The achievements of her alumni—Nobel prize winners?
One will never know, but it doesn’t mean one will cease to wonder.
1. http://www.vanderbilt.edu/about/history/
2. http://www.stanford.edu/about/history/
3. http://www.reed.edu/about_reed/history.html
4. Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. wikipedia.org
5. Last Will and Testament, Bethenia Owens-Adair, signed June 23, 1921
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