HISTORY

I. ORIGINS AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT

A) The Pre-Historic Period

In the beginning there was no History Department and no Professor of History. To understand this one must look at the context within which Western Reserve University developed from its foundation in 1826 to the 1880s, when it moved to Cleveland and created a new identity with the formation of separate but coordinated Colleges for Men and for Women.

The College reflected the general characteristics of higher education in the nineteenth century, perceived largely as the development of ethical character as mediated through the humanistic tradition established and embedded in the Renaissance, with its classical and Christian foci. Within this tradition, history was seen as the lives of great men, exemplars of virtue and public, especially political, conduct. Everywhere in the United States there were strict ideas and a clear consensus as to what constituted the essentials of higher education to further this humanistic objective. Thus there was a heavy concentration on the classics, Biblical literature, philosophy and mathematics. The first extant catalogue of the College dates from 1830-1831; the President and four other professors taught a prescribed curriculum to a student body of twenty-five. For example, courses were given by the classics professor on the ancient historians Tacitus, Livy, Xenophon, and later Thucydides and sometimes Herodotus. The works of these authors were taught for their linguistic and literary character primarily, and only secondarily as historical accounts. Modern history was taught within the framework of moral and political philosophy. In 1835 the philosophy professor gave a course based on Joseph Story's Commentaries on the Constitution of the Unites States (published in 1833), and in 1837 a course for sophomores entitled the "Object and Method of Historical Study." This pattern, with Kent's Commentaries on American Law being substituted for Story's book in 1848-1849, continued until it was superseded in 1863-1864 by a course based on Wolsey's International Law. The next indication that the Philosophy Department was branching out into European history came two years later with a course based on Guizot's History of Civilization in Europe: the great grandfather, as it were, of our old standard Western Civilization courses.

The nature and purpose of the nineteenth century tradition are clearly spelled out in the 1870-1871 Catalogue. In it, the Department of Philosophy stated its belief that the study of history and political science in their various branches was "to prepare young men to understand and decide for themselves, in view of what experience has proved, all those political questions which every citizen, ignorantly or intelligently, must help settle." The Classics Department announced that "in the Freshman and Sophomore years special attention is given to Greek and Roman history as auxiliary to the study of classical authors." Clearly in the latter case the study of history remained subordinated to the needs and concerns of classical literature, and the didactic and public-political nature of historical study, whether ancient or modern, remained constant in both areas.

B) Foundation and Professionalization

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there was a veritable revolution in American higher education, both in substance and in organization. Fields such as history, hitherto subsumed within and for the sake of other areas of study, became free-standing, institutionalized disciplines in their own right. The last two decades of the nineteenth century, in particular, witnessed the establishment and growth of most of the currently familiar pattern of departments; besides history, one might mention political science, economics, sociology, chemistry, biology, and modern literatures, both English and continental European. Professionalization and specialization were further strengthened with the development of graduate training modeled on the German university seminar system, pioneered in the United States by Johns Hopkins University, and by the foundation of professional scholarly associations and journals, in history led by the establishment of the American Historical Association in 1884 and its journal, the American Historical Review, which first appeared in 1895.

It was within this context of rapid change in American higher education that Western Reserve University founded and developed the identity that it was to maintain until its federation with Case in 1967. On the undergraduate level, two separate but coordinated colleges emerged: Adelbert College for Men, and the College for Women, founded by a gift from Flora Stone Mather in 1888 and in 1931 renamed Mather College in her honor. Each College had it own Department of History. In 1893 a general Department of Graduate Instruction was established, authorized to grant M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in a variety of fields, including history. In fact, only a handful of M.A.s and one Ph.D. in history were conferred from the 1890s to the 1930s. In the late 1920s the graduate structure was upgraded with the establishment of a Graduate School under its own dean, and separate graduate programs, with separate faculties for the various disciplines. In addition, another entity, Cleveland College, was founded downtown in 1925 as a unit for extension, non-traditional, and part-time students, and it too developed a separate department and faculty. Thus by the 1930s there were, so to speak, four History Departments: Adelbert, Mather, Graduate, and Cleveland College. The staff of each was small. There was some overlap and occasionally even some cooperation among them; but essentially they followed separate tracks for their separate student bodies.

The breakthrough came in 1888. The president of the university was Hiram Collins Haydn, minister of Old Stone Church, and Flora Stone Mather was a member of his congregation. Encouraged by his determination to establish a separate College for Women, Mrs. Mather not only underwrote its foundation, but also gave the University a gift of $50,000 to establish the Haydn Chair in History at Adelbert College. This permitted, even necessitated, the establishment of a separate Department of History at Adelbert—and by extension, at the Women's College as well. Edward Gaylord Bourne was hired as instructor in Adelbert in 1888, and became the first Haydn Professor in 1890. In 1892 his brother, Henry Eldridge Bourne, was hired as professor of history at the Women's College.

Thus, by the early 1890s there were two separate Departments of History, one in each of the Colleges, and each consisting of one faculty member, the Bourne brothers. These men, sons of a Congregational minister at various churches in New England, had gone to Yale as roommates and had received A.B. degrees in 1883. Edward, who from childhood had been a semi-invalid because he suffered from tuberculosis of the hip, was regarded at Yale as "Bourne, the intellectual," while Henry, who made his mark as an oarsman, was known as "Bourne, the athlete." Edward continued as a graduate student and faculty member at Yale, 1884-1888. Henry originally had intended to be a minister. During a brief summer stint in 1884 as a missionary in Tennessee he had found the work so uncongenial, and he thought himself such a failure, that he left. He returned to Yale to do graduate work in theology, earning a B.D. degree in 1887, then to do editorial work on The Congregationalist, and eventually to teach history and psychology at the Norwich Free Academy where he and his brother had prepared for college. Edward received his Ph.D. in 1892 only after he came to Cleveland, for it was only then that he could afford the fees. Henry never went beyond his B.D.

With the arrival of the Bournes at Western Reserve University there was an immediate expansion of the curriculum in required courses in History and soon in electives. Adelbert professors taught separate courses at the College for Women, and it was natural that the services of the two brothers should be exchanged. Edward specialized in American and Henry in European history. Edward remained at CWRU until 1895 when he returned to Yale. He had a distinguished career as historian, editor of The Yale Review, and Chairman of the Historical Manuscripts Commission. He was replaced by Edwin Morgan, and in the course of the next decade John Perrin (who became the new Haydn Professor in 1898), Allen Severance, and Elbert J. Benton also joined the department.

By contrast, Henry Bourne stayed, and over a 38-year period he became recognized as the historian at the College for Women. He not only taught a heavy load, developing his interests in the French Revolution, but he was the college registrar, 1893-1901, and bursar, 1901-1914. His community interests showed that he had not entirely lost his missionary and social service spirit, for within six months of his arrival in Cleveland he established a Boys' Club in the basement of the Old Stone Church, an organization which was the forerunner of the Goodrich Social Settlement, founded in 1896, of which he was president for twenty years. He was also involved in Hiram House and he was founder and first secretary of the municipal league which later became the Citizens League.

As a historian, Henry Bourne found congenial colleagues on the south side of Euclid Avenue, within the Adelbert department, particularly Elbert J. Benton who had come in 1903 as an Instructor, with a new Ph.D. degree from Johns Hopkins University and who was made the Haydn Professor in 1909, a post he held until his retirement in 1941. Bourne and Benton shared an interest in encouraging and improving historical studies in the secondary schools, something that has been pursued in this department through History Day since the 1970s. Bourne played an important role in establishing in Ohio standards for the preparation of teachers and in suggesting historical materials suitable for use at various levels. Bourne and Benton were co-authors of a textbook in American history for secondary schools, one with a variety of titles in its various editions. In his college classes Bourne emphasized the use of primary materials, and as early as 1894-1895 offered the forerunner of our independent study courses. One evidence of the esteem with which he was held by his students and former students was the establishment of the Alumnae Historical Association in the College for Women, which existed from 1911 to 1967.

One way of judging the caliber of any department is to look at those who came and stayed and at those who left. In the early decades of the 20th century, Western Reserve University attracted many excellent historians—perhaps better than it deserved. After Edward Bourne left, the income from the Haydn Foundation was used to pay the salary of an instructor, Edwin Vernon Morgan. Morgan left at the end of three years to pursue a diplomatic career, which took him, in various lesser posts, to Samoa, Korea, St. Petersburg, and Manchuria, and then as Minister to Korea, Cuba (1905-1910), Uruguay and Paraguay (1910-1911), and Portugal (1911-1912). His career culminated as Ambassador to Brazil in 1912 and after. His successor here, John William Perrin, who was trained at Johns Hopkins and Chicago, was appointed Haydn Professor in 1898, a post which he held until 1904. Again showing the department's concern for good teaching in secondary schools, Perrin had helped to organize the Conference of Collegiate and Secondary School Instructors, and he apparently traveled on good-will missions in Ohio and adjacent states. It is a pity that the only correspondence about him has to do with his suspension and dismissal. In President Thwing's files there are two letters from public school administrators in Pennsylvania reporting that, to quote one, "he indulges too much in the use of liquor and it is supposed and stated by some that he has been somewhat affected when he addressed certain schools and certain institutes on behalf of Western Reserve University." One of the informants put it that, "if you wish him to visit schools carrying a very strong 'whiskey odor' I have nothing to say." Perrin's period in limbo was brief, for in 1905 he became the librarian of the Case Library, where he remained until 1924 when it was merged with the Western Reserve University Library.

The appointment of Allen Dudley Severance in 1900 has certain intriguing aspects. He was the son of Solon Severance, a local banker, and nephew of Louis Severance, one of Rockefeller's early collaborators in establishing the Standard Oil Company; Allen was the cousin of John L. Severance, the major donor of Severance Hall. Allen seems to have been a perennial theology student, who acquired an A.B. from Amherst, and then two B.D.s from Hartford and Oberlin Theological Seminaries. It was while he was doing graduate work at the Universities of Berlin, Halle, and Paris that arrangements were made for him to come in 1897 as an assistant in history at the College for Women. He remained with that title until 1900, when he was made instructor in historical bibliography in the Library School. In 1902 he was made associate professor of church history at Adelbert, and thus he remained until he resigned in 1917. There is evidence in a letter that Henry Bourne wrote from Paris, in November 1901, to Harold Clark Fowler, Professor of Greek here, that Severance had sought a more permanent appointment in the History Department at the College for Women and that 'some members of the Severance family appear to think that but for my jealousy he would have been advanced to an associate Professorship of History." That the family should think itself competent to become involved in this matter is more understandable when one sees the correspondence between Thwing and Louis Severance in 1897 and with John Severance in 1917. These exchanges reveal that from the outset Allen's salary was paid by the family—first by his Uncle Louis and then by his cousins. Whether Allen knew this is not known, but only in 1917 did Thwing tell the trustees officially of the arrangement. Thwing, too, could maneuver, and he proposed that "if it should be a pleasure to continue to give what you have given, for some service to the University, as for instance the Department of History for the purchase of books or for the proper payment of those who teach the great subject, I shall be glad and grateful, promising you to use the money with the utmost efficiency." John Severance declined to do so, citing "existing circumstances in these wartimes."

There were more distinguished men who were hired in the pre-World War I period, for instance William Spence Robertson on the College for Women faculty, 1903-1909, who later became a professor and head of the History Department at the University of Illinois, and a well-known scholar in Latin American history. He was succeeded here by someone who became even more illustrious, Lynn Thorndike. Before Thorndike came his two brothers had been on the Western Reserve faculty, Ashley in English literature (1898-1902) and Edward in education (1898-1909); both had joined the Columbia University faculty. During Thorndike's time here he began to publish his eight-volume study of The History of Magic and Experimental Science, which eventually covered through the 17th century, and which helped to mark the emergence of the history of science as an academic field. While only the first volume appeared during his tenure here, it is fair to say that the influence and legacy of Thorndike's work in the profession overall gives him a special place among WRU historians in the first half of the 20th century. His work is still much used by historians of medieval and early modern science.

In 1910 a new man was appointed at Adelbert: Bernadotte Everly Schmitt, who later testified to what a happy foursome Bourne, Benton, and Thorndike formed with him. Schmitt, who like Robertson, had received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, had been a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford from Tennessee, 1905-1908, receiving an additional B.A. degree (First Class in Modern History) from Merton College in 1908. Although Schmitt was on the Adelbert faculty, some of the students at the College for Women took courses from him, and came to know him, affectionately, as "Pinky" because as one of them remarked long ago, he blushed easily. During World War I Schmitt served briefly as a second lieutenant in the field artillery of the U.S. Army, from which he was anxious to escape, as he wrote to Thwing on November 20, 1918: "I have been here [Camp Zachary Taylor in Kentucky] for eight weeks, which have sufficed to convince me that I was not intended to be an artillery officer—or for that matter an officer in any fighting service." He received a quick response, indicating that the University was anxious for him to resume his teaching in February, and that if he came earlier Benton would find him work to do. Thwing added that he hoped to get authorization from the trustees to pay him his full salary as soon as his army pay stopped.

Schmitt did not at this time have a publication record but his fame in the profession soon spread, for the research he was doing on the outbreak of war in 1914. He taught in summer sessions at Cornell in 1919, at Columbia in 1920, and at Stanford in 1922. In 1924-1925 he was granted a leave of absence without salary to teach at the University of Chicago, at a salary of $4,000.00, a sum "considerably in excess" of his salary here. His work was to be in the Senior College and Graduate School and he regarded the opportunity as an unusual one. Simultaneously with the approval of his leave, the Adelbert faculty, in January 1924, recommended his promotion to professor of history, to take effect in September 1924. Their aim was to improve the history graduate program and they wanted to keep him happy. It was known that Schmitt had refused a temporary appointment elsewhere the year before, and the faculty stated that recognition of Schmitt's attainments "cannot longer be withheld if his services are to be retained for this University."

In April 1924, Thorndike resigned to accept a professorship at Columbia, and by November it was clear that Schmitt, too was unlikely to return. Both men were aware of the hopes and plans for expanding graduate instruction of the sort they were both so well fitted to do. One can only speculate about what difference it would have made in the long-term development of the History Department had the administration "gotten its act together" earlier in establishing the Graduate School, and in creating some new, highly paid professorships. Schmitt wrote to President Vinson from Chicago on 11 November that he had just been offered a post at the University of Michigan at a salary of $5,500.00 with the prospect of an increase to $6,400.00 in three or four years. Michigan was bidding high for those days. Schmitt had apparently discussed his position at Western Reserve earlier because in his letter he said:

I believe I sketched for you rather briefly the kind of chair I should like to have in the future at Western Reserve University: a professorship of recent history and international politics which would permit me to carry on my research which I must confess, interests me more than teaching, or at least the undergraduate teaching I have done in recent years. I am now working on a large book which will require several years to complete, and after that I hope to go on with the political and diplomatic history of the war itself. To do this properly will require the purchase of the voluminous material of all sorts that will keep appearing for many years. It might be desirable for me to have an occasional term off for study in Europe.

But before he made up his mind about the Michigan offer, the Chicago Department, doubtless knowing about it, offered him a professorship at $5,500.00, and with an allowance of $1,200.00 or more for books each year.

His departmental colleagues and others at Western Reserve rallied to Schmitt's cause. It was an opportunity for the Committee of Graduate Studies, chaired by Bourne, to plead for the establishment of a university chair in history,

on the assumption that what is now done for historical studies will be done for other departments— by new appointments or by relieving existing chairs of a corresponding amount of undergraduate work. We feel that to create this chair and leave it without the help of other chairs in other departments would make Dr. Schmitt's services to graduate studies of less value than would otherwise be the case. He could, of course, carry on his personal researches, and these would be a great service to historical science and would reflect honorably upon the University. Nevertheless, it is only by a strong group of workers, with time to carry on the task efficiently, that a Graduate School worthy of the name can be built up.

Benton and Bourne, in a joint letter to Vinson on 17 November 1924, pointed out that "the retention of Schmitt can doubtless be made now at a less cost to the University than he or another of his ability can be obtained for at a future time." This proved to be true.

Winfred Leutner, then dean of Adelbert, wrote on November 18, 1924 that it would seem to be rather hopeless to appoint Schmitt alone to a university research and graduate professorship, because it would be difficult to attract advanced students if the opportunities were only in one field. But, Leutner went on:

His loss now would be just the sort of thing that we have been suffering from for a long time. We have developed many men up to the point where they have just been ready for the finest service in their fields, only to lose them in competition with other institutions, and this for two reasons: first lack of money and second the lack of a definite program for real graduate work and research. And I know of no institution recognized as a University that has been as weak in this regard as we have been.

Within a few days word came to Vinson that Schmitt had decided to accept the invitation of the University of Chicago. It was, he wrote, a decision not easily arrived at, "for I should have liked to work with you in building up a great university in Cleveland." On the other hand, he pointed out the immediate advantages at Chicago, of the library facilities and the opportunities given by the quarter system for being away for six months every two years on full pay. He ended his letter of resignation by saying that he would leave Western Reserve University with regret and would follow its growth with affectionate interest.

Schmitt's later career amply bore out the predictions that he would go far. His magnum opus (The Coming of the War, 1914) was published in two volumes in 1930. For this Schmitt was awarded the George Louis Beer prize by the American Historical Association that year, and the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1931. His publications continued. He remained at Chicago until during World War II he became a special consultant in the Office of Strategic Services (1943-1945), and in the State Department (1945-1952) dealing with publication and research policy, particularly with editing the Documents on German Foreign Policy, published as an inter-Allied project. Schmitt received recognition from a number of institutions: an LL.D. was conferred on him by Western Reserve University in 1941, and a Litt.D. (hon) by Oxford University in 1967. His interest in Western Reserve did, indeed, continue. After his death in 1969, his very extensive library was divided among the libraries of his first alma mater, the University of Tennessee, the University of Chicago, and Western Reserve. The History Department and some of its students have cause also to be grateful to the Schmitt family who established the Schmitt Fellowship in History after his death.

Over the years there had been other additions to the WRU history departments. At the College for Women there were Eleanor Ferris—a rather grande dame type (1913-1936), Eva Smock (1920-1928), Eva Sanford (1925-1936), Caroline Robbins (1927-1928), and Mary Elizabeth Mead (1929-1931). The only man hired in the 1920s was Jacob C. Meyer, who came presumably for one year in 1923-24, when Bourne was on leave, but who stayed until he retired in 1959. On the Adelbert side of Euclid Avenue the appointees were: Walter Henry Cook (1913-1914), Walter Brandt (1920-1921), Clarence Gould (1924-1933), Arthur Preston Whitaker (1928-1930), and Roy Robbins (1929-1938), who had a joint appointment at Cleveland College.

The careers of Thorndike and Schmitt are a window on another major theme: the early efforts to develop a graduate history component. The two undergraduate colleges continued to develop side by side, sometimes with a certain amount of rivalry showing. But in the 1890s the Bournes wanted to expand their functions and in October 1892 they recommended that a Department of Graduate Instruction be established. The executive committee of the board of trustees approved, "with the proviso and condition that no male scholars should attend undergraduate classes in the College for Women or female scholars undergraduate courses at Adelbert." For an annual fee of $75.00 graduate courses were offered in 1893-1894. Edward Bourne was to direct work in history but both he and Henry had one and two-hour courses listed in the catalogue. That year ten students enrolled in the whole Graduate Department. It was expected that M.A. candidates would pursue work in at least three different subjects during one academic year, and the possibility was held out that an M.A. degree would be conferred on any Western Reserve graduates of the class of 1893 or before "provided that they could sustain satisfactorily examination in the courses prescribed and present either a thesis on a subject assigned or other sufficient evidence of fitness to receive the degree, such as printed essays." Similar provisions were common in other American universities of that era.

The catalogue for 1892-1893 had included a statement about a degree of doctor of philosophy, with requirements for special proficiency in one branch of study and high attainment in two other branches; a good reading knowledge of Latin, French and German; and a printed or typewritten thesis "evincing powers of research and independent investigation." In 1895 Charles T. Hickok, who was then enrolled along with fifteen other students in the Graduate Department, received the first Ph.D. degree awarded in history, at the same time that Mary Chilton Noyes received one in physics. These were the only Ph.D.s conferred until the 1930s. Hickok's thesis title, "The Negro in Ohio, 1802-1870," suggests that Edward Bourne directed or at least had substantial supervisory role in the preparation of the thesis, but the records are incomplete. Hickok spent his academic career at Coe College in Iowa.

Judging from the total number of students in the Graduate Department and from the number of degrees awarded, the whole graduate program was a limping affair. In addition to Charles Hickok, there were only two other Ph.D. candidates in history in the 1890s. One was William John Jacobs who had received an A.B. from Adelbert College in 1883, and an A.M. "in Course" in 1891, the only such degree in history for which there is any evidence. The enrollment records show that Jacobs was in residence during the second semester in 1892-1893 and in 1893-1894 and 1894-1895. His thesis, "The History of Reconstruction in North Carolina," was accepted and the written examinations were passed, but the oral examination was not satisfactory. He was in residence again in 1895-1896 and the record states: "Mr. Jacobs was admitted again to examination in March 1896. His written examination in his major study, History, being unsatisfactory, he withdrew his application." Thus a precedent was set for giving Ph.D. candidates a second chance to pass the examinations, as well as a precedent for encouraging an unsuccessful candidate to withdraw from the program.

Another Ph.D. candidate, Stephen Douglas Sanor, who received an M.A. in 1898, submitted an acceptable thesis on "Herbert Spencer's Theory on Justice," but he too, failed to pass a satisfactory examination and was refused his degree in June 1899. From these two examples it appears that it was expected that the thesis would be completed first, and only after it was judged to be satisfactory would the candidate take his written and oral examinations.

It is clear that the foray into graduate instruction was not a great success prior to the mid-1920s. Between 1894 and 1925 only thirty-one M.A.s were granted in which history was listed as the major subject pursued. Teaching loads were heavy, and although courses continued to be listed, the enrollment figures were pitifully small. In 1899-1900 there were 18 graduate students, but only three of them took history courses. The dean mentioned the "pressing need for a few fellowships or scholarships for able needy students and suggested ten at $100.00 Among the students who received M.A.s in history in 1908 was Florence Ellinwood Allen, who later became the first woman to serve on a United States Circuit Court of Appeals.

By the early 1920s, during the presidency of Vinson, who was anxious to expand the scope of the University, serious thought was given to reorganizing the Graduate Department and making it a real graduate school. In June 1925 the board of trustees created the office of dean of the Graduate School, as recommended by the university faculty on 11 April 1925; Elbert J. Benton was selected for the new position. The next year the school began its operation, with Bourne on the administrative board and one of its professors. By this time, however, it was too late to retain the services of Thorndike and of Schmitt, as recounted above. Nonetheless, the overall expansion of the history faculty and student body in the 1910s and 1920s, along with this revitalized commitment to a graduate program, carried over even into the Depression years of the early 1930s.

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