FOREWORD

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THE Bicentennial History project, authorized by the Board of Trustees on January 28, 1967, has had a dual purpose: first, the book in your hands; and second, a systematic further development of the College Archives, so that all aspects of Dickinson College history may be available to scholars in a range beyond the scope of any single volume. Since the History staff has had oversight of all the manuscript collections, the source materials in general history have been involved as well, with the preparation of a printed Guide to the whole.

    The staff has been smaller than was at first anticipated. Mrs. Martha C. Slotten has been with the operation from the first, with a coordinating hand on its routine work and its many special services. Mrs. Myrna M. Allshouse initiated the work on the History's statistical appendices and pursued various lines of research before departing in 1970 to assume the more glamorous duties of a college president's wife. Mrs. Madeleine H. Warlow carried on for her. Completion on schedule was aided by the Library staff as a whole, particularly Mrs. Dorothy J. Bowers, presiding over Reference and Interlibrary Loan. All owe a debt of gratitude to Mrs. Laura de la Torre Bueno for her final editing of the manuscript, winnowing out small errors and suggesting changes which have added clarity and grace.

    The President of the Board of Trustees and the President of the College not only watched all this activity with a heartening confidence in its ultimate fruition, but made their files fully


available, adding much that was no longer of immediate contemporary interest to the Morris Room collections. George Shuman, Jr., whose administrative records go back to President Corson's day and beyond, has been always kind and thoughtful. Older faculty members such as Herbert Wing, Jr., and J. Clair McCullough, those to whose lives and labors this history is in part a monument, have been at pains to supply us with data. Department heads and many other faculty and administration colleagues have volunteered generously and responded to every call for help.

    Equally so the alumni, and none more earnestly and effectively than the late Boyd Lee Spahr, '00, the papers of whose long trusteeship were added at last to the thousands of others of broad or specialized historical importance which he had donated through the years, and who read and criticized the earlier chapters of this work as they were written. No less warmly devoted to Dickinson's past and future, a triumvirate of alumni has been a constant presence with counsel, encouragement and material aid: Roscoe 0. Bonisteel, '12; Whitfield J. Bell, Jr., '35; and Walter E. Beach, '56.

    Fellow librarians and archivists have all responded sympathetically to our endeavor, and to those who have wrestled with our problems we owe particular thanks: Miss Dorothy J. Walsh of Allegheny College; Edwin Schell of the Baltimore Conference Methodist Historical Society; W. B. McDaniel, 2nd, of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia; G. William Stuart, Jr., of Cornell University; D. Wilson Thompson and Mrs. John F. Brougher of the Cumberland County Historical Society; Kenneth E. Rowe of Drew University; David E. Estes of Emory University; Howard R. Emler of Girard College; Dr. Sarah Dowlin Jones of Goucher College; Nicholas B. Wainwright and Peter J. Parker of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Miss Eugenia Calvert Holland of the Maryland Historical Society; William A. Hunter of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission; Frederick E. Maser of the Philadelphia Conference Methodist Historical Society; William B. Miller and Gerald W. Gillette of the Presbyterian Historical Society; John H. Ness, Jr., of the Commission on Archives and History, United Methodist Church; Mrs. Harold Hayes of the University of Maryland; and John W. Spaeth, Jr., of Wesleyan University.


To the following individuals we owe a multifarious debt of gratitude for their interest and always generous support: Mrs. Francis J. Ahern; George Allen; Mrs. William H. Allen; Milton B. Asbell; James L. Axtell; John F. Bacon; Charles Gilbert Beetem; Tom H. Bietsch; James Kelvey Bindley; William S. Bowers; Kenneth R. Bowling; Arthur H. Brown; Miss Dorothy Bryan; Lyman H. Butterfield; William J. Byers; Mrs. Dean C. Chamberlain; George Clark; Mrs. G. Dawson Coleman; Robert Grant Crist; Marwood Darlington; Richard Beale Davis; Hon. Edward S. Delaplaine; Donald J. D'Elia; Mrs. Roy A. DeLong; Mr. and Mrs. James O'Hara Denny, 3rd; Francis P. Derick; L. C. Dieter; Trudeau Early; Mrs. Ruth E. Engelken; Allen B. L. Fisher; Perry S. Flegal; Mrs. C. Guiles Flower; Milton E. Flower; Mrs. Kenneth S. Gapp; Clarke W. Garrett; Wilbur J. Gobrecht; Ronald Goldberg; Miss Lydia M. Gooding; Mrs. Charles Goodyear; John Harley; Miss Helen Harris; Mrs. Helen Scott Harris; Mrs. Katherine Conway Haymes; Elmer C. Herber; Spencer R. Hurst; A. Witt Hutchison; Mrs. Paul L. Hutchison; Charles W. Karnes; Miss Alta M. Kimmel; Rudolf and Clara Marburg Kirk; Miss Amy R. Knox; Burton R. Laub; Henry Logan; Mrs. Jean Longacre; E. Miles Ludwig; Miss Marjorie Mclntire; Mrs. Andrew Duncan Mclntosh; Mrs. Kathleen Briner Meals; Mrs. Marion D. Neece; Frederic W. Ness; Mr. and Mrs. Meyer P. Potamkin; Mrs. Lydia Bond Powel; J. Stuart Prentice; Lambert Prettyman; George E. Reed; Henry A. Riddle; Miss Eleanor Conway Sawyer; Joseph H. Schiffman; Robert D. Schwarz; Mrs. Rippey Shearer; Mrs. Howard Shepler; Miss Rebecca Hart Shriver; Mrs. Ernest Sipple; Mrs. Harry S. Sisk; A. Russell Slagle; Douglas Sloan; Albert V. and Gurney Poulson Sloan; Mrs. J. Ohrum Small; Miss Jane V. N. Smead; Alan C. Smith; Mrs. Margaret Kellogg Smith; James H. Smylie; Mrs. Fred W. Sonn; Boyd Lee Spahr, Jr.; Roger F. Stanton; Laurence C. Staples; Mrs. John Clothier Stokes; C. R. Walter Thomas; Roger K. Todd; Mrs. Elmer Trego; Mrs. Alice P. Tripper Mrs. Robert P. Turner; Mrs. Ann Regan Weinert; R. Wallace White; and Bell Irvin Wiley.

 

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