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PROFESSOR: Professor Mindell
will be a little late today.

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00:00:23,740 --> 00:00:27,640
He's at a lunch for, I think,
department heads or something.

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00:00:27,640 --> 00:00:30,670
But he'll come meandering
in at some point.

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But I'm the one that's
designated to

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give the lecture today.

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So I'm going to--

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what I want to do today is to
talk about the general context

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of the times in which
MIT was founded.

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00:00:43,320 --> 00:00:45,210
And one of the questions--

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I think several of you raised
this question about, why was

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MIT founded when it was?

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Why did it happen at that
particular moment in history?

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Because it wasn't the greatest
moment in history to be sure.

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It took them, basically four
years from getting a charter

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to actually opening the
Institute, to get started.

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And even then, they
limped along.

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It's a wonder MIT survived in
some ways because financially,

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they were always in trouble
well through the 1890s.

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Every year, they're just barely
making the budget.

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And so it's not an easy
beginning, even though, in

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many ways, from an educational
standpoint, a

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revolutionary one.

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Because it was a different breed
of cat that was being

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founded here in 1861.

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And I want to sort of give you
a background about what the

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times were like.

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How many of you had an American
history course,

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either high school or--

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so a lot of you have.

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OK, that's good.

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How many of have read Charles
Dickens A Tale of Two Cities?

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What is the first line,
the famous first line?

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"It was the best of times and
it was the worst of times."

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And that could very well be the
same theme for the decade

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that preceded the
founding of MIT.

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It was the best of times, in
some ways, and yet it was the

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worst of times in others.

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And I think the best way to
start this is to say, history

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itself is filled with irony
and contradictions.

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And surely, the 1850s was one of
those times in history that

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was filled with irony
and contradiction.

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On the one hand, you had a
country that was intensely

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nationalistic, intent on
expanding the boundaries to

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the United States under a theme
that you've probably

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encountered before called
Manifest Destiny.

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It was the idea that America was
going to expand across the

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continent, and perhaps even
sweep down through Latin and

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South America.

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There were some who really felt
that the United States

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was destined to do that.

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Intense nationalism.

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And on the other hand, you
have intense sectional

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divisions about, what were
you going to do with this

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territory once you got it?

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Was it going to be slave?

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Was it going to be
free territory?

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And that was the big question
of the 1850s, was the future

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of slavery in the
United States.

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And people were bitterly divided
along sectional lines

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about the future of slavery
in the United States.

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Well, when you look at the
United States from sort of the

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best of times perspective--

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I'm going to look at the best
of times side, and then look

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at the worst of times.

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But the best of times side,
what really is an economic

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story and a technology story.

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And that is, is that between
1839 and 1859, the United

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States underwent a tremendous
spurt of growth.

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Commodity output, for example,
between those two--

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or over those two decades,
grew by something

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like 57% per decade.

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Not just over 20 years,
but per decade.

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That's an amazing number.

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That's like talking
about China today.

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Even faster than
China in a way.

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Also, railroad construction
begins

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during the 1830s basically.

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And by the late 1850s, by 1859,
the United States has

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over 30,000 miles of railroad
in the country.

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That mileage exceeded the total
mileage for the entire

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world at that time--

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Britain, France, Germany,
wherever.

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So there was a tremendous
growth in railroad

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construction.

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And then, from a more
technological perspective,

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when you look at the
manufacturing sector of the

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United States, there were
tremendous technological

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changes taking place
in manufacturing.

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Not just of agricultural
equipment and cotton goods,

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00:04:54,930 --> 00:04:59,620
but also in things like metal
products, like firearms with

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interchangeable parts, or
sewing machine that is a

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00:05:02,250 --> 00:05:04,820
derivative from that
new technology.

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But there seemed to be this big
spurt in new technologies

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that were very innovative
during this period.

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And so much so-- and I'll talk
about it in a minute, that

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Europe began to send observers
to the United States to see

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what was going on here.

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All of a sudden, this little,
nondescript develop--

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the United States is a
developing country.

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In 1820, it is really a
developing country.

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Hard to believe that today,
but it's true.

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By 1850, that had changed.

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And so during these decades
between the '20s and '30s and

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up through the '50s, you're
seeing enormous

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00:05:41,580 --> 00:05:44,030
changes taking place--

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railroads, manufacturing.

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And then finally, in the
area of science.

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The United States was beginning,
after being a

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backwater--

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basically, prior to the 1850s,
the United States was a place

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where European scientists came
to collect things, collect

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specimens of animals, or wood,
or plants, things like that.

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No serious science was done
in the United States

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prior to the 18--

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what?

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1830s I would say.

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Some would dispute me on that.

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Surely there were some
first-rate scientists in the

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country, but not many.

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By the 1830s and '40s, you begin
to see the emergence of

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a serious science enterprise
in the United States led by

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people like Joseph Henry who
is the first secretary--

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yeah, I think he is the first
Secretary of the Smithsonian

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Institution, which itself was
a scientific organization as

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much a science enterprise
as it was a museum.

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Today we think of it more as a
museum than that, but still

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has it science projects there.

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So there are people like Joseph
Henry, a fellow named

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Alexander Dallas Bache, who was
running a survey of the

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coastline of the United
States, a very

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talented man of science.

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I think he's the grandson of
Benjamin Franklin who is

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00:07:04,780 --> 00:07:08,500
arguably the first famous
scientist in the United States

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because of his experiments
with electricity.

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But they're few and
far between.

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And so this science enterprise
is beginning to grow.

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And I think it's in 1847 that
you see the establishment of

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00:07:20,470 --> 00:07:23,940
the American Association for
the Advancement of Science,

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which was one of the key
organizations in this count--

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still is.

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Science Magazine is published
by their organization, and

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it's considered to be the sort
of central source of

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professional science in
the United States.

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Finally, there's the educational
end of this.

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And this is where
MIT comes in.

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It's during the decade of the
1850s and '60s that you begin

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to see this new thinking about
trying to shift higher

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education away from an older,
traditional classic oriented

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00:08:01,030 --> 00:08:02,550
curriculum.

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A classic, by that I mean an
educational process that

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really emphasized the classic
languages, like Greek and

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Latin, history, literature.

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The world I come from
in many ways.

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But there was this new movement
to try to insert the

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study of science, and even
engineering, into this

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educational process.

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And it was not easily
received.

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There was a lot of opposition
to that.

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And it's in that context that
William Rogers comes along

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with his vision of what this
polytechnic institute, this

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new polytechnic institute
should be.

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Sort of a revolutionary idea.

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It was not something that
people said, oh,

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yes, let's do it.

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We're going to put up millions
of dollars to set you up.

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It didn't happen that way, but
he was very persistent in

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these goals.

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He had started thinking about
this as early as the 1820s

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with his brothers.

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And it doesn't come to
fruition until 1861.

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So it's a long time in the
making, even when it does get

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started it's very shaky.

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00:09:13,160 --> 00:09:15,550
I'll talk about that part
of it next week.

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But MIT is one of those new
institutions that tries to

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combine science with more
practical or useful arts as

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they were called
in that period.

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And a new way that had not been
emphasized much in the

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United States.

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If you look at say, for example,
engineering schools

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in the United States--

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I mean, there were predecessors
to MIT in the

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area of engineering.

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Do you know which
ones they were?

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00:09:46,880 --> 00:09:47,230
What?

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AUDIENCE: West Point.

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00:09:48,190 --> 00:09:49,480
PROFESSOR: West Point
is the first.

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00:09:49,480 --> 00:09:50,350
Yes, absolutely.

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00:09:50,350 --> 00:09:52,640
West Point is modeled after
the French Ecole

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Polytechnique, and
was very much

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influenced by French ideas.

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Very mathematically-oriented
curriculum.

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Very oriented towards
civil engineering.

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Not mechanical as much
as civil engineering.

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And the other school is what?

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00:10:08,530 --> 00:10:09,410
AUDIENCE: RPI.

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00:10:09,410 --> 00:10:12,460
PROFESSOR: RPI founded
in 1824.

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00:10:12,460 --> 00:10:16,940
And now, the current president
of RPI is an MIT graduate.

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00:10:16,940 --> 00:10:18,720
So we're all over
the place now.

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00:10:18,720 --> 00:10:20,330
This is an imperial operation
that we're

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00:10:20,330 --> 00:10:21,885
talking about, right?

208
00:10:21,885 --> 00:10:23,150
No, not really.

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00:10:23,150 --> 00:10:26,790
But MIT's influence, of course,
has become very, very

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00:10:26,790 --> 00:10:30,550
significant in terms of
education influences over the

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00:10:30,550 --> 00:10:32,710
world in the last, what?

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00:10:32,710 --> 00:10:34,020
70 years or so.

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00:10:34,020 --> 00:10:36,130
Especially since World War II.

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00:10:36,130 --> 00:10:42,210
But those are four areas that
really are at play during this

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00:10:42,210 --> 00:10:46,180
period that mark an interesting
best of times way

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00:10:46,180 --> 00:10:48,860
of thinking about what
was going on during

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00:10:48,860 --> 00:10:50,610
this period of time.

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00:10:50,610 --> 00:10:53,950
And maybe the best way to
illustrate this is to talk a

219
00:10:53,950 --> 00:10:59,890
bit about an event that took
place in 1851 in London when

220
00:10:59,890 --> 00:11:02,330
the British held what was called
the London Crystal

221
00:11:02,330 --> 00:11:03,860
Palace exhibition.

222
00:11:03,860 --> 00:11:08,590
This was the first large
international exhibition that

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00:11:08,590 --> 00:11:09,890
we are familiar with today.

224
00:11:09,890 --> 00:11:12,170
Or maybe not so much
your generation.

225
00:11:12,170 --> 00:11:14,300
But when I was your age growing
up, there were all

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00:11:14,300 --> 00:11:17,610
sorts of these international
exhibitions that were taking

227
00:11:17,610 --> 00:11:21,220
place, primarily built around
science and technology.

228
00:11:21,220 --> 00:11:23,040
But this was the first,
the first big

229
00:11:23,040 --> 00:11:24,140
one was held in London.

230
00:11:24,140 --> 00:11:27,600
It was organized or sponsored
by the Prince Consort, the

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00:11:27,600 --> 00:11:30,190
husband of Queen Victoria,
Albert.

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00:11:30,190 --> 00:11:32,280
And it attracted all
the nations of the

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00:11:32,280 --> 00:11:33,530
world pretty much.

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00:11:35,910 --> 00:11:41,040
And at London, every nation
displayed their wares, things

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00:11:41,040 --> 00:11:42,720
they were proud of.

236
00:11:42,720 --> 00:11:47,160
And the United States had
a lot of space there.

237
00:11:47,160 --> 00:11:52,330
And the American delegate to
the exhibition got very

238
00:11:52,330 --> 00:11:56,320
worried because they had too
much space to exhibit fairly

239
00:11:56,320 --> 00:11:57,690
few things.

240
00:11:57,690 --> 00:12:00,560
And he was writing back to his
sponsors in New York saying,

241
00:12:00,560 --> 00:12:02,590
you've got to send
me more stuff.

242
00:12:02,590 --> 00:12:06,500
Our display spaces
may be 25% full.

243
00:12:06,500 --> 00:12:08,580
The Brits are making
fun of us.

244
00:12:08,580 --> 00:12:11,900
And so they would send some
material over, and they'd put

245
00:12:11,900 --> 00:12:12,940
it in display.

246
00:12:12,940 --> 00:12:17,110
And the British magazine Punch,
which is sort of a

247
00:12:17,110 --> 00:12:22,640
satirical magazine of the time,
was making great fun of

248
00:12:22,640 --> 00:12:25,530
this backwater nation and
what it was displaying.

249
00:12:25,530 --> 00:12:29,980
Plug tobacco from Henrico
County, Virginia, or apples

250
00:12:29,980 --> 00:12:34,780
from Vermont, or apple
peelers from Ohio,

251
00:12:34,780 --> 00:12:36,750
really mundane things.

252
00:12:36,750 --> 00:12:39,350
When you were comparing this
with French exhibitions of

253
00:12:39,350 --> 00:12:40,130
[? sieve ?]

254
00:12:40,130 --> 00:12:42,750
china, or the Russian--

255
00:12:42,750 --> 00:12:45,120
the famous Russian enamel--

256
00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:46,370
what's the name of it?

257
00:12:49,200 --> 00:12:50,890
It's very famous.

258
00:12:50,890 --> 00:12:54,300
I never remember the name, but
it's a very famous, highly

259
00:12:54,300 --> 00:12:57,356
ornate and extremely
expensive today.

260
00:12:57,356 --> 00:12:58,730
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].

261
00:12:58,730 --> 00:13:00,220
PROFESSOR: Well, they're
like those.

262
00:13:00,220 --> 00:13:01,040
They can be like that.

263
00:13:01,040 --> 00:13:03,370
But it has a name and I
cannot remember it.

264
00:13:03,370 --> 00:13:04,470
Doesn't matter.

265
00:13:04,470 --> 00:13:07,620
High-end stuff was being
exhibited there.

266
00:13:07,620 --> 00:13:11,920
The British were exhibiting
famous steam engines and

267
00:13:11,920 --> 00:13:14,950
technologies, famous
locomotives.

268
00:13:14,950 --> 00:13:16,420
And here's the United
States with its

269
00:13:16,420 --> 00:13:18,420
apple peelers and stuff.

270
00:13:18,420 --> 00:13:21,840
Well, eventually, the US
exhibit got filled up.

271
00:13:21,840 --> 00:13:24,700
Punch was making a lot of
fun of what was there.

272
00:13:24,700 --> 00:13:28,560
And then certain competitions
begin to be held.

273
00:13:28,560 --> 00:13:31,300
And lo and behold, the
Americans started

274
00:13:31,300 --> 00:13:34,080
winning some prizes.

275
00:13:34,080 --> 00:13:40,590
For example, the harvester
guy from Chicago.

276
00:13:40,590 --> 00:13:46,350
Cyrus McCormick exhibited his
reapers for cutting wheat,

277
00:13:46,350 --> 00:13:48,410
grain, crops like that.

278
00:13:48,410 --> 00:13:52,020
And he won a prize for beating
out in a competition several

279
00:13:52,020 --> 00:13:55,940
other reapers that were
displayed there.

280
00:13:55,940 --> 00:14:00,490
Charles Goodyear, Goodyear Tire
and Rubber Company, was

281
00:14:00,490 --> 00:14:03,540
displaying boots, rubber boots,
and things that were

282
00:14:03,540 --> 00:14:05,510
being made with his
vulcanized rubber.

283
00:14:05,510 --> 00:14:08,250
And he won some recognition.

284
00:14:08,250 --> 00:14:12,570
Another one, really quite an
interesting one, was a

285
00:14:12,570 --> 00:14:14,290
locksmith from New York City.

286
00:14:14,290 --> 00:14:20,490
A guy named Alfred Hobbs,
H-O-B-B-S, displayed his

287
00:14:20,490 --> 00:14:24,220
padlocks that he had
made in New York.

288
00:14:24,220 --> 00:14:27,630
And claimed that they
could not be picked.

289
00:14:27,630 --> 00:14:29,550
And they had a competition
in London.

290
00:14:29,550 --> 00:14:33,200
There was a very famous British
lockmaker, named

291
00:14:33,200 --> 00:14:36,110
Joseph Bramah, who made
all the locks for the

292
00:14:36,110 --> 00:14:37,680
big banks in England.

293
00:14:37,680 --> 00:14:39,620
And they had put
up this prize.

294
00:14:39,620 --> 00:14:42,640
I think it was quite a lot of
money, maybe as much as 500

295
00:14:42,640 --> 00:14:46,100
pounds, which is still
a lot of money today.

296
00:14:46,100 --> 00:14:49,260
And that was the prize if you
could pick Bramah's lock.

297
00:14:49,260 --> 00:14:53,790
Well, damned if Hobbs didn't
succeed in picking the British

298
00:14:53,790 --> 00:14:55,250
lockmaker's locks.

299
00:14:55,250 --> 00:14:57,260
And that got a lot
of attention.

300
00:14:57,260 --> 00:15:00,410
Because all a sudden, British
banks became vulnerable.

301
00:15:00,410 --> 00:15:02,240
People started asking questions
about, well, how

302
00:15:02,240 --> 00:15:05,000
secure are our faults
after all?

303
00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:09,230
And immediately, Hobbs, being an
enterprising Yankee, moved

304
00:15:09,230 --> 00:15:13,390
his business to London to try
to pick up on some of that

305
00:15:13,390 --> 00:15:17,220
excess business that
was coming his way.

306
00:15:17,220 --> 00:15:20,480
And then, there was a yacht
race that was held off the

307
00:15:20,480 --> 00:15:22,260
coast of England.

308
00:15:22,260 --> 00:15:24,070
And it was called--

309
00:15:24,070 --> 00:15:26,910
well, I don't know that the
race had any name at that

310
00:15:26,910 --> 00:15:29,970
time, but the yacht
America beat the

311
00:15:29,970 --> 00:15:32,100
British yacht, Titannia.

312
00:15:32,100 --> 00:15:35,330
And that was a serious blow
because Great Britain, at that

313
00:15:35,330 --> 00:15:38,450
time, had the largest, the most
powerful and famous navy

314
00:15:38,450 --> 00:15:39,790
in the world.

315
00:15:39,790 --> 00:15:42,130
And here, these Yankees come
along and beat them in this

316
00:15:42,130 --> 00:15:43,370
Yacht race.

317
00:15:43,370 --> 00:15:46,260
So that was sort of a
slap in the face.

318
00:15:46,260 --> 00:15:48,720
Finally, there were people like
Samuel Colt who were in

319
00:15:48,720 --> 00:15:52,440
London exhibiting the revolving
pistols, for its day

320
00:15:52,440 --> 00:15:54,730
a very innovative firearm.

321
00:15:54,730 --> 00:15:57,520
And then finally, there was a
little company up in Windsor,

322
00:15:57,520 --> 00:16:00,210
Vermont, named Robbins
and Lawrence.

323
00:16:00,210 --> 00:16:01,570
You've never heard of
them before and you

324
00:16:01,570 --> 00:16:02,560
probably never will.

325
00:16:02,560 --> 00:16:07,660
But they exhibited six rifles,
military rifles, that were

326
00:16:07,660 --> 00:16:09,550
made for the US Army
that were made with

327
00:16:09,550 --> 00:16:11,440
interchangeable parts.

328
00:16:11,440 --> 00:16:13,910
And they were taking them apart,
mixing the parts, and

329
00:16:13,910 --> 00:16:15,070
putting them back together.

330
00:16:15,070 --> 00:16:18,090
And everyone was very impressed
about that.

331
00:16:18,090 --> 00:16:21,450
And again, no one in Europe
was making guns with

332
00:16:21,450 --> 00:16:24,140
interchangeable parts
at the time, so that

333
00:16:24,140 --> 00:16:25,790
aroused a lot of interest.

334
00:16:25,790 --> 00:16:30,730
And that, in turn, prompted the
British government to send

335
00:16:30,730 --> 00:16:33,250
a committee to the United
States to explore--

336
00:16:33,250 --> 00:16:36,150
and the name of the committee
is self-explanatory.

337
00:16:36,150 --> 00:16:39,380
It's called the Committee on
the Machinery of the United

338
00:16:39,380 --> 00:16:42,360
States of America.

339
00:16:42,360 --> 00:16:45,430
That covers a lot
of territory.

340
00:16:45,430 --> 00:16:47,780
Not just gunmaking machinery.

341
00:16:47,780 --> 00:16:50,810
They land the New York
in April of 1854.

342
00:16:50,810 --> 00:16:51,920
They leave in August.

343
00:16:51,920 --> 00:16:54,650
And then the process, they come

344
00:16:54,650 --> 00:16:56,710
immediately to New England.

345
00:16:56,710 --> 00:16:57,600
Well, why New England?

346
00:16:57,600 --> 00:17:01,550
Because at that time, Boston
in the New England area was

347
00:17:01,550 --> 00:17:05,849
the center point of American
industry at that time.

348
00:17:05,849 --> 00:17:08,050
And so they immediately
head to New England.

349
00:17:08,050 --> 00:17:09,290
And where do they go first?

350
00:17:09,290 --> 00:17:12,770
They go to the Springfield
Armory out in Springfield,

351
00:17:12,770 --> 00:17:15,910
Massachusetts, which was not
just famous for making guns

352
00:17:15,910 --> 00:17:17,770
with interchangeable parts--

353
00:17:17,770 --> 00:17:20,369
and it's a government-owned
armory.

354
00:17:20,369 --> 00:17:23,589
It also was very famous as being
sort of a clearinghouse

355
00:17:23,589 --> 00:17:25,849
of technological information.

356
00:17:25,849 --> 00:17:29,000
If you got a letter from your
congressman or some dignitary,

357
00:17:29,000 --> 00:17:31,665
they would give you access to
this place to examine all of

358
00:17:31,665 --> 00:17:37,640
its machinery, gauging systems,
patterns, drawings,

359
00:17:37,640 --> 00:17:39,340
and you could make copies
of this stuff.

360
00:17:39,340 --> 00:17:41,730
And it was free.

361
00:17:41,730 --> 00:17:44,670
So the Brits took advantage
of that right off the bat.

362
00:17:44,670 --> 00:17:47,660
So they went to Springfield
immediately, took a good look

363
00:17:47,660 --> 00:17:48,830
see what was going on there.

364
00:17:48,830 --> 00:17:54,390
Then they proceeded to make a
tour of the whole eastern

365
00:17:54,390 --> 00:17:57,550
coast of the United States
as far south as Richmond.

366
00:17:57,550 --> 00:18:00,030
And then from Richmond, they
went west out into the

367
00:18:00,030 --> 00:18:01,510
Pittsburgh area--

368
00:18:01,510 --> 00:18:03,650
Wheeling, West Virginia,
Pittsburgh.

369
00:18:03,650 --> 00:18:06,230
And then they swung further
north around the Great Lakes

370
00:18:06,230 --> 00:18:08,000
up into Buffalo, New
York, and then came

371
00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:09,930
across upstate New York.

372
00:18:09,930 --> 00:18:11,640
I believe on the New York
Central Railroad.

373
00:18:11,640 --> 00:18:14,200
It was just build at the time.

374
00:18:14,200 --> 00:18:16,810
If not, they would've used the
Erie Canal, which parallels

375
00:18:16,810 --> 00:18:18,490
pretty much that railroad.

376
00:18:18,490 --> 00:18:22,240
And then, they dipped back down
in New England and spent

377
00:18:22,240 --> 00:18:23,820
a lot of time in New England.

378
00:18:23,820 --> 00:18:29,420
Ending up buying $105,000 worth
of machine tools for

379
00:18:29,420 --> 00:18:32,850
really, the reconstruction of
the British Enfield Armory,

380
00:18:32,850 --> 00:18:36,590
which was the main government
armory in England.

381
00:18:36,590 --> 00:18:40,410
Now, that's a significant moment
because up until this

382
00:18:40,410 --> 00:18:45,186
point, pretty much the United
States had been a borrower of

383
00:18:45,186 --> 00:18:46,870
technology and technological
information.

384
00:18:46,870 --> 00:18:50,900
This is one of the big moments
in which the shift had begun,

385
00:18:50,900 --> 00:18:54,130
in which new technologies and
information were beginning to

386
00:18:54,130 --> 00:18:57,150
make their way from the United
States to Europe.

387
00:19:00,460 --> 00:19:04,430
It was sort of a wake-up call.

388
00:19:04,430 --> 00:19:07,560
In a way, I think parallel to
what's happening today with

389
00:19:07,560 --> 00:19:10,470
reference to the growth
of large economies

390
00:19:10,470 --> 00:19:12,720
in China and India.

391
00:19:12,720 --> 00:19:14,690
All of a sudden, people are
turning their heads and

392
00:19:14,690 --> 00:19:16,460
saying, hey, something's
happening there.

393
00:19:16,460 --> 00:19:19,330
I heard on the radio this
morning that in terms of

394
00:19:19,330 --> 00:19:23,100
economic prowess, that China
will outgrow the

395
00:19:23,100 --> 00:19:25,060
United States by--

396
00:19:25,060 --> 00:19:27,460
well, maybe not in my lifetime,
but in yours.

397
00:19:27,460 --> 00:19:32,600
By the 2020s, or thereabouts.

398
00:19:32,600 --> 00:19:34,150
That's significant moment.

399
00:19:34,150 --> 00:19:35,650
Big shift.

400
00:19:35,650 --> 00:19:37,620
Whether it happens is
another question.

401
00:19:37,620 --> 00:19:38,710
Who knows?

402
00:19:38,710 --> 00:19:44,950
But in any case, that moment
in 1851 indicates why there

403
00:19:44,950 --> 00:19:49,420
was this feeling that these are
really interesting times.

404
00:19:49,420 --> 00:19:51,560
These are the best of times
from an engineering and

405
00:19:51,560 --> 00:19:54,710
technology point of view.

406
00:19:54,710 --> 00:19:57,570
The economy is moving, and
it's moving very fast.

407
00:19:57,570 --> 00:20:00,080
There was only one
damper on this.

408
00:20:00,080 --> 00:20:03,790
It was a panic that took place
in 1857 that slowed--

409
00:20:03,790 --> 00:20:07,720
it actually slowed production
for a while, but it never

410
00:20:07,720 --> 00:20:09,520
stopped it.

411
00:20:09,520 --> 00:20:12,890
And other than that, this was
a moment of great change in

412
00:20:12,890 --> 00:20:14,740
the United States.

413
00:20:14,740 --> 00:20:17,240
Now, compare that with the theme
of the worst of times.

414
00:20:17,240 --> 00:20:18,790
What's going on in
the same period.

415
00:20:18,790 --> 00:20:21,830
And this is pretty much very
similar to what you-- if you

416
00:20:21,830 --> 00:20:25,170
read that chapter I wrote on the
1850s in the textbook, you

417
00:20:25,170 --> 00:20:26,140
get the drift.

418
00:20:26,140 --> 00:20:28,450
I don't need to go into great
detail about it, but it's all

419
00:20:28,450 --> 00:20:31,040
about the slavery issue in the
United States and the sort of

420
00:20:31,040 --> 00:20:34,250
sectional divisions that
are taking places

421
00:20:34,250 --> 00:20:35,690
as a result of this.

422
00:20:35,690 --> 00:20:38,790
And it begins--

423
00:20:38,790 --> 00:20:41,000
if you're to talk about, well,
when does the big debate about

424
00:20:41,000 --> 00:20:44,280
slavery take place and when
does it originate?

425
00:20:44,280 --> 00:20:48,520
It was being discussed as early
as the 1780s when the US

426
00:20:48,520 --> 00:20:51,190
Constitution was
being debated.

427
00:20:51,190 --> 00:20:54,060
How are slaves going to be
counted in terms of voting and

428
00:20:54,060 --> 00:20:55,260
things like that?

429
00:20:55,260 --> 00:21:01,750
And then later, in 1820, the
first big political issue

430
00:21:01,750 --> 00:21:04,390
concerning slavery came up
with reference to the

431
00:21:04,390 --> 00:21:08,750
admission of Missouri into the
Union as a slave state.

432
00:21:08,750 --> 00:21:12,250
And the great compromise that
was achieved at that time was,

433
00:21:12,250 --> 00:21:16,000
OK, you bring in Missouri as a
slave state, we'll bring in

434
00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:17,790
Maine as a free state.

435
00:21:17,790 --> 00:21:21,020
And that sort of tit for tat
sort of balance maintained

436
00:21:21,020 --> 00:21:25,040
itself up until 1850, when
California was brought into a

437
00:21:25,040 --> 00:21:27,570
Union as a free state
and nothing came

438
00:21:27,570 --> 00:21:29,660
in as a slave state.

439
00:21:29,660 --> 00:21:30,700
Why is that significant?

440
00:21:30,700 --> 00:21:35,270
Because it gave free states the
edge in the US Senate in

441
00:21:35,270 --> 00:21:36,260
terms of voting.

442
00:21:36,260 --> 00:21:38,170
Each state got two
US senators.

443
00:21:38,170 --> 00:21:41,190
So that meant the Senate now was
under the control of free

444
00:21:41,190 --> 00:21:43,460
state politicians.

445
00:21:43,460 --> 00:21:45,390
That's a big deal.

446
00:21:45,390 --> 00:21:51,760
But between the Missouri
Compromise and 1861, when the

447
00:21:51,760 --> 00:21:58,430
war comes, there are a series
of cascading crises that I

448
00:21:58,430 --> 00:22:03,370
would say create a psychology
of crisis by the 1850s that

449
00:22:03,370 --> 00:22:06,300
make things worse, and
worse, and worse.

450
00:22:06,300 --> 00:22:10,120
And more tension and more
division, so much so that you

451
00:22:10,120 --> 00:22:14,570
have South Carolina seceding
from the Union in December of

452
00:22:14,570 --> 00:22:18,230
1860, right after Lincoln's
election as president.

453
00:22:18,230 --> 00:22:18,960
Why Lincoln?

454
00:22:18,960 --> 00:22:23,220
Why was Lincoln such
a feared figure?

455
00:22:23,220 --> 00:22:25,630
Well, he represented the
Republican Party.

456
00:22:25,630 --> 00:22:28,470
This is the same party we have
today, Republican Party.

457
00:22:28,470 --> 00:22:31,960
It was created an 1854,
the origins of it.

458
00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:34,380
And the Republican Party started
out, one of its chief

459
00:22:34,380 --> 00:22:38,870
points was no expansion of
slavery into new territories.

460
00:22:38,870 --> 00:22:40,585
It wasn't, let's get
rid of slavery.

461
00:22:40,585 --> 00:22:44,230
It was just, we're against the
expansion of slavery into new

462
00:22:44,230 --> 00:22:45,670
territories that would
come into the

463
00:22:45,670 --> 00:22:47,530
United States as states.

464
00:22:47,530 --> 00:22:49,130
But Lincoln stood for that.

465
00:22:49,130 --> 00:22:52,070
He was not an abolitionist
in the sense of immediate

466
00:22:52,070 --> 00:22:53,440
abolition of slavery
everywhere.

467
00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:54,410
He was not that.

468
00:22:54,410 --> 00:22:57,230
He eventually would come to that
during the war, but not

469
00:22:57,230 --> 00:22:59,000
at the beginning of the war.

470
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:02,460
And just to talk about Lincoln
in this context is extremely

471
00:23:02,460 --> 00:23:03,050
interesting.

472
00:23:03,050 --> 00:23:05,400
Because he is--

473
00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:07,720
you're bringing me flowers?

474
00:23:07,720 --> 00:23:09,600
How thoughtful?

475
00:23:09,600 --> 00:23:16,000
Anyway, he's a masterful
politician, who really--

476
00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:18,560
in many ways, sort of skirts
around the slavery issue and

477
00:23:18,560 --> 00:23:22,310
uses it when he has to, to make
policy with reference to

478
00:23:22,310 --> 00:23:24,760
pursuit of the Civil War.

479
00:23:24,760 --> 00:23:27,930
But prior to the Civil War, you
have a series of crises

480
00:23:27,930 --> 00:23:30,320
that really bring it on.

481
00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:33,070
And I would say if you were to
ask me, well, what were they?

482
00:23:33,070 --> 00:23:36,310
I'll give you my
three top ones.

483
00:23:36,310 --> 00:23:38,100
I'm not going to relay
every one of them.

484
00:23:38,100 --> 00:23:39,550
You can look them up.

485
00:23:39,550 --> 00:23:45,620
But one is definitely the famous
Wilmot Proviso of 1846.

486
00:23:45,620 --> 00:23:48,900
This was a bill that was put up
in Congress by a Free Soil

487
00:23:48,900 --> 00:23:51,100
Democratic, congressman
from Pennsylvania.

488
00:23:51,100 --> 00:23:53,600
Actually, from my hometown.

489
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:58,510
I'm very proud of David Wilmot
because he was the initiator

490
00:23:58,510 --> 00:23:59,940
of this Wilmot Proviso.

491
00:23:59,940 --> 00:24:01,460
And what did that say?

492
00:24:01,460 --> 00:24:04,710
Well, it said-- basically, it
was attached to an army

493
00:24:04,710 --> 00:24:07,570
appropriations bill for the
Mexican war, which said that

494
00:24:07,570 --> 00:24:10,610
if the United States is to
secure any territory from

495
00:24:10,610 --> 00:24:13,750
Mexico as a result of this
war, that territory, if

496
00:24:13,750 --> 00:24:16,090
organized into states,
has to come into the

497
00:24:16,090 --> 00:24:17,780
Union as free states.

498
00:24:17,780 --> 00:24:22,000
Well, you can understand why
Southerners got very upset

499
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:22,670
about that.

500
00:24:22,670 --> 00:24:26,530
And that issued a heated debate
that continued right up

501
00:24:26,530 --> 00:24:28,790
until 1861.

502
00:24:28,790 --> 00:24:31,890
After the Wilmot Proviso, it
seemed that every Congress

503
00:24:31,890 --> 00:24:35,550
there was something brought to
the forefront that was about

504
00:24:35,550 --> 00:24:39,220
the extension or non-extension
of slavery.

505
00:24:39,220 --> 00:24:42,660
Another moment that was very,
I think, had a great deal of

506
00:24:42,660 --> 00:24:46,740
influence was the publication
of Harriet Beecher Stowe's

507
00:24:46,740 --> 00:24:48,660
novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin.

508
00:24:48,660 --> 00:24:51,370
That appeared in 1851, the
same year that I just

509
00:24:51,370 --> 00:24:54,810
mentioned with reference to the
best of times, the great

510
00:24:54,810 --> 00:24:56,970
London Crystal Palace
exhibition.

511
00:24:56,970 --> 00:25:00,010
That got a huge readership.

512
00:25:00,010 --> 00:25:05,120
And as a result of her critique
really, in this novel

513
00:25:05,120 --> 00:25:09,930
of slavery and how evil it was,
turned a lot of people

514
00:25:09,930 --> 00:25:13,860
against the idea of
slavery and it's

515
00:25:13,860 --> 00:25:15,740
being a righteous cause.

516
00:25:15,740 --> 00:25:18,840
So that had a lot of feedback.

517
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:22,680
There was actually reward put
on her head in the South.

518
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:24,620
I think it's in South Carolina,
which is one of the

519
00:25:24,620 --> 00:25:27,810
more hard line states
at that time.

520
00:25:27,810 --> 00:25:31,220
But she was not a
person who was--

521
00:25:31,220 --> 00:25:34,510
she dared not travel South of
the Mason-Dixon line because

522
00:25:34,510 --> 00:25:36,750
anyone could shoot
her or whatever.

523
00:25:36,750 --> 00:25:39,630
She was a woman that
was wanted.

524
00:25:39,630 --> 00:25:44,180
And so her book, which started
out as newspaper articles,

525
00:25:44,180 --> 00:25:45,850
eventually got a huge
readership.

526
00:25:45,850 --> 00:25:51,820
I think next to the Bible, it
was the largest-selling book

527
00:25:51,820 --> 00:25:53,480
of the 19th century.

528
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:55,200
That's how big this thing was.

529
00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:56,330
Huge.

530
00:25:56,330 --> 00:25:59,950
And then finally, I think the
third point I would say that

531
00:25:59,950 --> 00:26:03,240
really, probably was the straw
that broke the camel's back,

532
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,230
was when the abolitionist
John Brown raided

533
00:26:06,230 --> 00:26:09,290
Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

534
00:26:09,290 --> 00:26:12,360
Now, Harpers Ferry today is
located in the panhandle of

535
00:26:12,360 --> 00:26:13,100
West Virginia.

536
00:26:13,100 --> 00:26:15,850
It's about 60 miles west
of Washington, DC,

537
00:26:15,850 --> 00:26:17,620
on the Potomac River.

538
00:26:17,620 --> 00:26:22,270
But at that time, Harpers Ferry
had one of the two large

539
00:26:22,270 --> 00:26:23,870
national armories,

540
00:26:23,870 --> 00:26:25,380
government-owned armories there.

541
00:26:25,380 --> 00:26:27,510
And the reason he raided Harpers
Ferry was that he

542
00:26:27,510 --> 00:26:31,160
wanted to seize firearms that
were being stored there.

543
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:33,950
Some 10,000 guns were
in storage there.

544
00:26:33,950 --> 00:26:37,780
And arm slaves, and start a
slave rebellion against slave

545
00:26:37,780 --> 00:26:40,490
masters because they were right
on the Virginia border.

546
00:26:40,490 --> 00:26:43,090
Literally, you cross the river
and you were in Virginia.

547
00:26:43,090 --> 00:26:48,250
And the Brown Raid really sent
the fear of the Lord

548
00:26:48,250 --> 00:26:49,190
throughout the South.

549
00:26:49,190 --> 00:26:52,450
I mean, I've written a book
about Harpers Ferry, and I

550
00:26:52,450 --> 00:26:54,140
know what the local
reaction was.

551
00:26:54,140 --> 00:26:57,640
People became totally
paranoid.

552
00:26:57,640 --> 00:27:00,520
As far as they were concerned
after that raid, there was an

553
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:03,470
abolitionist lurking
behind every tree.

554
00:27:03,470 --> 00:27:08,150
And they organized militias and
they did runaway hunts.

555
00:27:08,150 --> 00:27:13,900
And it was very much like a
vigilante moment in the sense

556
00:27:13,900 --> 00:27:15,430
that the whole South became

557
00:27:15,430 --> 00:27:17,470
vigilantitized, if that's a word.

558
00:27:17,470 --> 00:27:18,980
It's not a word.

559
00:27:18,980 --> 00:27:19,610
What would it be?

560
00:27:19,610 --> 00:27:21,800
Vigilant--

561
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:22,770
vigilized?

562
00:27:22,770 --> 00:27:24,690
No, I don't know.

563
00:27:24,690 --> 00:27:28,420
Anyway, I will just change the
sentence and say, vigilante

564
00:27:28,420 --> 00:27:31,935
groups grew by leaps and
bounds after that raid.

565
00:27:31,935 --> 00:27:32,420
AUDIENCE: Vigilant.

566
00:27:32,420 --> 00:27:33,520
PROFESSOR: Vigilant.

567
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:34,870
There you go.

568
00:27:34,870 --> 00:27:37,030
Paranoid vigilance.

569
00:27:37,030 --> 00:27:40,400
Anyway, following that, of
course, that took place in

570
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:41,910
October of 1859.

571
00:27:41,910 --> 00:27:44,130
The following year was
an election year.

572
00:27:44,130 --> 00:27:45,530
And that's when Lincoln
gets elected.

573
00:27:45,530 --> 00:27:50,400
Well, you can imagine why this
became such a heated election.

574
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:51,380
There were, what?

575
00:27:51,380 --> 00:27:55,000
There were at least three or
four candidates in that

576
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:58,400
election, and Lincoln wins not
with the majority vote.

577
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:00,550
But he gets him enough to get
himself elected in the

578
00:28:00,550 --> 00:28:01,800
electoral college.

579
00:28:04,660 --> 00:28:07,520
And then you have, within a
month of Lincoln's election,

580
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:10,820
you have that secession
crisis.

581
00:28:10,820 --> 00:28:13,710
South Carolina goes out on
December 20, and it's followed

582
00:28:13,710 --> 00:28:17,800
by around seven other deep
Southern states.

583
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:21,000
Interestingly, the northern tier
of Southern states, like

584
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:22,990
Virginia, do not go
out until later.

585
00:28:22,990 --> 00:28:25,480
Virginia and Tennessee,
they don't secede

586
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:27,720
until at least April.

587
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:30,610
I think it's April that
Virginia secedes.

588
00:28:30,610 --> 00:28:34,720
But by then, within
days, war comes.

589
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:37,330
And the irony of all this
is that the war--

590
00:28:37,330 --> 00:28:38,100
the Sumter--

591
00:28:38,100 --> 00:28:40,940
the attack on Fort Sumter, which
signals the beginning of

592
00:28:40,940 --> 00:28:45,600
the American Civil War, is four
days after William Barton

593
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:50,390
Rogers got his charter from the
state of Massachusetts to

594
00:28:50,390 --> 00:28:53,950
establish the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.

595
00:28:53,950 --> 00:28:58,370
Not a good time to be getting
into the education business

596
00:28:58,370 --> 00:29:02,080
because all eyes were shifted
on the secession crisis.

597
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:04,870
All budgets were being shifted
toward getting ready in

598
00:29:04,870 --> 00:29:07,210
preparation for war.

599
00:29:07,210 --> 00:29:11,380
And all of a sudden, there's
this big, national crisis in

600
00:29:11,380 --> 00:29:15,780
which this new fledgling
institution is supposed to be

601
00:29:15,780 --> 00:29:17,450
taking root.

602
00:29:17,450 --> 00:29:23,990
And it doesn't really take root
until the war ends when

603
00:29:23,990 --> 00:29:25,740
students are admitted.

604
00:29:25,740 --> 00:29:28,910
And I think it's the
spring of 1860--

605
00:29:28,910 --> 00:29:31,470
early 1865.

606
00:29:31,470 --> 00:29:33,850
So literally, MIT is
established in the

607
00:29:33,850 --> 00:29:35,870
midst of civil war.

608
00:29:35,870 --> 00:29:37,260
And just to follow that out--

609
00:29:37,260 --> 00:29:39,590
well, no, I won't follow
it out anymore.

610
00:29:39,590 --> 00:29:41,216
Those are basically--

611
00:29:41,216 --> 00:29:44,870
that's the good and the bad
story of the 1850s.

612
00:29:44,870 --> 00:29:47,250
It's a very complex time.

613
00:29:47,250 --> 00:29:52,690
And it's one of those historical
moments that is

614
00:29:52,690 --> 00:29:57,620
filled with tension, and change,
and reorientation.

615
00:29:57,620 --> 00:30:00,200
It's just a critical
moment in history.

616
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:02,760
And then, it's capped by the
outbreak of the Civil War,

617
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:06,050
right at the moment when this
place is being founded.

618
00:30:06,050 --> 00:30:10,010
I really wonder sometimes how
in the world Rogers held it

619
00:30:10,010 --> 00:30:11,750
all together.

620
00:30:11,750 --> 00:30:16,780
He must have worked very hard
to try to just keep things

621
00:30:16,780 --> 00:30:19,450
together enough so that the
Institution itself could

622
00:30:19,450 --> 00:30:21,020
survive through that
war, and then

623
00:30:21,020 --> 00:30:26,810
open up to a few students.

624
00:30:26,810 --> 00:30:28,765
Not a huge number, I
forget the number.

625
00:30:28,765 --> 00:30:32,620
It's under a hundred when
they first open up.

626
00:30:32,620 --> 00:30:34,640
One thing to note, however,
is that he's a

627
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:37,110
progressive in many ways.

628
00:30:37,110 --> 00:30:41,070
He's very much in favor of women
coming to the Institute

629
00:30:41,070 --> 00:30:45,770
at a time when most colleges
were not in favor of that.

630
00:30:49,460 --> 00:30:53,320
It was still an institution that
was dominated by males,

631
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:54,500
there's no doubt about that.

632
00:30:54,500 --> 00:30:57,270
Women tended to be part-time
students, or they were called

633
00:30:57,270 --> 00:31:00,550
"special students." That term
is still used today,

634
00:31:00,550 --> 00:31:08,480
"specials." And it's not until,
I would say the 1970s

635
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:11,620
or thereabouts, that women began
to grow in proportion to

636
00:31:11,620 --> 00:31:14,250
the number of men at MIT.

637
00:31:14,250 --> 00:31:18,110
But William Barton Rogers was
always in favor of allowing

638
00:31:18,110 --> 00:31:21,500
women to come to the Institute,
which in itself was

639
00:31:21,500 --> 00:31:22,810
sort of innovative.

640
00:31:22,810 --> 00:31:25,390
He tended to be on the right
side of a lot of issues.

641
00:31:25,390 --> 00:31:27,850
For example, when Darwin
announced--

642
00:31:27,850 --> 00:31:30,440
I'm giving away my bias
against Darwin.

643
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:35,420
But when Darwin published The
Origins of Species, of course

644
00:31:35,420 --> 00:31:38,320
he got a lot of flack from
scientists around the world.

645
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:40,240
One of whom was Louis--

646
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:42,125
I never pronounce
his name right.

647
00:31:42,125 --> 00:31:42,590
AUDIENCE: Agassiz.

648
00:31:42,590 --> 00:31:43,180
PROFESSOR: Aggasiz.

649
00:31:43,180 --> 00:31:45,910
I want to say "Ah-ga-zay."
It's Aggasiz.

650
00:31:45,910 --> 00:31:49,320
There's a school that used to be
called the Agassiz School.

651
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:50,680
You'd think I'd remember it.

652
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:57,720
But he was at Harvard, and he
was a big critic of Darwin's.

653
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:01,450
Our friend Rogers, on the
other hand, stood up and

654
00:32:01,450 --> 00:32:05,850
debated, and really defended
the Darwinian idea in the

655
00:32:05,850 --> 00:32:06,570
United States.

656
00:32:06,570 --> 00:32:08,730
He was one of the primary
defenders in this area.

657
00:32:08,730 --> 00:32:12,580
So that counts in his
favor, I think.

658
00:32:12,580 --> 00:32:16,410
A man who pioneered the field
of geology in the United

659
00:32:16,410 --> 00:32:19,030
States, we'll talk a little bit
more about that next week.

660
00:32:19,030 --> 00:32:21,850
But he's an important
intellectual force.

661
00:32:21,850 --> 00:32:25,610
And he had this vision for a new
type of institution that

662
00:32:25,610 --> 00:32:28,280
he wanted to see established,
which eventually became the

663
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:30,420
place that we're sitting
in today.

664
00:32:30,420 --> 00:32:33,940
So I must tell you that I didn't
know much about William

665
00:32:33,940 --> 00:32:36,870
Barton Rogers four years ago.

666
00:32:36,870 --> 00:32:38,410
I knew he was the founder
of MIT, and I

667
00:32:38,410 --> 00:32:39,580
didn't know much else.

668
00:32:39,580 --> 00:32:42,870
And then, there was a book that
was being published for

669
00:32:42,870 --> 00:32:45,960
the 150th anniversary of MIT by
one of my colleagues and he

670
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:49,520
asked me to write an
essay about Rogers.

671
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:52,650
And my answer primarily
was, crap.

672
00:32:52,650 --> 00:32:54,840
Why do I have to do that?

673
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:57,000
Because I didn't know anything
about the subject.

674
00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:00,860
And I thought, somebody
else should do this.

675
00:33:00,860 --> 00:33:04,060
But I agreed, primarily because
he's a good colleague,

676
00:33:04,060 --> 00:33:06,840
and a friend, and it's
hard to say no.

677
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:08,700
And at that point, I started
reading up on

678
00:33:08,700 --> 00:33:09,890
the history of MIT.

679
00:33:09,890 --> 00:33:12,980
And the more I read about this
place, the more amazed I am

680
00:33:12,980 --> 00:33:17,300
about what it is, what it stands
for, how it developed.

681
00:33:17,300 --> 00:33:18,460
It's an amazing story.

682
00:33:18,460 --> 00:33:22,020
So I'm hoping that during the
term you'll get bits and

683
00:33:22,020 --> 00:33:28,050
pieces of this story, and kind
of pull them together.

684
00:33:28,050 --> 00:33:31,420
We don't have a history
of MIT.

685
00:33:31,420 --> 00:33:34,640
There is no single book that you
can pull off the bookshelf

686
00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:37,640
and say, this is the
history of MIT.

687
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:38,580
That doesn't exist.

688
00:33:38,580 --> 00:33:41,620
There are lots of bits and
pieces of history of MIT, but

689
00:33:41,620 --> 00:33:45,570
no one book that does that.

690
00:33:45,570 --> 00:33:50,040
And somebody should do it, I
think, because it's really--

691
00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:51,290
it's an important institution.

692
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:56,900
I know I'm proud to be here
and I think you are, too.

693
00:33:56,900 --> 00:33:59,080
I know you work very hard.

694
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:02,410
And you probably bitch and
moan about that a lot.

695
00:34:02,410 --> 00:34:07,120
For good reason, but it's worth
it when you get the

696
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:09,394
education, get the Brass
Rat and leave here.

697
00:34:09,394 --> 00:34:12,310
You've got something you can
be proud of, too, I think.

698
00:34:12,310 --> 00:34:13,389
It's quite a place.

699
00:34:13,389 --> 00:34:18,010
And just, the more I learn about
it, the more amazed I am

700
00:34:18,010 --> 00:34:20,110
about all that's
happened here.

701
00:34:20,110 --> 00:34:23,239
And the story even gets more
dramatic the further we come

702
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:24,800
to the present.

703
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:26,960
And David Mindell knows a lot
about that part of the

704
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:28,120
Institute's history.

705
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:35,800
So that's where we are for
today's talk or lecture.

706
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:39,760
Now, you want to take a break
for a few minutes and I will

707
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:42,090
collaborate with my colleague
about the discussion.

708
00:34:42,090 --> 00:34:45,630
We'll have a little discussion
about this and

709
00:34:45,630 --> 00:34:46,949
move on from there.

710
00:34:46,949 --> 00:34:48,199
OK?

711
00:34:50,350 --> 00:34:52,750
Huge numbers.

712
00:34:52,750 --> 00:34:57,110
By my count, roughly
750,000 died.

713
00:34:57,110 --> 00:34:59,960
Now, that's not necessarily
battlefield deaths, it's

714
00:34:59,960 --> 00:35:02,580
including people whose wounds
killed them after the war was

715
00:35:02,580 --> 00:35:05,110
over, things like that.

716
00:35:05,110 --> 00:35:08,470
So it's a really bloody war.

717
00:35:08,470 --> 00:35:11,010
And I don't know what percentage
of the population

718
00:35:11,010 --> 00:35:15,250
that is, but it's a significant
number.

719
00:35:15,250 --> 00:35:18,920
It would be like losing--

720
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:21,050
say, if we were to have a
similar war today, it would

721
00:35:21,050 --> 00:35:27,280
probably be in the order of
losing maybe 1, 1.5 million

722
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:28,840
soldiers in the war.

723
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:31,143
Would we stand for that today?

724
00:35:31,143 --> 00:35:34,460
That's pretty bad.

725
00:35:34,460 --> 00:35:37,310
It's bad enough when you're
losing thousands, but when

726
00:35:37,310 --> 00:35:41,350
you're losing over a million,
that's getting into a whole

727
00:35:41,350 --> 00:35:43,700
different realm.

728
00:35:43,700 --> 00:35:48,530
As you say, it's one of these
moments that is not apparently

729
00:35:48,530 --> 00:35:49,280
the best time.

730
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:50,530
And yet, you see it coming.

731
00:35:56,720 --> 00:36:02,480
What are the earmarks
of knowing that it

732
00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:03,260
was the right moment?

733
00:36:03,260 --> 00:36:07,020
What was Roger's thinking when
he was thinking about trying

734
00:36:07,020 --> 00:36:09,090
to establish a polytechnic
institute?

735
00:36:09,090 --> 00:36:13,530
As I said earlier, he starts
thinking about this as early

736
00:36:13,530 --> 00:36:16,060
as the late 1820s.

737
00:36:16,060 --> 00:36:19,810
He's very close to his
brother, Henry.

738
00:36:19,810 --> 00:36:25,420
Interestingly, Henry's full name
was Henry Darwin Rogers.

739
00:36:25,420 --> 00:36:27,680
Their father was an
immigrant from--

740
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:31,430
I believe they came
from Scotland.

741
00:36:31,430 --> 00:36:33,250
Or maybe Northern Ireland,
I'm not sure.

742
00:36:33,250 --> 00:36:36,730
But he clearly was familiar with
the Darwin family, which

743
00:36:36,730 --> 00:36:39,980
was not just-- this would have
been Charles' father, I

744
00:36:39,980 --> 00:36:41,990
suspect, or someone like that.

745
00:36:41,990 --> 00:36:45,960
But in any case, here are these
two brothers talking

746
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:51,420
about the need for a polytechnic
institute.

747
00:36:51,420 --> 00:36:54,240
They're not engineers.

748
00:36:54,240 --> 00:36:56,440
They're scientists.

749
00:36:56,440 --> 00:36:59,190
William Barton Rogers, I guess
if you would have asked him in

750
00:36:59,190 --> 00:37:01,810
1825, what are you?

751
00:37:01,810 --> 00:37:03,330
He would have probably
called himself--

752
00:37:06,210 --> 00:37:09,170
what would be the word for
physicist in those days?

753
00:37:09,170 --> 00:37:10,700
DAVID MINDELL: Natural
philosopher.

754
00:37:10,700 --> 00:37:13,700
PROFESSOR: Natural philosopher,
yeah.

755
00:37:13,700 --> 00:37:16,820
When he first established the
Institute, one of the courses

756
00:37:16,820 --> 00:37:19,060
he thought was basically
the physics course.

757
00:37:19,060 --> 00:37:22,090
That didn't last for long
because his obligations were

758
00:37:22,090 --> 00:37:25,520
so many that he had to hire
somebody to do it.

759
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:30,170
And then he made the shift
during the 1820s and '30s into

760
00:37:30,170 --> 00:37:31,330
the field of geology.

761
00:37:31,330 --> 00:37:35,620
He was one of the early
geologists in this country.

762
00:37:35,620 --> 00:37:39,280
And really makes his name in
that area that we can talk

763
00:37:39,280 --> 00:37:40,200
more about next week.

764
00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:44,520
But when you look at the period,
there's a lot of stuff

765
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:46,360
going on that would have
indicated, yes,

766
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:48,470
we need these places.

767
00:37:48,470 --> 00:37:52,800
But we're right in the middle
of an Industrial Revolution.

768
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:55,780
We'll see from the essay that
I've written-- did you read

769
00:37:55,780 --> 00:37:56,740
the essay I wrote yet?

770
00:37:56,740 --> 00:37:59,050
That's next week, I think.

771
00:37:59,050 --> 00:38:05,120
You'll see in there that he
conducts a geological survey

772
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:07,810
of the state of Virginia, which
proved to be a political

773
00:38:07,810 --> 00:38:12,370
nightmare for him because of the
fighting that went on over

774
00:38:12,370 --> 00:38:14,820
what should be his
primary mission.

775
00:38:14,820 --> 00:38:17,890
That state is divided between
Eastern and Western interests,

776
00:38:17,890 --> 00:38:20,220
and they were vying with one
another about, what should

777
00:38:20,220 --> 00:38:22,240
this survey really be about?

778
00:38:22,240 --> 00:38:24,280
He got caught in the
middle of that.

779
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:28,680
And in the process of trying
to make everyone happy, he

780
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:32,260
doesn't have enough assistance
of people who are technically

781
00:38:32,260 --> 00:38:36,050
competent to do the surveys,
and the note-taking, and

782
00:38:36,050 --> 00:38:36,750
things like that.

783
00:38:36,750 --> 00:38:40,300
Clearly that's one impetus to
him, was starting to think

784
00:38:40,300 --> 00:38:43,930
about, boy, do we need people
who are trained to be able to

785
00:38:43,930 --> 00:38:47,790
do the sort of work that's
necessary to explore our

786
00:38:47,790 --> 00:38:51,020
industrial resources, or
actually go into these

787
00:38:51,020 --> 00:38:53,900
industrial areas and
actually run them.

788
00:38:53,900 --> 00:38:58,255
That's one of the sources of
his idea about MIT were--

789
00:38:58,255 --> 00:39:01,280
he wasn't calling it
MIT in those days.

790
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:05,070
The name MIT for him doesn't
emerge until the late 1850s.

791
00:39:05,070 --> 00:39:07,480
Much later.

792
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:09,560
He's teaching in Virginia
this time.

793
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:11,120
He's born and raised
in Virginia.

794
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:15,080
His dad taught at William
and Mary College.

795
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:18,710
And so he's raised in
the slave society.

796
00:39:18,710 --> 00:39:22,790
And yet, surely-- well, he
marries a woman from Boston,

797
00:39:22,790 --> 00:39:26,830
but he's never--

798
00:39:26,830 --> 00:39:29,270
I've never seen anything in his
writings that indicated

799
00:39:29,270 --> 00:39:31,200
that he was pro-slavery.

800
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:32,060
Quite the opposite.

801
00:39:32,060 --> 00:39:34,400
He was opposed to slavery.

802
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:40,540
And so he found Boston a much
more acceptable climate to be

803
00:39:40,540 --> 00:39:44,770
living in once he moved
up here in the 1850s.

804
00:39:44,770 --> 00:39:49,750
But this business about why
did he do it during--

805
00:39:49,750 --> 00:39:55,230
he gets the idea and starts
pushing for it around 1859.

806
00:39:55,230 --> 00:39:57,810
Why then?

807
00:39:57,810 --> 00:40:01,940
Clearly, there are needs,
no doubt about it.

808
00:40:01,940 --> 00:40:04,470
But you got to ask yourself,
well, to what extent was he

809
00:40:04,470 --> 00:40:06,880
aware of the degree
of the political

810
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:08,340
tensions in the crisis?

811
00:40:08,340 --> 00:40:12,400
It was two years before
the war came.

812
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:15,280
And that slavery issue
had been going on

813
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:18,470
for how many years?

814
00:40:18,470 --> 00:40:20,130
20, 30?

815
00:40:20,130 --> 00:40:24,720
You can count back as many
as 60 years, or more.

816
00:40:24,720 --> 00:40:30,760
So I could well imagine that
someone like Rogers would be

817
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:32,930
thinking, well, yeah.

818
00:40:32,930 --> 00:40:35,740
There's a lot of tension
here, but it's not

819
00:40:35,740 --> 00:40:38,190
going to happen now.

820
00:40:38,190 --> 00:40:41,430
He was probably taken by
surprise would be my guess.

821
00:40:41,430 --> 00:40:42,672
DAVID MINDELL: Really?

822
00:40:42,672 --> 00:40:44,826
There's another way
to read it where--

823
00:40:44,826 --> 00:40:48,480
PROFESSOR: Did I ask you?

824
00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:49,080
DAVID MINDELL: I told
you I was going to

825
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:49,630
sit here and listen.

826
00:40:49,630 --> 00:40:52,020
PROFESSOR: Yeah, he's going to
sit over there like a jaybird.

827
00:40:52,020 --> 00:40:54,080
DAVID MINDELL: Where he's
married to an abolitionist.

828
00:40:57,510 --> 00:41:00,930
Boston, in general in New
England society, is--

829
00:41:00,930 --> 00:41:03,590
there's a lot of abolitionist
fervor.

830
00:41:03,590 --> 00:41:06,230
People are extremely political
active-- that's one thing he

831
00:41:06,230 --> 00:41:08,180
likes about New England.

832
00:41:08,180 --> 00:41:12,710
He goes on vacation with Emma
Savage's family and they have

833
00:41:12,710 --> 00:41:15,140
all these political
discussions.

834
00:41:15,140 --> 00:41:19,610
So then you could say, maybe he
sees the founding of MIT as

835
00:41:19,610 --> 00:41:21,350
a political act.

836
00:41:21,350 --> 00:41:21,910
PROFESSOR: That's interesting.

837
00:41:21,910 --> 00:41:23,100
DAVID MINDELL: And it's
interesting then to think

838
00:41:23,100 --> 00:41:29,560
about what kind of political act
it might be if it was one.

839
00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:30,890
PROFESSOR: That's interesting.

840
00:41:30,890 --> 00:41:35,370
So a political act in the sense
that it would be a place

841
00:41:35,370 --> 00:41:40,420
that was doing a new style of
education to be sure, coupling

842
00:41:40,420 --> 00:41:44,040
it with reform sentiment that
is so rampant in Boston--

843
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:46,970
Boston is the center the
abolitionist movement.

844
00:41:46,970 --> 00:41:49,920
William Lloyd Garrison's paper
was centered here in Boston,

845
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:54,120
so he's pushing at a button here
that's very interesting.

846
00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:55,200
I hadn't thought about that.

847
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:58,940
DAVID MINDELL: Or Rogers has
a vision of a world where

848
00:41:58,940 --> 00:42:00,830
technology is important.

849
00:42:00,830 --> 00:42:05,060
The people who engineer and deal
with it are important,

850
00:42:05,060 --> 00:42:08,890
which wasn't really
the case then.

851
00:42:08,890 --> 00:42:12,940
And that that's a world that
he sees as a counter to the

852
00:42:12,940 --> 00:42:17,870
world that he left in the South
where it's agrarian.

853
00:42:17,870 --> 00:42:20,780
It's much more political in
different kinds of ways.

854
00:42:20,780 --> 00:42:27,440
And he wants to educate a cadre
of technical experts who

855
00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:31,690
can run the world in a more,
maybe dispassionate way than

856
00:42:31,690 --> 00:42:32,530
he found in the South.

857
00:42:32,530 --> 00:42:33,430
PROFESSOR: Oh, god.

858
00:42:33,430 --> 00:42:36,640
That's really interesting.

859
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:38,280
You should be leading
this discussion.

860
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:42,100
That's very interesting now,
educating a cadre of

861
00:42:42,100 --> 00:42:45,280
individuals who would be capable
of sort of leading the

862
00:42:45,280 --> 00:42:48,150
world in a different way.

863
00:42:48,150 --> 00:42:52,090
What does that mean to
educate this cadre?

864
00:42:52,090 --> 00:42:54,300
What kind of individual would
you want to be educating?

865
00:42:56,930 --> 00:43:01,130
We know that MIT was founded to
try to combine the useful

866
00:43:01,130 --> 00:43:04,220
arts, or what we would describe
as engineering today,

867
00:43:04,220 --> 00:43:07,870
with science, the pursuit of
science, trying to bring them

868
00:43:07,870 --> 00:43:10,490
together, have them interact,
and produce something--

869
00:43:10,490 --> 00:43:15,860
a student is a special
product in a way.

870
00:43:15,860 --> 00:43:22,580
But what about that ultimate
vision of creating a cadre of

871
00:43:22,580 --> 00:43:27,450
graduates that are going to go
out and shape or reshape the

872
00:43:27,450 --> 00:43:32,060
world to a new way of thinking
about things?

873
00:43:32,060 --> 00:43:34,280
That's very interesting.

874
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:38,520
Let me push it a little bit
further and say this.

875
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:46,020
Up until the founding of MIT in
1861, there had been this

876
00:43:46,020 --> 00:43:48,830
process of industrialization,
which was centered around

877
00:43:48,830 --> 00:43:53,270
transportation, building
railroads, and creating

878
00:43:53,270 --> 00:43:56,540
factories for producing
everything from boots and

879
00:43:56,540 --> 00:44:00,470
shoes, to cotton textiles,
to sewing machines.

880
00:44:00,470 --> 00:44:05,100
And these things were
accompanied not only by the

881
00:44:05,100 --> 00:44:08,500
machinery, and the labor forces,
and things like that,

882
00:44:08,500 --> 00:44:11,770
but they were also accompanied
by an attempt to try to learn

883
00:44:11,770 --> 00:44:13,510
how to manage them.

884
00:44:13,510 --> 00:44:15,460
So many of them were
big enterprises.

885
00:44:15,460 --> 00:44:17,720
Railroads are employing
thousands of people.

886
00:44:17,720 --> 00:44:20,550
Pennsylvania Railroad employed
1,200 people by

887
00:44:20,550 --> 00:44:23,190
1859 I would say.

888
00:44:23,190 --> 00:44:26,100
And factories, like the Lowell
Mills, are employing 200 or

889
00:44:26,100 --> 00:44:29,405
300 in each building, let alone
the whole town, which

890
00:44:29,405 --> 00:44:33,920
would be well over 1,000.

891
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:39,360
If you're seeing management
emerging alongside of this

892
00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:45,510
educational process, it would
mean to me that Rogers has got

893
00:44:45,510 --> 00:44:49,420
to be interested not just
in teaching science and

894
00:44:49,420 --> 00:44:52,680
engineering, but also trying
to get students to think

895
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:55,530
about, how do you manage these
enterprises once you go out to

896
00:44:55,530 --> 00:44:56,990
work in them?

897
00:44:56,990 --> 00:44:59,170
And what is that all about?

898
00:44:59,170 --> 00:45:02,040
What is management really about
when you talk about

899
00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:03,010
managing things?

900
00:45:03,010 --> 00:45:05,400
Coordination and control.

901
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:06,810
It's trying to control things.

902
00:45:09,910 --> 00:45:14,080
That's an important part
of this business.

903
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:16,360
That brings a different
dimension to the--

904
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:21,010
now, they're not teaching that
in liberal arts colleges or

905
00:45:21,010 --> 00:45:25,650
the classical curriculum
colleges.

906
00:45:25,650 --> 00:45:29,580
They're creating "gentlemen."
They're not creating ladies

907
00:45:29,580 --> 00:45:31,840
because there were very few
ladies in any schools, but

908
00:45:31,840 --> 00:45:34,640
they are creating gentleman
to go on to law school,

909
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:36,590
or stuff like that.

910
00:45:36,590 --> 00:45:40,380
So there's a different
breed of cat being

911
00:45:40,380 --> 00:45:43,710
made in these schools.

912
00:45:43,710 --> 00:45:49,600
If what David says is true, it's
as much about learning

913
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:51,670
how to control things
as it is learning

914
00:45:51,670 --> 00:45:53,190
about how to do things.

915
00:45:53,190 --> 00:45:57,990
Learning and doing also involves
learning how to

916
00:45:57,990 --> 00:46:00,810
impose some control over that.

917
00:46:00,810 --> 00:46:06,430
What are the problems that might
arise with that sort of

918
00:46:06,430 --> 00:46:07,680
enterprise?

919
00:46:10,190 --> 00:46:13,620
I think it's an interesting
question because if you look

920
00:46:13,620 --> 00:46:15,290
at it from, say labor.

921
00:46:15,290 --> 00:46:17,430
What's the labor management?

922
00:46:17,430 --> 00:46:19,495
That's the dichotomy is
labor management.

923
00:46:22,216 --> 00:46:25,140
MIT ends up on the management
side, I would say, more than

924
00:46:25,140 --> 00:46:28,070
on the labor side of things.

925
00:46:28,070 --> 00:46:31,450
This is right at the moment when
you're beginning to see

926
00:46:31,450 --> 00:46:33,380
serious labor management
divisions.

927
00:46:33,380 --> 00:46:36,180
I didn't talk about that in
my lecture, but definitely

928
00:46:36,180 --> 00:46:38,810
happening during these years.

929
00:46:38,810 --> 00:46:42,750
So MIT is sort of adding to the
strength of the managerial

930
00:46:42,750 --> 00:46:46,390
side of technological change
and science then to the

931
00:46:46,390 --> 00:46:50,275
so-called labor-oriented
rank and file side.

932
00:46:53,310 --> 00:46:56,630
That, in itself, is a very
interesting statement about

933
00:46:56,630 --> 00:46:58,190
what the Institute is about.

934
00:47:00,980 --> 00:47:04,170
Openly about.

935
00:47:04,170 --> 00:47:06,200
Don't need to apologize
for it, but need to be

936
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:08,890
aware of it I think.

937
00:47:08,890 --> 00:47:11,660
That in establishing that sort
of school, you're going to be

938
00:47:11,660 --> 00:47:15,280
more interested in those
managerial sides of

939
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:18,960
controlling and coordinating
large enterprises.

940
00:47:18,960 --> 00:47:22,080
Where are the early graduates
going from MIT?

941
00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:23,440
Now, you haven't read
about this, so

942
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:24,990
I'll answer the question.

943
00:47:24,990 --> 00:47:28,700
Many of them are going to large
railroad companies.

944
00:47:28,700 --> 00:47:31,410
They're sending a lot of their
young graduates off to work as

945
00:47:31,410 --> 00:47:32,690
engineers on railroads.

946
00:47:32,690 --> 00:47:37,790
Not running locomotives, but to
build lines, coordinating

947
00:47:37,790 --> 00:47:40,820
control of the operation of the
railroad, stuff like that.

948
00:47:40,820 --> 00:47:44,670
That's where a lot of these
young men are going.

949
00:47:44,670 --> 00:47:48,840
So it's an interesting
thought about that.

950
00:47:52,300 --> 00:47:54,330
DAVID MINDELL: One of the words
that caught me in the

951
00:47:54,330 --> 00:47:57,610
conversation, and in the
responses, was the sense that

952
00:47:57,610 --> 00:48:00,870
the founding of MIT was
inevitable in any way.

953
00:48:00,870 --> 00:48:03,210
And maybe we made it seem that
way with some of the material

954
00:48:03,210 --> 00:48:08,400
we've been looking at, but if
you zoom out one level--

955
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:11,510
and even, the industrialization
of America

956
00:48:11,510 --> 00:48:14,720
maybe looks inevitable
in some way.

957
00:48:14,720 --> 00:48:18,300
But it was not inevitable,
and was incredibly

958
00:48:18,300 --> 00:48:19,830
fraught with conflict.

959
00:48:19,830 --> 00:48:23,160
There was nothing like the kind
of presumption today that

960
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:26,050
technological development
equals economic progress

961
00:48:26,050 --> 00:48:28,470
equals social progress.

962
00:48:28,470 --> 00:48:32,510
And it's not too much of an
exaggeration to say the entire

963
00:48:32,510 --> 00:48:36,420
American Civil War was fought
over different visions of what

964
00:48:36,420 --> 00:48:38,170
America might be.

965
00:48:38,170 --> 00:48:45,680
One being an agrarian, rural,
essentially non-industrialized

966
00:48:45,680 --> 00:48:49,850
economy with the kind of social
order of slavery and

967
00:48:49,850 --> 00:48:50,770
racial divisions.

968
00:48:50,770 --> 00:48:53,810
And also, very much a
traditional class structure

969
00:48:53,810 --> 00:48:54,790
around that.

970
00:48:54,790 --> 00:48:59,920
And the other being much more
represented by the North,

971
00:48:59,920 --> 00:49:02,030
industrialized, very
managerial, very

972
00:49:02,030 --> 00:49:04,930
technological, heavily
railroads.

973
00:49:04,930 --> 00:49:08,200
No small number of the leading
Union generals were railroad

974
00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:12,410
executives before the war,
including McClellan.

975
00:49:12,410 --> 00:49:14,490
And so if you look at
the war in that--

976
00:49:14,490 --> 00:49:16,985
and all of the tensions leading
up to the war, and it

977
00:49:16,985 --> 00:49:18,920
was pretty explicit
at the time.

978
00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:21,290
Thomas Jefferson very
much viewed--

979
00:49:21,290 --> 00:49:25,340
this is 40, 50 years before, but
viewed the country in this

980
00:49:25,340 --> 00:49:26,400
kind of agrarian way.

981
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:28,310
We weren't going to make the
same kind of mistakes that

982
00:49:28,310 --> 00:49:32,800
England made and have a dirty
industrial economy.

983
00:49:32,800 --> 00:49:35,550
If you look at the war in that
way, then the founding of MIT

984
00:49:35,550 --> 00:49:41,090
is very much almost like a move
in a chess board for one

985
00:49:41,090 --> 00:49:45,780
side, which is obviously the
one toward, this is what an

986
00:49:45,780 --> 00:49:49,210
ordered industrial,
Northern-dominated

987
00:49:49,210 --> 00:49:51,580
economy could be.

988
00:49:51,580 --> 00:49:55,130
And it happens to be the side
that won, but it was 3/4 of

989
00:49:55,130 --> 00:49:58,035
million people had to die
between here and there, much

990
00:49:58,035 --> 00:50:02,650
the less another half century
of conflict over--

991
00:50:02,650 --> 00:50:05,200
Roe's books about how half the
problem was just trying to get

992
00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:08,820
people to come to work at the
same time every day, and work

993
00:50:08,820 --> 00:50:09,950
through the planting season.

994
00:50:09,950 --> 00:50:11,700
Because you couldn't have a
factory unless you get people

995
00:50:11,700 --> 00:50:12,240
to do that.

996
00:50:12,240 --> 00:50:14,610
And that was 30 years of
conflict just to get

997
00:50:14,610 --> 00:50:15,860
people to do that.

998
00:50:18,150 --> 00:50:23,640
PROFESSOR: There's a phrase
about when you start making

999
00:50:23,640 --> 00:50:25,880
machinery and putting them
in things that are called

1000
00:50:25,880 --> 00:50:28,040
factories, which are new.

1001
00:50:28,040 --> 00:50:32,320
We're familiar with them, but
people in the age had never

1002
00:50:32,320 --> 00:50:33,640
seen these things before.

1003
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:35,600
They just knew that there was
good money to be made.

1004
00:50:35,600 --> 00:50:38,020
You could make cash wages
by working in

1005
00:50:38,020 --> 00:50:41,120
one of these places.

1006
00:50:41,120 --> 00:50:42,580
It was inviting in that sense.

1007
00:50:42,580 --> 00:50:45,150
But on the other hand, going in
there to work and having to

1008
00:50:45,150 --> 00:50:49,530
work to regimented hours, and be
expected to produce so much

1009
00:50:49,530 --> 00:50:51,800
stuff during the day.

1010
00:50:51,800 --> 00:50:55,160
One of the managers of an early
textile operation said,

1011
00:50:55,160 --> 00:50:58,870
this is like trying to put
a deer in a harness.

1012
00:50:58,870 --> 00:50:59,570
Imagine that.

1013
00:50:59,570 --> 00:51:02,400
Just think about putting
a deer in a harness.

1014
00:51:02,400 --> 00:51:03,870
That just doesn't work.

1015
00:51:03,870 --> 00:51:06,500
There's going to be a lot of
bucking and resistance, and

1016
00:51:06,500 --> 00:51:08,430
going nowhere sort of.

1017
00:51:08,430 --> 00:51:12,620
And so it's a tricky business,
no doubt about it.

1018
00:51:12,620 --> 00:51:16,330
David mentions just getting
workers to work according to

1019
00:51:16,330 --> 00:51:18,560
clocked hours.

1020
00:51:18,560 --> 00:51:19,700
We're so used to--

1021
00:51:19,700 --> 00:51:23,580
I mean, either we're wearing
watches, or you've got it on

1022
00:51:23,580 --> 00:51:25,980
your cell phones, all
of us are very

1023
00:51:25,980 --> 00:51:28,380
time-oriented in this age.

1024
00:51:28,380 --> 00:51:33,760
But 200 years ago, very few
people, only wealthy people

1025
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:36,120
could afford to own
a pocket watch.

1026
00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:38,090
They were really expensive.

1027
00:51:38,090 --> 00:51:40,660
And only the wealthiest
households had these tall

1028
00:51:40,660 --> 00:51:42,640
clocks in their hallways
and stuff like that.

1029
00:51:42,640 --> 00:51:46,410
Most people didn't have
time-keeping devices.

1030
00:51:46,410 --> 00:51:49,770
That comes in with the coming
of industry, with factories

1031
00:51:49,770 --> 00:51:50,610
and things like that.

1032
00:51:50,610 --> 00:51:53,250
In fact, it's factories that
start making the early, cheap

1033
00:51:53,250 --> 00:51:56,750
clocks you can buy for
a couple of dollars.

1034
00:51:56,750 --> 00:51:59,870
There's a famous traveler
who goes in--

1035
00:51:59,870 --> 00:52:02,620
it's a British visitor who
travels in the Southeastern

1036
00:52:02,620 --> 00:52:07,770
part of the United States,
writing in the late '20s,

1037
00:52:07,770 --> 00:52:09,290
early '30s thereabouts.

1038
00:52:09,290 --> 00:52:10,990
And he's writing about--

1039
00:52:10,990 --> 00:52:13,800
I'm going to take that back,
it's a woman traveler.

1040
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:15,770
Sorry.

1041
00:52:15,770 --> 00:52:16,940
Traveling in these areas.

1042
00:52:16,940 --> 00:52:19,640
And one of the things she
notices is that--

1043
00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:23,010
and she comes into Arkansas,
which is pretty much in the

1044
00:52:23,010 --> 00:52:26,680
deep recesses of the United
States at that time.

1045
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:30,130
Well, Arkansas, West of the
Mississippi, 1832 or

1046
00:52:30,130 --> 00:52:32,960
thereabouts, is really
in the deep recesses.

1047
00:52:32,960 --> 00:52:34,260
That's frontier country.

1048
00:52:34,260 --> 00:52:35,300
That's what I mean by that.

1049
00:52:35,300 --> 00:52:36,260
Are you from Arkansas?

1050
00:52:36,260 --> 00:52:37,050
AUDIENCE: No.

1051
00:52:37,050 --> 00:52:40,170
PROFESSOR: I didn't mean to
insult Arkansas people.

1052
00:52:40,170 --> 00:52:44,300
But in any case, she makes this
comment about, I travel

1053
00:52:44,300 --> 00:52:47,700
around the countryside and I
enter these cabins with dirt

1054
00:52:47,700 --> 00:52:50,810
floors, hardly a stick of
furniture, and there's a

1055
00:52:50,810 --> 00:52:55,930
Connecticut clock sitting
on the fireplace mantle.

1056
00:52:55,930 --> 00:53:00,320
They'd rather own a clock
than owning furniture.

1057
00:53:00,320 --> 00:53:04,220
That was unheard of
50 years earlier.

1058
00:53:04,220 --> 00:53:05,830
You couldn't afford something
like that.

1059
00:53:05,830 --> 00:53:08,625
And yet, boy, they were buying
them like crazy.

1060
00:53:08,625 --> 00:53:11,080
Be it these clocks are being
made in Connecticut, and then

1061
00:53:11,080 --> 00:53:13,700
taken literally, in wagons
across the country, and sold

1062
00:53:13,700 --> 00:53:18,180
off by the thousands to people
for a couple dollars a piece.

1063
00:53:18,180 --> 00:53:20,920
Your grandparents or parents
may have some of them.

1064
00:53:20,920 --> 00:53:24,890
They're old brass works clocks
that when they strike the

1065
00:53:24,890 --> 00:53:27,600
hour, it'd wake the dead.

1066
00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:31,660
They're very, very available,
even today.

1067
00:53:31,660 --> 00:53:34,230
But that sense of time and time

1068
00:53:34,230 --> 00:53:36,610
orientation as a new dimension.

1069
00:53:36,610 --> 00:53:38,140
People are not used to
it and they go on

1070
00:53:38,140 --> 00:53:39,700
strike in many instances.

1071
00:53:39,700 --> 00:53:40,960
They try to resist this.

1072
00:53:40,960 --> 00:53:43,920
And that's part of that
management, trying to get that

1073
00:53:43,920 --> 00:53:47,400
control that didn't exist.

1074
00:53:47,400 --> 00:53:50,720
No one knew about it.

1075
00:53:50,720 --> 00:53:55,430
Jefferson refers to the slavery
issue in the 1820s as

1076
00:53:55,430 --> 00:53:58,410
trying to hold a wolf
by the ears.

1077
00:53:58,410 --> 00:54:03,190
He is very concerned about the
future of slavery in America.

1078
00:54:03,190 --> 00:54:06,540
He never remits his slaves
as far as I know.

1079
00:54:06,540 --> 00:54:09,430
But the other wolf that was
being held by the ears at this

1080
00:54:09,430 --> 00:54:14,590
time has to do with labor
management, the problems that

1081
00:54:14,590 --> 00:54:16,230
were going to emerge.

1082
00:54:16,230 --> 00:54:19,160
Lowell, a great industrial
city in the 1820s was

1083
00:54:19,160 --> 00:54:21,410
considered to be a utopia.

1084
00:54:21,410 --> 00:54:24,290
It was a place that people
wanted to work at.

1085
00:54:24,290 --> 00:54:27,010
But by the 1840s, there are
all sorts of strikes

1086
00:54:27,010 --> 00:54:28,180
going on out there.

1087
00:54:28,180 --> 00:54:32,630
Protesting time rules and the
cost of living in boarding

1088
00:54:32,630 --> 00:54:33,970
houses, and stuff like that.

1089
00:54:33,970 --> 00:54:35,100
So it gets very complex.

1090
00:54:35,100 --> 00:54:38,650
And Rogers is living through
all of this, and seeing it,

1091
00:54:38,650 --> 00:54:41,960
and trying to come to some
conclusion about, how do I

1092
00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:44,790
enter into this educational
process?

1093
00:54:44,790 --> 00:54:46,505
How do I make it better
supposedly?

1094
00:54:49,220 --> 00:54:53,900
So it's a complex, interesting
era that is the era

1095
00:54:53,900 --> 00:54:55,780
that he lives in.

1096
00:54:55,780 --> 00:55:02,350
Now, there's another question
that was raised today, but how

1097
00:55:02,350 --> 00:55:06,460
did Rogers get the money
to find benefactors?

1098
00:55:06,460 --> 00:55:10,590
When you graduate from MIT,
MIT Alumni Association is

1099
00:55:10,590 --> 00:55:12,770
going to get your name
and address.

1100
00:55:12,770 --> 00:55:15,290
And several times a year you're
going to get mailings

1101
00:55:15,290 --> 00:55:18,680
from them saying, we need
your benefaction.

1102
00:55:18,680 --> 00:55:21,300
You need to help us keep
the Institute going for

1103
00:55:21,300 --> 00:55:24,720
fellowships, and scholarships,
and a new swimming pool, or

1104
00:55:24,720 --> 00:55:27,210
whatever it may be.

1105
00:55:27,210 --> 00:55:30,150
It's through that sort of giving
that is very important

1106
00:55:30,150 --> 00:55:32,410
to the operation of
any school today.

1107
00:55:32,410 --> 00:55:35,240
It was important
to Rogers then.

1108
00:55:35,240 --> 00:55:41,670
When you read my essay next
week, the title of the essay

1109
00:55:41,670 --> 00:55:44,550
is called "Godspeed the
Institute." It's in

1110
00:55:44,550 --> 00:55:46,130
quotations.

1111
00:55:46,130 --> 00:55:49,500
That's actually a quote from
an early benefactor of MIT.

1112
00:55:49,500 --> 00:55:54,060
He was a doctor here in Boston,
Harvard graduate, a

1113
00:55:54,060 --> 00:55:56,800
surgeon, made a lot of money
investing in local

1114
00:55:56,800 --> 00:55:57,550
industries--

1115
00:55:57,550 --> 00:55:59,645
railroads, textile mills.

1116
00:55:59,645 --> 00:56:02,670
Made a lot of money, and
he had money to give.

1117
00:56:02,670 --> 00:56:05,470
And rather than giving it to
Harvard, he gives it to MIT.

1118
00:56:05,470 --> 00:56:09,550
It's like $40,000, quite a lot
of money for that time.

1119
00:56:09,550 --> 00:56:13,160
And I can imagine how people
at Harvard felt about that.

1120
00:56:13,160 --> 00:56:16,540
Because he was turning on a
different direction here.

1121
00:56:16,540 --> 00:56:20,930
But he was interested in sort
of the practical hands-on

1122
00:56:20,930 --> 00:56:24,470
orientation that Rogers was
trying to develop in the

1123
00:56:24,470 --> 00:56:27,720
Institute with reference to
bringing science and the

1124
00:56:27,720 --> 00:56:31,680
useful arts in contact
with each other.

1125
00:56:31,680 --> 00:56:34,310
But that was one form.

1126
00:56:34,310 --> 00:56:36,820
Where else would you be getting
money to run a place

1127
00:56:36,820 --> 00:56:38,070
like this early on?

1128
00:56:41,608 --> 00:56:43,000
AUDIENCE: From the military?

1129
00:56:43,000 --> 00:56:43,980
PROFESSOR: Well, military.

1130
00:56:43,980 --> 00:56:46,020
Who said military?

1131
00:56:46,020 --> 00:56:47,760
OK.

1132
00:56:47,760 --> 00:56:48,670
Say a little more.

1133
00:56:48,670 --> 00:56:50,430
Military in what way?

1134
00:56:50,430 --> 00:56:51,480
How would you imagine that?

1135
00:56:51,480 --> 00:56:55,917
AUDIENCE: There's a lot of
government contracts maybe

1136
00:56:55,917 --> 00:56:56,903
back then, I don't know.

1137
00:56:56,903 --> 00:57:01,200
PROFESSOR: Yeah, absolutely.

1138
00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:03,820
It's not so much military money,
but it's war-related.

1139
00:57:07,370 --> 00:57:11,250
Legislation that's passed by
the Lincoln administration.

1140
00:57:11,250 --> 00:57:13,920
Interestingly, Lincoln is a
Republican, a member of the

1141
00:57:13,920 --> 00:57:15,410
Republican Party.

1142
00:57:15,410 --> 00:57:17,820
Early member of the
Republican Party.

1143
00:57:17,820 --> 00:57:21,570
In those days, Republican
Party was all about big

1144
00:57:21,570 --> 00:57:23,520
government, believe it or not.

1145
00:57:23,520 --> 00:57:26,550
Today it's just the
other way around.

1146
00:57:26,550 --> 00:57:30,120
What the Democrats were in the
1860s, the Republicans are

1147
00:57:30,120 --> 00:57:32,470
today, and vice versa.

1148
00:57:32,470 --> 00:57:36,640
So in Lincoln's day, one of the
big proposals that was put

1149
00:57:36,640 --> 00:57:41,130
up, and you'll read about it
next week is, trying to get

1150
00:57:41,130 --> 00:57:44,910
grants for the establishment
of state universities that

1151
00:57:44,910 --> 00:57:49,900
would emphasize mechanical and
agricultural pursuits.

1152
00:57:49,900 --> 00:57:55,030
Texas A&M. A&M, Agricultural
Mechanical colleges.

1153
00:57:55,030 --> 00:57:57,650
I went to Penn State.

1154
00:57:57,650 --> 00:58:00,280
That's a land-grant school.

1155
00:58:00,280 --> 00:58:03,770
All of these schools come out
of a piece of Civil War

1156
00:58:03,770 --> 00:58:06,920
legislation called the Morrill
Land-Grant Act, which

1157
00:58:06,920 --> 00:58:10,010
literally put up money--

1158
00:58:10,010 --> 00:58:13,060
it gave money to each state
based on the number of

1159
00:58:13,060 --> 00:58:15,540
representatives they had in the
House of Representatives

1160
00:58:15,540 --> 00:58:17,030
and the number of US
senators they had.

1161
00:58:17,030 --> 00:58:21,120
I think it's 30,000 acres
per representative.

1162
00:58:21,120 --> 00:58:24,430
They'd give that land to the
state legislature, which in

1163
00:58:24,430 --> 00:58:28,840
turn could keep the land for as
long as they want, or they

1164
00:58:28,840 --> 00:58:32,690
could turn it into script and
sell it to investors.

1165
00:58:32,690 --> 00:58:34,490
Where was that land located?

1166
00:58:34,490 --> 00:58:36,890
This is a sore point for those
of you who are from the

1167
00:58:36,890 --> 00:58:39,890
Midwest, especially places
like Minnesota,

1168
00:58:39,890 --> 00:58:42,060
Iowa, places like that.

1169
00:58:42,060 --> 00:58:44,950
Most of the land was from
out on that area

1170
00:58:44,950 --> 00:58:46,390
and not in the East.

1171
00:58:46,390 --> 00:58:49,040
There were some plots,
but not much.

1172
00:58:49,040 --> 00:58:53,720
And that land was used by the
Massachusetts legislature to

1173
00:58:53,720 --> 00:58:58,460
parcel out in terms of
government grants.

1174
00:58:58,460 --> 00:59:02,020
Here's government giving out
money, in effect, to places

1175
00:59:02,020 --> 00:59:05,570
like MIT, University of
Massachusetts are the two main

1176
00:59:05,570 --> 00:59:08,600
beneficiaries of that.

1177
00:59:08,600 --> 00:59:11,260
MIT is a land-grant college.

1178
00:59:11,260 --> 00:59:12,510
Did you know that?

1179
00:59:16,350 --> 00:59:19,180
MIT emerges right out of this
land-grant tradition, and it's

1180
00:59:19,180 --> 00:59:21,060
arguably one of the first.

1181
00:59:21,060 --> 00:59:24,740
It may be the first land-grant
college in the United States,

1182
00:59:24,740 --> 00:59:29,730
which we kind of don't recognize
because MIT is a

1183
00:59:29,730 --> 00:59:31,890
private corporation
at the same time.

1184
00:59:31,890 --> 00:59:35,320
You would think, this is not
Penn State or it's not Ohio

1185
00:59:35,320 --> 00:59:37,070
State, which are both
land-grant schools.

1186
00:59:37,070 --> 00:59:39,960
Those are state universities.

1187
00:59:39,960 --> 00:59:42,840
This is a private corporation.

1188
00:59:42,840 --> 00:59:46,350
And yet, its initial funding,
a big part of it, both the

1189
00:59:46,350 --> 00:59:50,180
land over in Boston and money
from the legislature, came

1190
00:59:50,180 --> 00:59:54,500
from the state through this
piece of national legislation

1191
00:59:54,500 --> 00:59:57,790
that's sort of filtered down
into various states for the

1192
00:59:57,790 --> 01:00:00,130
establishment of
these colleges.

1193
01:00:00,130 --> 01:00:02,880
So it's an interesting
process that happens.

1194
01:00:02,880 --> 01:00:05,150
That's important.

1195
01:00:05,150 --> 01:00:09,280
So there are moments when
I can imagine that big

1196
01:00:09,280 --> 01:00:11,040
government is a bad thing.

1197
01:00:11,040 --> 01:00:13,800
But there are also moments when
big government can be a

1198
01:00:13,800 --> 01:00:14,830
good thing.

1199
01:00:14,830 --> 01:00:17,130
In this instance, I think it
was not just good, it was

1200
01:00:17,130 --> 01:00:20,850
extremely important for the
future of the United States.

1201
01:00:20,850 --> 01:00:22,860
Think of the hundreds of
thousands of graduates who

1202
01:00:22,860 --> 01:00:25,100
have come out of
these colleges.

1203
01:00:25,100 --> 01:00:30,890
Not just MIT, but extremely
important to the development--

1204
01:00:30,890 --> 01:00:33,500
the economic development
of the country.

1205
01:00:33,500 --> 01:00:36,380
And that all started with a
federal piece of legislation.

1206
01:00:36,380 --> 01:00:38,560
DAVID MINDELL: We were just
talking during the break, the

1207
01:00:38,560 --> 01:00:43,320
21 names that signed
the MIT charter.

1208
01:00:43,320 --> 01:00:46,290
Rogers is one of them.

1209
01:00:46,290 --> 01:00:48,530
We know a little bit about a
couple of them, Roe and I, but

1210
01:00:48,530 --> 01:00:50,060
we don't know that much about
the rest of them.

1211
01:00:50,060 --> 01:00:52,260
They're not all names that you'd
instantly recognize.

1212
01:00:52,260 --> 01:00:55,100
But it's worth asking, in
addition to the government,

1213
01:00:55,100 --> 01:00:59,450
why would these presumably
prominent, moneyed Boston

1214
01:00:59,450 --> 01:01:02,650
people care about founding
this school?

1215
01:01:02,650 --> 01:01:03,900
What are their interest in it?

1216
01:01:06,850 --> 01:01:08,430
He wouldn't have been able
to do it by himself.

1217
01:01:08,430 --> 01:01:14,080
He needed this kind of social
group to support him.

1218
01:01:14,080 --> 01:01:15,330
PROFESSOR: Definitely.

1219
01:01:16,870 --> 01:01:18,290
DAVID MINDELL: It's a good paper
topic for someone, but

1220
01:01:18,290 --> 01:01:19,720
we should talk about it now.

1221
01:01:19,720 --> 01:01:22,490
Who are those 21 people?

1222
01:01:22,490 --> 01:01:23,800
PROFESSOR: That would be
a good topic, just

1223
01:01:23,800 --> 01:01:27,190
to look into one.

1224
01:01:27,190 --> 01:01:30,080
For example, just here's one
that I do know about, a guy

1225
01:01:30,080 --> 01:01:33,860
named James B Francis.

1226
01:01:33,860 --> 01:01:35,420
Has anyone ever heard
of him before?

1227
01:01:35,420 --> 01:01:36,870
I doubt it.

1228
01:01:36,870 --> 01:01:38,700
There's no reason you
should, probably.

1229
01:01:38,700 --> 01:01:43,090
But in his day, James B Francis
was probably the most

1230
01:01:43,090 --> 01:01:47,330
important hydraulic engineer,
surely in the United States,

1231
01:01:47,330 --> 01:01:48,170
if not the world.

1232
01:01:48,170 --> 01:01:49,540
He was very, very important.

1233
01:01:49,540 --> 01:01:54,050
He built the canal system in
Lowell, which was America's

1234
01:01:54,050 --> 01:01:55,200
leading industrial--

1235
01:01:55,200 --> 01:01:57,970
surely, leading water-powered
entity.

1236
01:01:57,970 --> 01:02:01,980
You can go up there today and
still see those power canals

1237
01:02:01,980 --> 01:02:07,740
that have been there for what,
200 years I suppose.

1238
01:02:07,740 --> 01:02:09,410
And he was responsible.

1239
01:02:09,410 --> 01:02:11,420
He's the guy that
engineered this.

1240
01:02:11,420 --> 01:02:14,350
And he was a close associate
of Rogers.

1241
01:02:14,350 --> 01:02:18,830
Rogers clearly recruited him or
told him about his vision

1242
01:02:18,830 --> 01:02:20,870
for this new polytechnic
institute.

1243
01:02:20,870 --> 01:02:24,670
And Francis immediately
signed on to it.

1244
01:02:24,670 --> 01:02:28,590
Now, Francis's papers exist
up in Lowell at the Lowell

1245
01:02:28,590 --> 01:02:29,680
Historical Society.

1246
01:02:29,680 --> 01:02:35,220
But I don't think anyone has
looked into, what was going on

1247
01:02:35,220 --> 01:02:37,680
between him and William
Rogers?

1248
01:02:37,680 --> 01:02:39,740
Were they having a
correspondence?

1249
01:02:39,740 --> 01:02:41,440
Probably they were.

1250
01:02:41,440 --> 01:02:44,250
I have no idea exactly.

1251
01:02:44,250 --> 01:02:46,760
What were they saying?

1252
01:02:46,760 --> 01:02:49,360
Where were they in concert
with one another?

1253
01:02:49,360 --> 01:02:50,640
Did they have disagreements?

1254
01:02:50,640 --> 01:02:55,860
I don't know, but he's an
example of this group of 21

1255
01:02:55,860 --> 01:02:58,090
that we don't know much
about that would be

1256
01:02:58,090 --> 01:02:59,510
interesting to know.

1257
01:02:59,510 --> 01:03:01,310
Where did that support come
from because they were

1258
01:03:01,310 --> 01:03:04,640
critical in supporting
the Institute.

1259
01:03:04,640 --> 01:03:08,470
So another guy who was involved
in that group is a

1260
01:03:08,470 --> 01:03:10,770
guy named Jacob Bigelow.

1261
01:03:10,770 --> 01:03:13,020
And he's the fellow who writes--
he's a Harvard

1262
01:03:13,020 --> 01:03:16,750
faculty member, isn't
he, for a while?

1263
01:03:16,750 --> 01:03:18,900
Interesting how many
Harvard people are

1264
01:03:18,900 --> 01:03:21,650
involved in this place.

1265
01:03:21,650 --> 01:03:24,460
Almost all the early faculty
are Harvard graduates,

1266
01:03:24,460 --> 01:03:26,416
believe it or not.

1267
01:03:26,416 --> 01:03:28,900
The early physicists are
Harvard graduates.

1268
01:03:28,900 --> 01:03:30,910
The chemists are Harvard
graduates.

1269
01:03:30,910 --> 01:03:33,560
Where else are they going
to get their staff?

1270
01:03:33,560 --> 01:03:36,250
There are some people that are
coming out of industry.

1271
01:03:36,250 --> 01:03:38,925
But the architecture department
here is founded by

1272
01:03:38,925 --> 01:03:41,200
a Harvard graduate,
a guy named Ware.

1273
01:03:41,200 --> 01:03:42,560
You'll read about
it next week.

1274
01:03:42,560 --> 01:03:45,930
But it's interesting that that
connection, there's this

1275
01:03:45,930 --> 01:03:49,330
tension and yet, connection at
the same time between these

1276
01:03:49,330 --> 01:03:53,220
two institutions that one tries
to take over the other

1277
01:03:53,220 --> 01:03:53,820
at least, what?

1278
01:03:53,820 --> 01:03:59,390
Five or six times during the
19th, early 20th centuries.

1279
01:03:59,390 --> 01:04:03,200
There's this very interesting
connection between those two

1280
01:04:03,200 --> 01:04:06,930
institutions that still
exists in many ways.

1281
01:04:06,930 --> 01:04:12,570
But it's this ongoing process
and the connections of Harvard

1282
01:04:12,570 --> 01:04:16,070
people joining MIT, being a part
of this whole process.

1283
01:04:16,070 --> 01:04:20,920
Bigelow being a Harvard person
who supports the

1284
01:04:20,920 --> 01:04:23,000
establishment of MIT.

1285
01:04:23,000 --> 01:04:25,270
Because they see a need.

1286
01:04:25,270 --> 01:04:30,260
Harvard has, supposedly,
an engineering program.

1287
01:04:30,260 --> 01:04:33,900
The Lawrence School was funded
by a textile magnate here,

1288
01:04:33,900 --> 01:04:39,250
local merchant who owned a lot
of textile mills in the area.

1289
01:04:39,250 --> 01:04:40,190
He gave Harvard--

1290
01:04:40,190 --> 01:04:44,110
I don't know, quite a big bundle
of money to try to

1291
01:04:44,110 --> 01:04:48,240
introduce an engineering
curriculum at Harvard.

1292
01:04:48,240 --> 01:04:51,260
And it never quite took off.

1293
01:04:51,260 --> 01:04:53,420
It was used for a lot of
different purposes, but it

1294
01:04:53,420 --> 01:04:56,040
never succeeded really,
in doing what Rogers

1295
01:04:56,040 --> 01:04:56,930
was doing down here.

1296
01:04:56,930 --> 01:04:59,780
And I think that's one of the
reasons why a lot of these

1297
01:04:59,780 --> 01:05:02,600
Harvard folks who had interests
in the practical

1298
01:05:02,600 --> 01:05:06,710
world, if you want to call it
that, gravitated toward MIT

1299
01:05:06,710 --> 01:05:08,412
when it was founded.

1300
01:05:08,412 --> 01:05:12,790
It's an interesting development
there, too.

1301
01:05:12,790 --> 01:05:14,670
Well, look, I'm talking.

1302
01:05:17,170 --> 01:05:19,440
Somebody's asking questions,
but I end up

1303
01:05:19,440 --> 01:05:20,530
talking about them.

1304
01:05:20,530 --> 01:05:23,650
So that's not a discussion.

1305
01:05:23,650 --> 01:05:28,410
That's a monologue.

1306
01:05:28,410 --> 01:05:31,030
I think from day one, there
was a research component

1307
01:05:31,030 --> 01:05:33,280
introduced into the
curriculum at MIT.

1308
01:05:33,280 --> 01:05:34,530
And that was through
laboratories.

1309
01:05:37,510 --> 01:05:41,370
In the days prior to
MIT's existence,

1310
01:05:41,370 --> 01:05:42,950
laboratories existed.

1311
01:05:42,950 --> 01:05:44,710
But they were primarily to--

1312
01:05:44,710 --> 01:05:47,040
you would hold demonstrations.

1313
01:05:47,040 --> 01:05:49,570
You would do chemical
experiments in front of the

1314
01:05:49,570 --> 01:05:52,680
students, but the students
were watching.

1315
01:05:52,680 --> 01:05:55,490
They weren't at the Bunsen
burner doing things, or

1316
01:05:55,490 --> 01:05:56,880
anything like that.

1317
01:05:56,880 --> 01:06:00,140
And with MIT, that changes.

1318
01:06:00,140 --> 01:06:01,440
One of Rogers'--

1319
01:06:01,440 --> 01:06:04,430
I think it's an innovation, is
to get students in the lab

1320
01:06:04,430 --> 01:06:07,060
doing things, doing research.

1321
01:06:07,060 --> 01:06:10,300
There's a fellow, trying
to remember his name.

1322
01:06:10,300 --> 01:06:13,250
He was educated here at MIT
as an undergraduate as a

1323
01:06:13,250 --> 01:06:17,540
physicist, who goes on to
found the electrical

1324
01:06:17,540 --> 01:06:19,470
engineering department at MIT.

1325
01:06:19,470 --> 01:06:21,880
Becomes a faculty member
after he graduates and

1326
01:06:21,880 --> 01:06:23,710
does graduate work.

1327
01:06:23,710 --> 01:06:25,340
I'm not sure if he does
it here or not.

1328
01:06:25,340 --> 01:06:26,060
Probably not.

1329
01:06:26,060 --> 01:06:28,710
Probably went to Germany,
or somewhere like that.

1330
01:06:28,710 --> 01:06:32,870
He founds the electrical
engineering department.

1331
01:06:32,870 --> 01:06:35,950
But it was all about his
writing a paper as an

1332
01:06:35,950 --> 01:06:38,790
undergraduate student in a
physics laboratory that he got

1333
01:06:38,790 --> 01:06:43,040
published that sent him on his
way toward this interesting

1334
01:06:43,040 --> 01:06:45,860
career as an academic
and as a researcher.

1335
01:06:45,860 --> 01:06:49,850
But the research orientation
of MIT has existed--

1336
01:06:49,850 --> 01:06:52,640
well, almost from day one.

1337
01:06:52,640 --> 01:06:53,910
That's interesting.

1338
01:06:53,910 --> 01:06:57,470
DAVID MINDELL: The idea of MIT
as a research institution

1339
01:06:57,470 --> 01:07:01,055
where the professors are doing
primarily research and then

1340
01:07:01,055 --> 01:07:03,720
the students sort of come
along and participate is

1341
01:07:03,720 --> 01:07:05,860
later, and not really until
the 20th century

1342
01:07:05,860 --> 01:07:07,380
does that get going.

1343
01:07:07,380 --> 01:07:10,310
I mean, students are always
working in the laboratories

1344
01:07:10,310 --> 01:07:11,560
for their own education.

1345
01:07:11,560 --> 01:07:14,540
But the fact that the professors
are leading these

1346
01:07:14,540 --> 01:07:16,610
big research programs,
that's not so much

1347
01:07:16,610 --> 01:07:17,290
there at the beginning.

1348
01:07:17,290 --> 01:07:19,430
PROFESSOR: OK, yeah.

1349
01:07:19,430 --> 01:07:20,280
DAVID MINDELL: There's
a distinction there.

1350
01:07:20,280 --> 01:07:21,520
PROFESSOR: You need to make
a distinction there.

1351
01:07:21,520 --> 01:07:23,490
Yeah, OK.

1352
01:07:23,490 --> 01:07:26,360
But the guy's name I'm
thinking of is Cross,

1353
01:07:26,360 --> 01:07:31,110
C-R-O-S-S. And he actually did
research in an undergraduate

1354
01:07:31,110 --> 01:07:33,350
lab and resulted in the
publication of a paper.

1355
01:07:33,350 --> 01:07:34,650
That's research at one level.

1356
01:07:34,650 --> 01:07:36,600
But you're talking about
research, what?

1357
01:07:36,600 --> 01:07:38,190
Funded by the Air Force?

1358
01:07:38,190 --> 01:07:41,310
DAVID MINDELL: Or even by
foundations and things.

1359
01:07:41,310 --> 01:07:44,220
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

1360
01:07:44,220 --> 01:07:45,110
Well, that's true.

1361
01:07:45,110 --> 01:07:48,140
DAVID MINDELL: If you look
today, anybody know how much

1362
01:07:48,140 --> 01:07:52,930
of MIT's budget is undergraduate
tuition?

1363
01:07:52,930 --> 01:07:55,740
What percentage?

1364
01:07:55,740 --> 01:07:57,450
PROFESSOR: I have no idea.

1365
01:07:57,450 --> 01:08:00,562
DAVID MINDELL: Anybody
want to guess?

1366
01:08:00,562 --> 01:08:01,550
AUDIENCE: 20.

1367
01:08:01,550 --> 01:08:02,800
DAVID MINDELL: 20%?

1368
01:08:04,600 --> 01:08:05,088
AUDIENCE: 5%.

1369
01:08:05,088 --> 01:08:05,700
DAVID MINDELL: 5%?

1370
01:08:05,700 --> 01:08:08,410
AUDIENCE: Are we talking about
sources of money or what we

1371
01:08:08,410 --> 01:08:09,290
spend on it?

1372
01:08:09,290 --> 01:08:13,020
DAVID MINDELL: How much of
MIT's total budget--

1373
01:08:13,020 --> 01:08:17,270
if you add up the tuition that
each of you pay, forget about

1374
01:08:17,270 --> 01:08:18,689
financial aid for the moment.

1375
01:08:18,689 --> 01:08:21,960
Multiply it by the number of
undergraduates and put that

1376
01:08:21,960 --> 01:08:25,854
over the total budget of the
place, what's the proportion?

1377
01:08:25,854 --> 01:08:26,960
AUDIENCE: It's like 5%.

1378
01:08:26,960 --> 01:08:28,250
DAVID MINDELL: It's
like 5% or 10%.

1379
01:08:28,250 --> 01:08:29,500
It's pretty small.

1380
01:08:31,609 --> 01:08:34,270
And compare that to, like a
Williams College, where it's

1381
01:08:34,270 --> 01:08:35,920
close to 100%.

1382
01:08:35,920 --> 01:08:38,430
It's a very different place.

1383
01:08:38,430 --> 01:08:43,250
So that wasn't so much
true early on.

1384
01:08:43,250 --> 01:08:47,100
And even then, the tuition pays
a pretty small amount of

1385
01:08:47,100 --> 01:08:50,029
what it actually cost to educate
an undergraduate.

1386
01:08:50,029 --> 01:08:54,170
So that gives you some sense
of the orientation of the

1387
01:08:54,170 --> 01:08:57,370
place, where you have hundreds
of millions of dollars coming

1388
01:08:57,370 --> 01:09:00,180
from federal and other kinds of

1389
01:09:00,180 --> 01:09:01,740
sources to support research.

1390
01:09:01,740 --> 01:09:03,640
And students pay tuition, too.

1391
01:09:03,640 --> 01:09:05,270
And they're a big part of it.

1392
01:09:05,270 --> 01:09:09,090
And MIT does consider itself
educational in a big way.

1393
01:09:09,090 --> 01:09:12,620
But the research is just huge.

1394
01:09:12,620 --> 01:09:16,109
The model that's emerged, and it
really, in a way, took 100

1395
01:09:16,109 --> 01:09:20,640
of the 150 years, is
research-based education.

1396
01:09:20,640 --> 01:09:23,260
Which is a little different from
the early model of kind

1397
01:09:23,260 --> 01:09:26,590
of laboratory-based education.

1398
01:09:26,590 --> 01:09:30,050
So we'll see that over the
course of the next weeks as we

1399
01:09:30,050 --> 01:09:36,240
read about it that, you don't
have MIT professors winning

1400
01:09:36,240 --> 01:09:39,890
Nobel Prizes during
the 19th century.

1401
01:09:39,890 --> 01:09:41,399
If people want to get a PhD--

1402
01:09:41,399 --> 01:09:43,380
we mentioned this I
think last time--

1403
01:09:43,380 --> 01:09:46,550
in any of the sciences, they're
going to Germany.

1404
01:09:46,550 --> 01:09:48,939
Maybe to England, but
particularly to Germany to get

1405
01:09:48,939 --> 01:09:52,330
it well into the 20th century.

1406
01:09:52,330 --> 01:09:56,840
And the whole idea of graduate
education really comes in

1407
01:09:56,840 --> 01:10:00,170
around the turn of
the 20th century.

1408
01:10:00,170 --> 01:10:02,000
So in that sense,
it's different

1409
01:10:02,000 --> 01:10:03,810
from what it is today.

1410
01:10:03,810 --> 01:10:06,890
It's more like a kind of
undergraduate teaching--

1411
01:10:06,890 --> 01:10:08,010
maybe like Olin College.

1412
01:10:08,010 --> 01:10:09,435
Anybody ever heard of
Olin College out

1413
01:10:09,435 --> 01:10:10,600
in the suburbs here?

1414
01:10:10,600 --> 01:10:13,280
That probably is more like
what early MIT was

1415
01:10:13,280 --> 01:10:16,280
like than MIT today.

1416
01:10:16,280 --> 01:10:18,670
PROFESSOR: Interesting.

1417
01:10:18,670 --> 01:10:20,580
And that all, in many
ways, was modeled

1418
01:10:20,580 --> 01:10:21,780
after MIT, wasn't it?

1419
01:10:21,780 --> 01:10:24,410
There were a number of
MIT consultants.

1420
01:10:24,410 --> 01:10:26,640
It was Woodie Flowers,
and people like that.

1421
01:10:26,640 --> 01:10:28,850
DAVID MINDELL: I think Olin is
modeled after a lot of things

1422
01:10:28,850 --> 01:10:30,990
that are very hard to do at MIT,
which is why they were

1423
01:10:30,990 --> 01:10:31,590
able to do them.

1424
01:10:31,590 --> 01:10:35,990
PROFESSOR: Maybe that was it,
it was the wish list.

1425
01:10:35,990 --> 01:10:36,800
Well, that's interesting.

1426
01:10:36,800 --> 01:10:41,910
So from a corporate, government
research sort of

1427
01:10:41,910 --> 01:10:45,840
orientation, I guess the
corporate would be coming

1428
01:10:45,840 --> 01:10:49,680
first around World War I
thereabouts, under Maclaurin.

1429
01:10:49,680 --> 01:10:55,550
There was a president here named
Maclaurin who moved MIT

1430
01:10:55,550 --> 01:11:00,700
in a direction, I think, toward
applied research.

1431
01:11:00,700 --> 01:11:03,690
Was it called the technology
plan or something like that?

1432
01:11:03,690 --> 01:11:06,990
And we'll see more
of that later on.

1433
01:11:06,990 --> 01:11:09,020
Yeah, that's different than
what I'm talking about.

1434
01:11:09,020 --> 01:11:12,220
But the idea of getting students
in laboratories, and

1435
01:11:12,220 --> 01:11:15,680
having them literally use the
equipment, that's a new ball

1436
01:11:15,680 --> 01:11:16,480
game there.

1437
01:11:16,480 --> 01:11:17,860
Even that was novel.

1438
01:11:17,860 --> 01:11:19,070
DAVID MINDELL: One example there
that's worth looking

1439
01:11:19,070 --> 01:11:23,580
into is Alexander Graham Bell,
who's teaching here on campus.

1440
01:11:23,580 --> 01:11:26,050
Anybody know where he physically
actually invented

1441
01:11:26,050 --> 01:11:28,560
the telephone?

1442
01:11:28,560 --> 01:11:30,420
AUDIENCE: Wasn't it over
on Main Street?

1443
01:11:30,420 --> 01:11:32,090
DAVID MINDELL: Yeah, it was
downtown in Boston over

1444
01:11:32,090 --> 01:11:35,410
where-- basically where
Government Center is now.

1445
01:11:35,410 --> 01:11:37,510
There's a little teeny
plaque right there.

1446
01:11:37,510 --> 01:11:39,000
You can almost not notice it.

1447
01:11:39,000 --> 01:11:40,950
It says, this is
the place where

1448
01:11:40,950 --> 01:11:42,170
famous, "Come here, Watson.

1449
01:11:42,170 --> 01:11:44,860
I need you now," was.

1450
01:11:44,860 --> 01:11:48,030
But he didn't do that as
part of a lab at MIT.

1451
01:11:48,030 --> 01:11:49,970
Today you would think, of
course, if there was an

1452
01:11:49,970 --> 01:11:53,090
instructor here who was doing
research into telephony, he'd

1453
01:11:53,090 --> 01:11:55,690
be doing it on campus in a lab
with graduate students, and so

1454
01:11:55,690 --> 01:11:56,460
on and so forth.

1455
01:11:56,460 --> 01:11:58,460
That's not how it worked then.

1456
01:11:58,460 --> 01:12:00,590
He was doing it in his
own laboratory.

1457
01:12:00,590 --> 01:12:02,440
PROFESSOR: There's another
plaque over on Main Street.

1458
01:12:02,440 --> 01:12:03,450
Who mentioned Main Street?

1459
01:12:03,450 --> 01:12:05,180
Did you, Eric?

1460
01:12:05,180 --> 01:12:06,945
Isn't there a plaque on
Main Street that--

1461
01:12:06,945 --> 01:12:07,240
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].

1462
01:12:07,240 --> 01:12:07,620
PROFESSOR: Pardon?

1463
01:12:07,620 --> 01:12:08,871
AUDIENCE: Is that the
Polaroid one?

1464
01:12:08,871 --> 01:12:10,610
PROFESSOR: Yeah, it's
a Polaroid building.

1465
01:12:10,610 --> 01:12:13,720
But I think it's a reference
to Alexander Graham Bell.

1466
01:12:13,720 --> 01:12:15,280
DAVID MINDELL: Maybe the first
exchange, which was when he

1467
01:12:15,280 --> 01:12:16,030
first got it going.

1468
01:12:16,030 --> 01:12:16,970
PROFESSOR: Yeah, it could be.

1469
01:12:16,970 --> 01:12:17,780
I've forgotten what it is.

1470
01:12:17,780 --> 01:12:20,430
But I remember seeing it
as I was walking by.

1471
01:12:20,430 --> 01:12:21,530
AUDIENCE: He was an
instructor here.

1472
01:12:21,530 --> 01:12:23,410
He was teaching.

1473
01:12:23,410 --> 01:12:25,350
I'm not sure if he was actually
teaching at the

1474
01:12:25,350 --> 01:12:26,940
moment he made that invention.

1475
01:12:26,940 --> 01:12:29,050
I don't know how they
overlap together.

1476
01:12:29,050 --> 01:12:30,560
PROFESSOR: Interesting.

1477
01:12:30,560 --> 01:12:35,580
I have not encountered
that sort of

1478
01:12:35,580 --> 01:12:38,880
thought coming from him.

1479
01:12:38,880 --> 01:12:41,120
But I have to admit,
I have not read--

1480
01:12:41,120 --> 01:12:44,170
I have not been in the archives
to read everything

1481
01:12:44,170 --> 01:12:45,780
that he wrote at the time.

1482
01:12:45,780 --> 01:12:50,510
I suspect there are some
references there.

1483
01:12:50,510 --> 01:12:54,110
What I see, from the literature
I've been reading,

1484
01:12:54,110 --> 01:12:57,330
is primarily a concern about
just institution building.

1485
01:12:57,330 --> 01:13:00,370
I mean, he had a lot on his
plate just trying to get this

1486
01:13:00,370 --> 01:13:02,110
place started.

1487
01:13:02,110 --> 01:13:07,490
He was very sympathetic to
reform groups in Boston, the

1488
01:13:07,490 --> 01:13:10,890
abolitionist movement
being one of them.

1489
01:13:10,890 --> 01:13:13,620
There were a bunch of reform
movements that were underway

1490
01:13:13,620 --> 01:13:16,770
during the 1850s, abolitionism
being the most famous

1491
01:13:16,770 --> 01:13:18,420
probably, and the most
controversial.

1492
01:13:18,420 --> 01:13:23,160
But temperance against
drinking.

1493
01:13:23,160 --> 01:13:25,650
Wouldn't that be something if
William Barton Rogers was a

1494
01:13:25,650 --> 01:13:26,900
temperance advocate?

1495
01:13:29,640 --> 01:13:32,900
That could totally screw up
the 150th anniversary.

1496
01:13:32,900 --> 01:13:33,980
DAVID MINDELL: Or the entire--

1497
01:13:33,980 --> 01:13:36,160
PROFESSOR: I say that
as a house master.

1498
01:13:36,160 --> 01:13:37,880
DAVID MINDELL: Only a house
master would raise that issue.

1499
01:13:37,880 --> 01:13:41,380
PROFESSOR: Only a house master
could resonate to that.

1500
01:13:41,380 --> 01:13:42,240
I don't know.

1501
01:13:42,240 --> 01:13:48,560
But he was surely influenced
by these reform groups.

1502
01:13:48,560 --> 01:13:51,660
But his reform was
educational, no

1503
01:13:51,660 --> 01:13:54,520
question about it.

1504
01:13:54,520 --> 01:13:59,520
DAVID MINDELL: I think if you
look at how people like

1505
01:13:59,520 --> 01:14:02,820
Nathaniel Hawthorne responded
to the Civil War, there was

1506
01:14:02,820 --> 01:14:04,610
certainly a strain there.

1507
01:14:04,610 --> 01:14:06,900
He was a slightly earlier--

1508
01:14:06,900 --> 01:14:08,150
anybody ever heard of the
transcendentalists?

1509
01:14:11,170 --> 01:14:12,565
Obviously, Thoreau
and Emerson.

1510
01:14:12,565 --> 01:14:16,900
But then there were all these
other- Nathaniel Hawthorne,

1511
01:14:16,900 --> 01:14:20,220
Bronson Alcott, who was the
father of Louisa May Alcott,

1512
01:14:20,220 --> 01:14:24,770
who wrote Little Women, was a
very big educational reformer.

1513
01:14:24,770 --> 01:14:28,090
This was sort of more
in the 1830s, 1840s.

1514
01:14:28,090 --> 01:14:30,420
You read what these people
were writing.

1515
01:14:30,420 --> 01:14:33,840
They were basically like '60s
counterculture hippies of the

1516
01:14:33,840 --> 01:14:35,620
day in a certain way.

1517
01:14:35,620 --> 01:14:37,020
They were pretty radical.

1518
01:14:37,020 --> 01:14:39,000
There was free love movements
among them.

1519
01:14:39,000 --> 01:14:42,230
They were starting utopian
communities, all kinds of

1520
01:14:42,230 --> 01:14:44,710
wacky things there.

1521
01:14:44,710 --> 01:14:46,370
I don't think Rogers
really fell into

1522
01:14:46,370 --> 01:14:49,050
that category so much.

1523
01:14:49,050 --> 01:14:52,370
So people like Hawthorne and
Herman Melville later,

1524
01:14:52,370 --> 01:14:54,950
responded to the Civil War with
the question you asked

1525
01:14:54,950 --> 01:14:58,240
about, gee, is this just too
much industrialization?

1526
01:14:58,240 --> 01:14:59,770
Just leads to war.

1527
01:14:59,770 --> 01:15:02,490
Too much machinery, and it's all
dehumanizing and destroys

1528
01:15:02,490 --> 01:15:03,020
the environment.

1529
01:15:03,020 --> 01:15:05,910
There certainly were some
questions raised about that.

1530
01:15:05,910 --> 01:15:09,550
But I think William Barton
Rogers would say, not enough

1531
01:15:09,550 --> 01:15:12,600
rationality, not enough
science leads

1532
01:15:12,600 --> 01:15:13,710
people to act crazy.

1533
01:15:13,710 --> 01:15:18,660
We need better, more rational
management in the same way

1534
01:15:18,660 --> 01:15:22,400
that Roe was talking
about before.

1535
01:15:22,400 --> 01:15:24,890
PROFESSOR: That was his focus,
as best I can tell.

1536
01:15:24,890 --> 01:15:29,450
After he died, his wife edited
what she considered to be his

1537
01:15:29,450 --> 01:15:31,360
most important correspondence.

1538
01:15:31,360 --> 01:15:34,790
And that resulted in
a two-volume book.

1539
01:15:34,790 --> 01:15:37,530
Basically, of his letters.

1540
01:15:37,530 --> 01:15:41,220
And I've read a lot of them.

1541
01:15:41,220 --> 01:15:43,100
Can't say I've read every
one of them, but I've

1542
01:15:43,100 --> 01:15:43,910
read a lot of them.

1543
01:15:43,910 --> 01:15:47,770
And I don't remember
encountering the sort of

1544
01:15:47,770 --> 01:15:51,030
reform-oriented movements that
were very, very much in

1545
01:15:51,030 --> 01:15:54,940
evidence around here, other than
his distaste for slavery.

1546
01:15:54,940 --> 01:15:58,110
He clearly was not in
favor of slavery.

1547
01:15:58,110 --> 01:16:00,910
But on the other hand, I don't
think he was out there

1548
01:16:00,910 --> 01:16:03,730
attending anti-slavery rallies
and stuff like that.

1549
01:16:03,730 --> 01:16:06,530
He had his own vision of what
he wanted to do from an

1550
01:16:06,530 --> 01:16:07,750
educational perspective.

1551
01:16:07,750 --> 01:16:10,540
That took a lot of time,
just doing that.

1552
01:16:10,540 --> 01:16:13,580
Thinking about, how do you
form a curriculum?

1553
01:16:13,580 --> 01:16:15,580
Where do you get the money
to start the school?

1554
01:16:15,580 --> 01:16:17,030
How do you get the land?

1555
01:16:17,030 --> 01:16:20,660
Those are pretty daunting
questions when you're starting

1556
01:16:20,660 --> 01:16:23,200
from scratch, which he was.

1557
01:16:23,200 --> 01:16:24,870
He was not a wealthy man.

1558
01:16:24,870 --> 01:16:27,010
The first part of your question
is easy to answer,

1559
01:16:27,010 --> 01:16:30,090
and that is that it happened
fairly often.

1560
01:16:30,090 --> 01:16:33,570
If somebody passed away who
was a famous engineer,

1561
01:16:33,570 --> 01:16:38,420
oftentimes the wife, or a
cousin, or somebody would edit

1562
01:16:38,420 --> 01:16:40,210
the correspondence.

1563
01:16:40,210 --> 01:16:47,190
I think, for example, there's
like a 32-volume set of the

1564
01:16:47,190 --> 01:16:50,190
correspondence of Eleuthere
Irenee du Pont who was the

1565
01:16:50,190 --> 01:16:52,430
founder of the DuPont company.

1566
01:16:52,430 --> 01:16:55,750
Even earlier than Rogers in
the 19th century that was

1567
01:16:55,750 --> 01:17:00,460
edited by a woman who was a
descendant of his, but wasn't

1568
01:17:00,460 --> 01:17:02,090
one of his daughters
or even his wife.

1569
01:17:02,090 --> 01:17:05,690
But waited for probably 50
years before she got

1570
01:17:05,690 --> 01:17:07,350
interested in doing it.

1571
01:17:07,350 --> 01:17:09,780
So it varies about the time.

1572
01:17:09,780 --> 01:17:12,370
It may not happen five years
after a person's life.

1573
01:17:12,370 --> 01:17:14,790
It may happen 50 or 60
years afterwards.

1574
01:17:14,790 --> 01:17:16,970
But that happens.

1575
01:17:16,970 --> 01:17:18,300
You'll see it fairly often,

1576
01:17:18,300 --> 01:17:20,630
especially in the 19th century.

1577
01:17:20,630 --> 01:17:24,330
There are a few businesspeople
that do that.

1578
01:17:24,330 --> 01:17:27,400
The Appleton family here in
Boston are one of the founders

1579
01:17:27,400 --> 01:17:30,150
of the big textile mills
up in Lowell.

1580
01:17:30,150 --> 01:17:33,580
And there were several volumes
edited by their descendants of

1581
01:17:33,580 --> 01:17:35,500
their correspondence.

1582
01:17:35,500 --> 01:17:36,870
What were they trying
to achieve?

1583
01:17:36,870 --> 01:17:43,300
And clearly, that correspondence
is selective.

1584
01:17:43,300 --> 01:17:45,440
You got to ask yourself, well,
were they including every

1585
01:17:45,440 --> 01:17:46,860
letter in there?

1586
01:17:46,860 --> 01:17:49,580
Because most of that
correspondence is about the

1587
01:17:49,580 --> 01:17:50,920
vision they had for
the institution.

1588
01:17:50,920 --> 01:17:54,420
It was very rosy.

1589
01:17:54,420 --> 01:17:59,270
We have an obligation to be
stewards of what we have, and

1590
01:17:59,270 --> 01:18:01,580
we use our money to
promote things.

1591
01:18:01,580 --> 01:18:05,260
Very civic-spirited.

1592
01:18:05,260 --> 01:18:07,610
But on the other hand, there's
not a word in that

1593
01:18:07,610 --> 01:18:10,950
correspondence about the labor
management problems that

1594
01:18:10,950 --> 01:18:13,280
emerged during his lifetime.

1595
01:18:13,280 --> 01:18:15,460
Didn't he write anything
about that?

1596
01:18:15,460 --> 01:18:16,560
If so, where is it?

1597
01:18:16,560 --> 01:18:19,470
What happened to it in
the correspondence?

1598
01:18:19,470 --> 01:18:24,020
So those things have to be
looked at as something that

1599
01:18:24,020 --> 01:18:26,310
has been selective.

1600
01:18:26,310 --> 01:18:29,450
There's a process of
interpretation going on there,

1601
01:18:29,450 --> 01:18:32,270
as there is in all history.

1602
01:18:32,270 --> 01:18:35,250
Even I, when I write a book or
something, and working in

1603
01:18:35,250 --> 01:18:38,590
original archives, you
select facts to

1604
01:18:38,590 --> 01:18:41,710
construct your history.

1605
01:18:41,710 --> 01:18:44,090
And there are things that you
may leave out that David would

1606
01:18:44,090 --> 01:18:48,040
say are very important
that Smith ignored.

1607
01:18:48,040 --> 01:18:51,450
And that's one of the reasons
I became a historian, is I'm

1608
01:18:51,450 --> 01:18:54,340
very interested in how
do these differing

1609
01:18:54,340 --> 01:18:56,450
interpretations of
the past emerge?

1610
01:18:56,450 --> 01:18:58,600
And then, how do you
reconcile them once

1611
01:18:58,600 --> 01:19:00,390
those differences exist?

1612
01:19:00,390 --> 01:19:03,350
Because they keep getting
reconciled, and re-reconciled.

1613
01:19:03,350 --> 01:19:05,220
And it keeps going on.

1614
01:19:05,220 --> 01:19:08,300
DAVID MINDELL: The MIT archives
probably doesn't have

1615
01:19:08,300 --> 01:19:12,130
a collection of people who
thought William Barton Rogers

1616
01:19:12,130 --> 01:19:15,340
was an idiot and it was a
terrible idea to make this

1617
01:19:15,340 --> 01:19:16,970
Institute of Technology.

1618
01:19:16,970 --> 01:19:19,030
Those people may well
have existed.

1619
01:19:19,030 --> 01:19:22,300
And there may even be scattered
around in their

1620
01:19:22,300 --> 01:19:25,580
archives, around the
Massachusetts State Archives

1621
01:19:25,580 --> 01:19:29,530
of the Massachusetts Historical
Society, letters

1622
01:19:29,530 --> 01:19:30,830
that they wrote to
that effect.

1623
01:19:30,830 --> 01:19:32,730
But it's not something
that MIT has gone out

1624
01:19:32,730 --> 01:19:34,900
of its way to collect.

1625
01:19:34,900 --> 01:19:40,100
And so the archival record
tends to reflect--

1626
01:19:40,100 --> 01:19:42,780
well, it reflects the successes
and it also helps

1627
01:19:42,780 --> 01:19:43,720
make the successes.

1628
01:19:43,720 --> 01:19:49,170
So Barton Rogers' wife, by
compiling his letters,

1629
01:19:49,170 --> 01:19:51,830
undoubtedly she thought she was
doing it because he was a

1630
01:19:51,830 --> 01:19:53,710
historically important figure.

1631
01:19:53,710 --> 01:19:56,290
But collecting his letters and
publishing them also helps

1632
01:19:56,290 --> 01:19:59,650
make him into a historically
important figure.

1633
01:19:59,650 --> 01:20:03,620
And that's the kind of stuff
that historians and archivists

1634
01:20:03,620 --> 01:20:06,400
deal with all the time as far
as, what are the biases in

1635
01:20:06,400 --> 01:20:09,390
terms of what gets saved and
what gets thrown out?

1636
01:20:09,390 --> 01:20:11,190
And who's considered
important enough?

1637
01:20:11,190 --> 01:20:12,690
And who's not considered
important?

1638
01:20:16,160 --> 01:20:19,380
PROFESSOR: She wanted to
memorialize him for one thing.

1639
01:20:19,380 --> 01:20:22,400
I mean, that's why those two
volumes were published is as a

1640
01:20:22,400 --> 01:20:26,005
memorial to her husband, to
having done what she felt was

1641
01:20:26,005 --> 01:20:29,140
an important life's work.

1642
01:20:29,140 --> 01:20:32,670
But in the process, there's all
this selectivity that goes

1643
01:20:32,670 --> 01:20:37,820
on that sort of biases
the record.

1644
01:20:37,820 --> 01:20:40,430
So there's a lot of open
ends in all of

1645
01:20:40,430 --> 01:20:42,750
this study of history.

1646
01:20:42,750 --> 01:20:46,350
And especially, history of MIT
because so little has really

1647
01:20:46,350 --> 01:20:48,230
been published about it.

1648
01:20:48,230 --> 01:20:51,940
You were mentioning, Michelle,

1649
01:20:51,940 --> 01:20:54,240
collections of the MIT archives.

1650
01:20:54,240 --> 01:20:57,140
In certain ways, that archive
is one of the best in the

1651
01:20:57,140 --> 01:20:59,400
country for universities,
I think, if you look at

1652
01:20:59,400 --> 01:21:03,050
laboratories, or professors,
of people like that.

1653
01:21:03,050 --> 01:21:04,330
But if you were to ask--

1654
01:21:04,330 --> 01:21:07,540
go to the library and try
to find out much about

1655
01:21:07,540 --> 01:21:12,200
Burton-Conner house, or the
student housing system.

1656
01:21:12,200 --> 01:21:13,860
You don't find much there.

1657
01:21:13,860 --> 01:21:17,330
At least that's what the
boss told me one day.

1658
01:21:17,330 --> 01:21:20,670
That's been an area that wasn't
collected that I'm sure

1659
01:21:20,670 --> 01:21:22,240
is starting to be
collected now.

1660
01:21:22,240 --> 01:21:25,450
But different people have
different priorities.

1661
01:21:25,450 --> 01:21:30,060
And so there are things that
get forgotten or left out.

1662
01:21:30,060 --> 01:21:31,810
You keep adding, trying
to add to.

1663
01:21:31,810 --> 01:21:36,090
So student life is an important
element in all that.

1664
01:21:36,090 --> 01:21:37,320
DAVID MINDELL: Another question
that you all may

1665
01:21:37,320 --> 01:21:40,670
have, especially as we read next
week is, you look at 1865

1666
01:21:40,670 --> 01:21:42,330
when classes begin.

1667
01:21:42,330 --> 01:21:45,490
And suddenly there are people
like you in these rooms.

1668
01:21:45,490 --> 01:21:48,100
And the question is, who
were those people?

1669
01:21:48,100 --> 01:21:51,320
Were they children
of immigrants

1670
01:21:51,320 --> 01:21:52,400
who got a lucky break?

1671
01:21:52,400 --> 01:21:55,670
Were they children of people
in Boston with money who

1672
01:21:55,670 --> 01:21:57,880
decided that Harvard
wasn't for them?

1673
01:21:57,880 --> 01:22:00,710
Were they people who worked in
the Lowell mills who wanted to

1674
01:22:00,710 --> 01:22:03,620
get a more serious education?

1675
01:22:03,620 --> 01:22:07,140
We have very, very poor
documentation on just, who

1676
01:22:07,140 --> 01:22:08,420
were those early students?

1677
01:22:08,420 --> 01:22:10,310
Why did they come to this
place that no one

1678
01:22:10,310 --> 01:22:12,010
had ever heard of?

1679
01:22:12,010 --> 01:22:14,370
Because at the time, it wasn't
considered important.

1680
01:22:14,370 --> 01:22:17,650
They were considered
faces that were--

1681
01:22:17,650 --> 01:22:20,280
they weren't the president
and the benefactors.

1682
01:22:23,460 --> 01:22:25,590
As an historian, one needs
to get very creative

1683
01:22:25,590 --> 01:22:26,200
to think about it.

1684
01:22:26,200 --> 01:22:29,750
Now, some of those people ended
up becoming famous, and

1685
01:22:29,750 --> 01:22:32,060
wealthy, and preserved
their records, and

1686
01:22:32,060 --> 01:22:32,980
then gave them back.

1687
01:22:32,980 --> 01:22:34,960
And over time, you can piece
some of it together.

1688
01:22:34,960 --> 01:22:37,330
But there is no--

1689
01:22:37,330 --> 01:22:40,580
PROFESSOR: Compared with
Harvard, not as expensive?

1690
01:22:40,580 --> 01:22:45,480
But then, I don't know exactly
who paid for, say the use of

1691
01:22:45,480 --> 01:22:46,610
laboratory equipment.

1692
01:22:46,610 --> 01:22:49,220
Because I know the Institute
had a perennial problem in

1693
01:22:49,220 --> 01:22:51,630
trying to keep its laboratories

1694
01:22:51,630 --> 01:22:53,860
sufficiently equipped.

1695
01:22:53,860 --> 01:22:56,490
Now, did students have to pay
extra fees for that sort of--

1696
01:22:56,490 --> 01:22:59,680
if so, that would've
raised the tuition.

1697
01:22:59,680 --> 01:23:01,095
But I'd have to look that up.

1698
01:23:01,095 --> 01:23:01,760
I don't know.

1699
01:23:01,760 --> 01:23:03,170
DAVID MINDELL: I think we'll see
it in the reading in the

1700
01:23:03,170 --> 01:23:03,990
next couple weeks.

1701
01:23:03,990 --> 01:23:05,140
But it was not expensive.

1702
01:23:05,140 --> 01:23:07,950
It was not the way that
undergraduate education is

1703
01:23:07,950 --> 01:23:11,190
today where for a middle class
family it was really like

1704
01:23:11,190 --> 01:23:12,690
almost as expensive
as their house.

1705
01:23:12,690 --> 01:23:16,880
It was much more of a kind
of fee-based thing.

1706
01:23:16,880 --> 01:23:20,500
And I don't think it was
the major barrier.

1707
01:23:20,500 --> 01:23:24,260
It was not for poor people for
sure, but it was not the major

1708
01:23:24,260 --> 01:23:25,740
barrier to people coming.

1709
01:23:25,740 --> 01:23:28,510
Probably harder for people to
take those years away from the

1710
01:23:28,510 --> 01:23:30,360
workforce than it was
to pay the tuition.

1711
01:23:30,360 --> 01:23:34,040
PROFESSOR: And for many years,
I think through the 1870s and

1712
01:23:34,040 --> 01:23:37,060
in to the 1880s, most of the
students at MIT were not

1713
01:23:37,060 --> 01:23:38,020
full-time students.

1714
01:23:38,020 --> 01:23:40,200
They were special students.

1715
01:23:40,200 --> 01:23:43,130
And they were paying much
smaller fees because they were

1716
01:23:43,130 --> 01:23:47,160
basically people who were
working a 10-hour day, or

1717
01:23:47,160 --> 01:23:49,210
whatever it would be,
and then coming to

1718
01:23:49,210 --> 01:23:51,480
school at night primarily.

1719
01:23:51,480 --> 01:23:52,360
DAVID MINDELL: Not
living on campus.

1720
01:23:52,360 --> 01:23:54,110
PROFESSOR: And not living
on campus, yeah.

1721
01:23:54,110 --> 01:23:55,180
I'd have to look.

1722
01:23:55,180 --> 01:23:58,410
I'm not sure about Boston
University.

1723
01:23:58,410 --> 01:24:01,930
I don't think Boston University
was around at that

1724
01:24:01,930 --> 01:24:04,340
time, but I'd have to look.

1725
01:24:04,340 --> 01:24:05,480
I don't know.

1726
01:24:05,480 --> 01:24:06,230
Good question.

1727
01:24:06,230 --> 01:24:09,430
DAVID MINDELL: You'd have
Bowdoin in Maine.

1728
01:24:09,430 --> 01:24:10,260
PROFESSOR: Yeah, there are--

1729
01:24:10,260 --> 01:24:11,840
DAVID MINDELL: Williams
College I think was--

1730
01:24:11,840 --> 01:24:15,000
PROFESSOR: Amherst, Williams.

1731
01:24:15,000 --> 01:24:16,530
DAVID MINDELL: We
mentioned RPI.

1732
01:24:16,530 --> 01:24:18,160
PROFESSOR: Yep.

1733
01:24:18,160 --> 01:24:20,110
DAVID MINDELL: Most of the early
MIT students, there's

1734
01:24:20,110 --> 01:24:22,070
not great documentation
on this.

1735
01:24:22,070 --> 01:24:24,960
Most of them are from Boston
and pretty close by.

1736
01:24:24,960 --> 01:24:26,900
People didn't travel
the way they do

1737
01:24:26,900 --> 01:24:28,860
today to go to college.

1738
01:24:28,860 --> 01:24:29,310
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

1739
01:24:29,310 --> 01:24:32,980
The one piece of information
I know exists is there were

1740
01:24:32,980 --> 01:24:36,200
surveys done of where did
students come from, not so

1741
01:24:36,200 --> 01:24:39,290
much about their socioeconomic
backgrounds.

1742
01:24:39,290 --> 01:24:41,540
And it's interesting to
watch that circle.

1743
01:24:41,540 --> 01:24:45,290
Initially, strictly MIT
is a local school.

1744
01:24:45,290 --> 01:24:48,510
Most of the students that came
to it lived within a 20-mile

1745
01:24:48,510 --> 01:24:51,040
radius of the campus.

1746
01:24:51,040 --> 01:24:55,350
But then you see that
circumference getting larger,

1747
01:24:55,350 --> 01:24:58,820
and larger, and larger over
the first 30 or 40 years.

1748
01:25:01,420 --> 01:25:04,450
By the early 1900s, you have
students coming here from all

1749
01:25:04,450 --> 01:25:06,580
parts of the United States.

1750
01:25:06,580 --> 01:25:11,300
By the 1890s, for example, the
DuPont family were sending

1751
01:25:11,300 --> 01:25:14,305
some of their sons up
here to school.

1752
01:25:14,305 --> 01:25:17,380
The most important being a guy
named Pierre DuPont who became

1753
01:25:17,380 --> 01:25:20,540
not only the head of the DuPont
Company, but the boss

1754
01:25:20,540 --> 01:25:22,350
of General Motors
for many years.

1755
01:25:22,350 --> 01:25:26,190
Really, made General Motors into
the big corporation that

1756
01:25:26,190 --> 01:25:30,320
it is, with the help
of Alfred Sloan.

1757
01:25:30,320 --> 01:25:33,530
I think DuPont may have hired
him, I'm not sure.

1758
01:25:33,530 --> 01:25:35,680
But Sloan was a graduate
of MIT.

1759
01:25:38,550 --> 01:25:40,060
DAVID MINDELL: Why was a
chemical company involved in

1760
01:25:40,060 --> 01:25:40,870
the auto industry?

1761
01:25:40,870 --> 01:25:41,980
That's a question
you could ask.

1762
01:25:41,980 --> 01:25:43,460
PROFESSOR: Oh.

1763
01:25:43,460 --> 01:25:46,690
Why was the chemical company
of DuPont involved in the

1764
01:25:46,690 --> 01:25:48,100
automobile industry?

1765
01:25:48,100 --> 01:25:50,046
Good question.

1766
01:25:50,046 --> 01:25:51,540
AUDIENCE: Deals?

1767
01:25:51,540 --> 01:25:54,440
Deals in oil--

1768
01:25:54,440 --> 01:25:55,690
PROFESSOR: Not really, no.

1769
01:25:58,630 --> 01:26:01,340
Think of that.

1770
01:26:01,340 --> 01:26:04,080
Who's the chemical engineer
in the class?

1771
01:26:04,080 --> 01:26:07,750
Any chemical engineers,
chemists?

1772
01:26:07,750 --> 01:26:10,078
What do you guess?

1773
01:26:10,078 --> 01:26:10,910
AUDIENCE: I don't know.

1774
01:26:10,910 --> 01:26:12,850
DAVID MINDELL: What part of
a car was made by DuPont?

1775
01:26:12,850 --> 01:26:14,842
That's another way to ask it.

1776
01:26:14,842 --> 01:26:15,330
AUDIENCE: Paint.

1777
01:26:15,330 --> 01:26:16,310
PROFESSOR: Paint, yeah.

1778
01:26:16,310 --> 01:26:18,160
It's the paint.

1779
01:26:18,160 --> 01:26:21,160
GM bought all their
paint from DuPont.

1780
01:26:21,160 --> 01:26:24,430
And then, I think got in trouble
economically, and

1781
01:26:24,430 --> 01:26:29,010
DuPont took over the company,
or a large chunk of the

1782
01:26:29,010 --> 01:26:32,300
company in order to resuscitate
it and get their

1783
01:26:32,300 --> 01:26:34,090
investment back out of it.

1784
01:26:34,090 --> 01:26:37,010
That's when Pierre went in
there and basically took

1785
01:26:37,010 --> 01:26:37,660
things over.

1786
01:26:37,660 --> 01:26:40,204
Yeah, it's all about
paint for DuPont.

1787
01:26:40,204 --> 01:26:43,930
AUDIENCE: I feel like that's a
non-essential part of a car.

1788
01:26:43,930 --> 01:26:46,050
PROFESSOR: But it's
a big part.

1789
01:26:46,050 --> 01:26:55,295
By the 1910s, it's a big
business and a big account

1790
01:26:55,295 --> 01:26:56,600
that you would have.

1791
01:26:56,600 --> 01:26:58,750
DAVID MINDELL: It's off-track
a little bit, but Henry Ford

1792
01:26:58,750 --> 01:27:01,950
was famous for saying you can
have a Model T In any color as

1793
01:27:01,950 --> 01:27:03,450
long as it's black.

1794
01:27:03,450 --> 01:27:05,190
And one of the ways that
General Motors then

1795
01:27:05,190 --> 01:27:08,195
differentiated itself was both
an annual model change where

1796
01:27:08,195 --> 01:27:10,350
it wasn't so standardized and
you could get cars in

1797
01:27:10,350 --> 01:27:12,130
different colors.

1798
01:27:12,130 --> 01:27:15,766
PROFESSOR: And Sloan was right
in the middle of all that.

1799
01:27:15,766 --> 01:27:18,400
Absolutely.

1800
01:27:18,400 --> 01:27:20,400
Any other questions?

1801
01:27:20,400 --> 01:27:24,650
People were very tight with
their pocketbooks.

1802
01:27:24,650 --> 01:27:27,810
You'll see next week in the
essay that I've written, I

1803
01:27:27,810 --> 01:27:30,530
make an argument in there that
government support was very

1804
01:27:30,530 --> 01:27:35,200
important because once potential
private donors saw

1805
01:27:35,200 --> 01:27:38,260
that the state of Massachusetts
was investing in

1806
01:27:38,260 --> 01:27:45,250
MIT with land and money, that
gave private donors a signal

1807
01:27:45,250 --> 01:27:47,670
that this institution
had a future.

1808
01:27:47,670 --> 01:27:51,400
That they took more confidence
in the possibility of this

1809
01:27:51,400 --> 01:27:54,780
actually taking root
and going forward.

1810
01:27:54,780 --> 01:27:58,750
So the guy that wrote that
letter was the doctor.

1811
01:27:58,750 --> 01:28:01,760
I think he gave $40,000
in 1864.

1812
01:28:01,760 --> 01:28:03,580
That was a huge amount
of money.

1813
01:28:03,580 --> 01:28:07,490
And that was partly because--

1814
01:28:07,490 --> 01:28:10,110
he gave the money because he saw
the state of Massachusetts

1815
01:28:10,110 --> 01:28:12,840
investing in MIT and
thought, OK, they

1816
01:28:12,840 --> 01:28:14,160
got a chance to survive.

1817
01:28:14,160 --> 01:28:17,940
I will help them out.

1818
01:28:17,940 --> 01:28:19,390
So that's very important.

1819
01:28:19,390 --> 01:28:21,250
DAVID MINDELL: There's a case to
be made, it came up when we

1820
01:28:21,250 --> 01:28:23,280
were making that video.

1821
01:28:23,280 --> 01:28:26,040
That even though the war was
so disruptive to Rogers'

1822
01:28:26,040 --> 01:28:29,410
plans, there's a case to be made
that having four years

1823
01:28:29,410 --> 01:28:33,410
kind of hiatus before really
having to get the place going

1824
01:28:33,410 --> 01:28:36,950
gave him the time and the
background to get it a little

1825
01:28:36,950 --> 01:28:39,580
bit more established
financially and

1826
01:28:39,580 --> 01:28:41,510
institutionally before
teaching classes.

1827
01:28:41,510 --> 01:28:43,810
Where you'd think, as soon as
you get the charter signed,

1828
01:28:43,810 --> 01:28:45,710
you admit students
the next fall.

1829
01:28:45,710 --> 01:28:48,360
Well, then you're both running
the place and planning it at

1830
01:28:48,360 --> 01:28:51,900
the same time, and this
way he was able to.

1831
01:28:51,900 --> 01:28:54,550
And then, at some point-- and
it would be interesting to

1832
01:28:54,550 --> 01:28:56,560
look at when this point is--

1833
01:28:56,560 --> 01:28:59,310
it became clear the war was
going to be won at some point

1834
01:28:59,310 --> 01:29:00,100
by the North.

1835
01:29:00,100 --> 01:29:02,310
And some people probably
believed

1836
01:29:02,310 --> 01:29:03,520
that from the beginning.

1837
01:29:03,520 --> 01:29:07,710
And then there was a big
reconstruction job to be done.

1838
01:29:07,710 --> 01:29:10,060
And there was at least some
kind of sense of optimism.

1839
01:29:10,060 --> 01:29:14,480
And that's probably when some of
the momentum around 1860--

1840
01:29:14,480 --> 01:29:18,550
I'm sure the second half of
1863, 1864 after Gettysburg,

1841
01:29:18,550 --> 01:29:23,720
it was not a done deal but
the tide had turned.

1842
01:29:23,720 --> 01:29:26,730
And so there was people
looking forward

1843
01:29:26,730 --> 01:29:28,390
and thinking about--

1844
01:29:28,390 --> 01:29:30,320
there's a lot of building
to be done after a war.

1845
01:29:32,940 --> 01:29:36,160
If you're an Iraqi businessman
in 2002, you'd be investing in

1846
01:29:36,160 --> 01:29:38,620
construction equipment,
because that's

1847
01:29:38,620 --> 01:29:41,540
what you got to do.

1848
01:29:41,540 --> 01:29:45,360
PROFESSOR: Well, the Morrill
Land-Grant Act, which is the

1849
01:29:45,360 --> 01:29:48,650
background to all of these state
universities basically,

1850
01:29:48,650 --> 01:29:52,510
that wasn't passed until
the summer of 1862.

1851
01:29:52,510 --> 01:29:57,350
So Rogers, really wouldn't have
had anything to build on.

1852
01:29:57,350 --> 01:30:00,530
If that act hadn't been
past, he would

1853
01:30:00,530 --> 01:30:01,950
have been in big trouble.

1854
01:30:01,950 --> 01:30:05,710
Because no one was ponying up
with free land over in Back

1855
01:30:05,710 --> 01:30:09,520
Bay other than the state of
Massachusetts, who he had to

1856
01:30:09,520 --> 01:30:12,060
do a lot of lobbying with.

1857
01:30:12,060 --> 01:30:14,390
One of the things that
suited him well--

1858
01:30:14,390 --> 01:30:17,680
I should mention this-- was
that Rogers was a very

1859
01:30:17,680 --> 01:30:22,090
effective small "p" politician,
in the sense that

1860
01:30:22,090 --> 01:30:24,620
he knew how to lobby people.

1861
01:30:24,620 --> 01:30:25,610
And how did he learn that?

1862
01:30:25,610 --> 01:30:27,870
He learned it through a very
bitter experience that he had

1863
01:30:27,870 --> 01:30:30,650
had in Virginia as the head of
the state survey in which he

1864
01:30:30,650 --> 01:30:33,980
learned how mean-spirited
politics could be.

1865
01:30:33,980 --> 01:30:38,350
And he really became very astute
at learning how to

1866
01:30:38,350 --> 01:30:42,320
approach legislators, people
like that, to get their

1867
01:30:42,320 --> 01:30:47,680
support for voting funds for
this new institution that he

1868
01:30:47,680 --> 01:30:48,800
was trying to establish.

1869
01:30:48,800 --> 01:30:51,430
So even though he had a bad
experience in Virginia with

1870
01:30:51,430 --> 01:30:54,170
the geological survey, it served
him well in the long

1871
01:30:54,170 --> 01:30:58,400
run in learning how to negotiate
the building of a

1872
01:30:58,400 --> 01:31:01,700
new educational institute
here in Boston.

1873
01:31:01,700 --> 01:31:07,710
He was a smart man, no
doubt about that.

1874
01:31:07,710 --> 01:31:10,460
It's hard to get a read on what
kind of person was he.

1875
01:31:10,460 --> 01:31:13,600
I mean, we know about his
intellectual qualities.

1876
01:31:13,600 --> 01:31:16,720
Obviously, very smart,
very bright, capable.

1877
01:31:16,720 --> 01:31:20,435
But did people call
him William?

1878
01:31:20,435 --> 01:31:23,280
Did they call him Billy?

1879
01:31:23,280 --> 01:31:24,825
They call him Will?

1880
01:31:24,825 --> 01:31:27,220
Did he have a nickname?

1881
01:31:27,220 --> 01:31:29,030
You see his pictures.

1882
01:31:29,030 --> 01:31:31,580
If you were to judge from his
pictures, you always called

1883
01:31:31,580 --> 01:31:37,400
him William, or Mr. Rogers,
or something like that.

1884
01:31:37,400 --> 01:31:38,650
Yeah, Mr. Rogers.

1885
01:31:40,920 --> 01:31:42,880
A double entendre there.

1886
01:31:42,880 --> 01:31:48,660
But he's a hard person
to try to get a sense

1887
01:31:48,660 --> 01:31:49,930
of, what was he like?

1888
01:31:49,930 --> 01:31:52,750
Clearly, very good
with people.

1889
01:31:52,750 --> 01:31:55,020
But at the same time, he
looks as if he's a

1890
01:31:55,020 --> 01:31:57,800
fairly formal person.

1891
01:31:57,800 --> 01:32:01,810
He was raised in a Scots Irish
family, so it was probably a

1892
01:32:01,810 --> 01:32:06,510
fairly strict upbringing
that he had.

1893
01:32:06,510 --> 01:32:09,490
Is he a religious person?

1894
01:32:09,490 --> 01:32:13,530
I've not seen any references
to being a deeply religious

1895
01:32:13,530 --> 01:32:18,720
person, though probably he was
maybe a Presbyterian coming

1896
01:32:18,720 --> 01:32:19,930
from that sort of background.

1897
01:32:19,930 --> 01:32:21,860
I don't know.

1898
01:32:21,860 --> 01:32:24,190
It's possible to find that
out, I just don't know.

1899
01:32:24,190 --> 01:32:26,305
AUDIENCE: How long was he
actually active here once

1900
01:32:26,305 --> 01:32:27,320
classes started?

1901
01:32:27,320 --> 01:32:31,530
PROFESSOR: Well, he
died in 1883.

1902
01:32:31,530 --> 01:32:35,610
And he was very active.

1903
01:32:35,610 --> 01:32:38,830
I'm trying to remember.

1904
01:32:38,830 --> 01:32:40,770
Around-- was it 1873?

1905
01:32:40,770 --> 01:32:42,010
I've forgotten.

1906
01:32:42,010 --> 01:32:45,560
He serves as president
twice, basically.

1907
01:32:45,560 --> 01:32:47,890
He serves a stint getting
the thing started.

1908
01:32:47,890 --> 01:32:49,930
And then he has a
health problem.

1909
01:32:49,930 --> 01:32:52,400
He starts having health
problems in the 1870s.

1910
01:32:52,400 --> 01:32:56,310
And he backs off and he turns
over the Institute to one of

1911
01:32:56,310 --> 01:33:00,020
his most trusted associates.

1912
01:33:00,020 --> 01:33:05,270
And that goes on until
around 18--

1913
01:33:05,270 --> 01:33:08,130
I'm trying to remember
the dates here.

1914
01:33:08,130 --> 01:33:10,260
'79, 80 thereabouts, I think.

1915
01:33:10,260 --> 01:33:13,805
AUDIENCE: It says that he
returned in '78 and continued

1916
01:33:13,805 --> 01:33:14,940
until 1881.

1917
01:33:14,940 --> 01:33:15,920
PROFESSOR: '81, OK.

1918
01:33:15,920 --> 01:33:19,530
And that's sort of the
interim president.

1919
01:33:19,530 --> 01:33:22,560
He was not a well person at that
time, but he was sort of

1920
01:33:22,560 --> 01:33:24,950
filling in until they could find
a new president and the

1921
01:33:24,950 --> 01:33:27,578
new president was Francis
Amasa Walker?

1922
01:33:27,578 --> 01:33:30,270
AUDIENCE: I believe so.

1923
01:33:30,270 --> 01:33:33,890
PROFESSOR: Speaking of
the Civil War, Fran--

1924
01:33:33,890 --> 01:33:35,320
now, he did have a nickname.

1925
01:33:35,320 --> 01:33:36,650
His name was Frank.

1926
01:33:36,650 --> 01:33:39,160
People did call him
Frank Walker.

1927
01:33:39,160 --> 01:33:43,670
But Francis Amasa Walker was
a Civil War general.

1928
01:33:43,670 --> 01:33:48,380
Had earned ribbons and things
for service during the war.

1929
01:33:48,380 --> 01:33:51,300
And then he was--

1930
01:33:51,300 --> 01:33:53,870
as I remember, he was educated,
I believe, at

1931
01:33:53,870 --> 01:33:55,280
Amherst and Yale.

1932
01:33:55,280 --> 01:33:57,810
He went to Yale as
a professor.

1933
01:33:57,810 --> 01:34:00,750
He would have been by our lights
today, someone who was

1934
01:34:00,750 --> 01:34:01,630
in economics.

1935
01:34:01,630 --> 01:34:04,570
He was not an engineer
or scientist.

1936
01:34:04,570 --> 01:34:09,980
And he became very famous for
running the US Census of 1880,

1937
01:34:09,980 --> 01:34:13,210
which was arguably the
best US Census done

1938
01:34:13,210 --> 01:34:14,540
during the 19th century.

1939
01:34:14,540 --> 01:34:15,660
Extremely well done.

1940
01:34:15,660 --> 01:34:18,700
And even today, you can read
it and get a lot of good

1941
01:34:18,700 --> 01:34:24,040
information out of it about
all sorts of things, from

1942
01:34:24,040 --> 01:34:28,280
cotton harvesting to
manufacturing processes.

1943
01:34:28,280 --> 01:34:29,540
But he was in charge of that.

1944
01:34:29,540 --> 01:34:33,000
And then, he came to MIT from
the Census Office in

1945
01:34:33,000 --> 01:34:34,130
Washington, basically.

1946
01:34:34,130 --> 01:34:37,960
He'd been on leave at Yale and
came up here after that.

1947
01:34:37,960 --> 01:34:40,290
So he came here in
'83 did you say?

1948
01:34:43,194 --> 01:34:43,678
AUDIENCE: Oops.

1949
01:34:43,678 --> 01:34:45,614
I had it up here a second ago.

1950
01:34:51,260 --> 01:34:57,400
It has him '81 to
1897 it seems.

1951
01:34:57,400 --> 01:34:57,980
PROFESSOR: OK.

1952
01:34:57,980 --> 01:35:01,400
Well, it's right around in there
because the US Census

1953
01:35:01,400 --> 01:35:04,560
was finished by '82,
or thereabouts.

1954
01:35:04,560 --> 01:35:09,300
And Rogers dies on the platform
of Francis Amasa

1955
01:35:09,300 --> 01:35:12,870
Walker's inaugural day.

1956
01:35:12,870 --> 01:35:17,340
He's literally giving a speech
and keels over and passes away

1957
01:35:17,340 --> 01:35:20,110
on the platform when he's
transferring power, in effect,

1958
01:35:20,110 --> 01:35:22,870
formally to the new president.

1959
01:35:22,870 --> 01:35:25,010
So he dies in '83.

1960
01:35:25,010 --> 01:35:28,470
So that would have meant that
Walker arrived somewhere in

1961
01:35:28,470 --> 01:35:30,460
the previous year.

1962
01:35:30,460 --> 01:35:31,810
DAVID MINDELL: It's worth
talking then a little bit

1963
01:35:31,810 --> 01:35:33,210
about the postwar years.

1964
01:35:35,840 --> 01:35:39,420
The classes start here right at
the end of the war, but in

1965
01:35:39,420 --> 01:35:41,960
terms of the US economy, it
really takes the better part

1966
01:35:41,960 --> 01:35:46,590
of a decade to recover from
the wounds of the war.

1967
01:35:46,590 --> 01:35:51,140
And you can think about 1876,
which is the centennial year.

1968
01:35:51,140 --> 01:35:54,585
There's a big exposition in--

1969
01:35:54,585 --> 01:35:54,860
PROFESSOR: Philadelphia.

1970
01:35:54,860 --> 01:35:57,300
DAVID MINDELL: --Philadelphia,
which features a lot of

1971
01:35:57,300 --> 01:35:59,740
American technology.

1972
01:35:59,740 --> 01:36:03,440
The telegraph makes its first
sort of public debut there for

1973
01:36:03,440 --> 01:36:04,700
the first time.

1974
01:36:04,700 --> 01:36:04,910
PROFESSOR: Telephone.

1975
01:36:04,910 --> 01:36:06,230
You mean the telephone.

1976
01:36:06,230 --> 01:36:07,130
DAVID MINDELL: Telephone.

1977
01:36:07,130 --> 01:36:10,830
Telephone makes public
debut there.

1978
01:36:10,830 --> 01:36:15,010
Edison's electric light
is really 1881.

1979
01:36:15,010 --> 01:36:18,940
And so the kind of industrial,
sometimes it's called the

1980
01:36:18,940 --> 01:36:23,240
second Industrial Revolution
after the Civil War, takes a

1981
01:36:23,240 --> 01:36:24,550
while to get going.

1982
01:36:24,550 --> 01:36:27,410
And it really takes 10 or 15
years for the country to get

1983
01:36:27,410 --> 01:36:31,260
out of the tunnel and the kind
of malaise of recovering from

1984
01:36:31,260 --> 01:36:32,820
this national catastrophe.

1985
01:36:32,820 --> 01:36:35,730
And many of those industrialists
that--

1986
01:36:35,730 --> 01:36:39,670
Andrew Carnegie's and even
Thomas Edison's, these are not

1987
01:36:39,670 --> 01:36:41,620
people who served in
the Civil War.

1988
01:36:41,620 --> 01:36:44,050
They're just a little younger
than that, or they were doing

1989
01:36:44,050 --> 01:36:45,650
other things during the war.

1990
01:36:45,650 --> 01:36:51,170
And the big US Navy sort of
turns its attention towards

1991
01:36:51,170 --> 01:36:53,650
steel only in 1883.

1992
01:36:53,650 --> 01:36:57,480
And those industries,
it's a while.

1993
01:36:57,480 --> 01:37:02,560
In a sense, Rogers is sort of
a product of the generation

1994
01:37:02,560 --> 01:37:04,015
before the war.

1995
01:37:04,015 --> 01:37:06,670
It's people like Walker and
others who really take up the

1996
01:37:06,670 --> 01:37:08,430
call after the war.

1997
01:37:08,430 --> 01:37:11,300
And it takes a while for
that era to get going.

1998
01:37:11,300 --> 01:37:12,640
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

1999
01:37:12,640 --> 01:37:17,380
I think it's during Walker's
administration that MIT really

2000
01:37:17,380 --> 01:37:20,530
starts to take off as an
educational institution.

2001
01:37:20,530 --> 01:37:23,520
Someone was saying, how many
students are living on campus?

2002
01:37:23,520 --> 01:37:26,290
It's during his administration
that you go to full-time

2003
01:37:26,290 --> 01:37:30,350
students away from
special students.

2004
01:37:30,350 --> 01:37:32,970
It's during his administration
that the majority of students

2005
01:37:32,970 --> 01:37:35,920
then are full-time students.

2006
01:37:35,920 --> 01:37:38,260
I don't know about
dormitories.

2007
01:37:38,260 --> 01:37:41,120
I think they did not have dorms
in those days that I'm

2008
01:37:41,120 --> 01:37:41,920
familiar with.

2009
01:37:41,920 --> 01:37:44,400
They probably had to find
rooms in the city

2010
01:37:44,400 --> 01:37:48,290
or things like that.

2011
01:37:48,290 --> 01:37:51,820
I don't think dormitories appear
until the new campus is

2012
01:37:51,820 --> 01:37:52,570
built over here.

2013
01:37:52,570 --> 01:37:55,430
Senior House is the first dorm,
isn't it, on campus?

2014
01:37:55,430 --> 01:37:56,260
DAVID MINDELL: Is it?

2015
01:37:56,260 --> 01:37:57,020
PROFESSOR: I think it is.

2016
01:37:57,020 --> 01:37:58,670
DAVID MINDELL: MIT doesn't
become predominantly

2017
01:37:58,670 --> 01:38:00,245
residential until
the '50s really.

2018
01:38:00,245 --> 01:38:01,600
PROFESSOR: Are you
Senior House?

2019
01:38:01,600 --> 01:38:03,050
AUDIENCE: No, but
I [INAUDIBLE].

2020
01:38:03,050 --> 01:38:04,570
PROFESSOR: I think that's
the oldest of the

2021
01:38:04,570 --> 01:38:06,225
dorms, is Senior House.

2022
01:38:08,940 --> 01:38:14,320
If that's the case, then we're
talking around 1917, 1918.

2023
01:38:14,320 --> 01:38:16,060
Because I think that's
built after the

2024
01:38:16,060 --> 01:38:18,460
main campus is built.

2025
01:38:18,460 --> 01:38:20,520
It's built right around the same
time that the President's

2026
01:38:20,520 --> 01:38:21,440
House is built.

2027
01:38:21,440 --> 01:38:23,990
So that's pretty late.

2028
01:38:23,990 --> 01:38:26,490
But the shift during
Walker's years was

2029
01:38:26,490 --> 01:38:28,600
important because he gives--

2030
01:38:28,600 --> 01:38:31,875
you read it in my essay that
he gives an annual report.

2031
01:38:31,875 --> 01:38:36,420
I think it's in 1894, in which
he sort of ends the report by

2032
01:38:36,420 --> 01:38:38,850
saying the battle of
the New Education--

2033
01:38:38,850 --> 01:38:41,710
and New Education are
capitalized--

2034
01:38:41,710 --> 01:38:43,430
has been won.

2035
01:38:43,430 --> 01:38:47,720
And what he means by that
is that MIT's program of

2036
01:38:47,720 --> 01:38:51,620
education was called the New
Education by none other than

2037
01:38:51,620 --> 01:38:53,650
the president of Harvard.

2038
01:38:53,650 --> 01:38:57,040
A guy named Charles Eliot, who
started his teaching career

2039
01:38:57,040 --> 01:38:59,500
here at MIT in the chemistry
department.

2040
01:38:59,500 --> 01:39:01,920
And then he was here for about
two years, and then Harvard

2041
01:39:01,920 --> 01:39:05,220
hired him as president of
Harvard University.

2042
01:39:05,220 --> 01:39:07,760
So there's all of this
back and forth

2043
01:39:07,760 --> 01:39:09,350
between Harvard and MIT.

2044
01:39:09,350 --> 01:39:12,170
But Eliot coins the phrase--

2045
01:39:12,170 --> 01:39:16,550
he writes a two-part essay in
The Atlantic magazine, which

2046
01:39:16,550 --> 01:39:20,080
is still being published, called
"The New Education." I

2047
01:39:20,080 --> 01:39:23,510
think part of it, in fact, you
have to read for next week.

2048
01:39:23,510 --> 01:39:27,360
But it's really about MIT.

2049
01:39:27,360 --> 01:39:30,206
This is this new education
that's so different from all

2050
01:39:30,206 --> 01:39:35,290
the old classical curricula
that's around.

2051
01:39:35,290 --> 01:39:37,200
DAVID MINDELL: That's
30 years.

2052
01:39:37,200 --> 01:39:38,360
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

2053
01:39:38,360 --> 01:39:40,090
DAVID MINDELL: Which is also
what about the amount of time

2054
01:39:40,090 --> 01:39:43,730
it takes graduates from the
first classes to rise up

2055
01:39:43,730 --> 01:39:47,360
through the ranks of whatever
field they're in and become

2056
01:39:47,360 --> 01:39:49,360
senior people.

2057
01:39:49,360 --> 01:39:52,650
And either start giving money
back, or become prominent

2058
01:39:52,650 --> 01:39:56,870
scientists in their fields, or
whatever kinds of career

2059
01:39:56,870 --> 01:39:58,000
success they have.

2060
01:39:58,000 --> 01:40:00,150
PROFESSOR: Yeah, that's
an interesting point.

2061
01:40:00,150 --> 01:40:02,180
DAVID MINDELL: It's a
generation, basically.

2062
01:40:02,180 --> 01:40:04,470
PROFESSOR: The person to put
up the money to build this

2063
01:40:04,470 --> 01:40:07,060
campus, do you know
who it was?

2064
01:40:07,060 --> 01:40:09,090
Well, you'll encounter
it in the reading.

2065
01:40:09,090 --> 01:40:11,530
George Eastman from Rochester,
New York.

2066
01:40:11,530 --> 01:40:14,050
Eastman Kodak was the guy who
put up most of the money for

2067
01:40:14,050 --> 01:40:16,100
the building of this campus.

2068
01:40:16,100 --> 01:40:19,110
But he didn't buy the
land over here.

2069
01:40:19,110 --> 01:40:20,550
Or he didn't give the
money for the land.

2070
01:40:20,550 --> 01:40:22,930
The land had already
been purchased.

2071
01:40:22,930 --> 01:40:26,620
That money came from the du
Ponts, who were graduates,

2072
01:40:26,620 --> 01:40:27,750
former graduates.

2073
01:40:27,750 --> 01:40:30,800
And they were all products
of the 1890s.

2074
01:40:30,800 --> 01:40:35,110
They would have been here when
Walker was president.

2075
01:40:35,110 --> 01:40:39,960
By the time of the World War
I, they had emerged as

2076
01:40:39,960 --> 01:40:44,950
business leaders, very wealthy
people, and were capable of

2077
01:40:44,950 --> 01:40:47,020
endowing the Institute
with land over here.

2078
01:40:47,020 --> 01:40:50,100
So it's not just all George
Eastman though.

2079
01:40:50,100 --> 01:40:50,956
Most of it was.

2080
01:40:50,956 --> 01:40:56,490
He was amazingly generous with
President Maclaurin about

2081
01:40:56,490 --> 01:40:58,410
giving money to the Institute.

2082
01:40:58,410 --> 01:41:00,395
And I think I may have mentioned
this last time that

2083
01:41:00,395 --> 01:41:02,410
there were moments
when he'd write--

2084
01:41:02,410 --> 01:41:05,140
I don't know, huge, huge amount
of money for the time.

2085
01:41:05,140 --> 01:41:09,100
But MIT would discover that it
wasn't quite enough and they'd

2086
01:41:09,100 --> 01:41:12,340
go back to Mr. Eastman
for more support.

2087
01:41:12,340 --> 01:41:13,920
And he would write
another check.

2088
01:41:13,920 --> 01:41:14,960
And he ponied up.

2089
01:41:14,960 --> 01:41:19,060
I don't know, at least three
times, I think, in which

2090
01:41:19,060 --> 01:41:21,320
President Maclaurin went back
and said, we don't quite have

2091
01:41:21,320 --> 01:41:22,390
enough Mr. Eastman.

2092
01:41:22,390 --> 01:41:24,010
And he would--

2093
01:41:24,010 --> 01:41:27,030
and the reason why according to
the records that exist that

2094
01:41:27,030 --> 01:41:29,890
he did that was that he was
not a graduate of MIT.

2095
01:41:29,890 --> 01:41:33,720
He had no personal connection
with the place, but a lot of

2096
01:41:33,720 --> 01:41:37,050
his employees were
MIT graduates.

2097
01:41:37,050 --> 01:41:40,110
And he was so impressed by their
abilities that he felt

2098
01:41:40,110 --> 01:41:43,790
that this was a good
place to endow.

2099
01:41:43,790 --> 01:41:45,400
So it's a very interesting--

2100
01:41:45,400 --> 01:41:48,330
DAVID MINDELL: A company like
Kodak is a second Industrial

2101
01:41:48,330 --> 01:41:51,300
Revolution company in a way
where you can't even have a

2102
01:41:51,300 --> 01:41:53,130
company like that
without trained

2103
01:41:53,130 --> 01:41:55,620
chemists and some PhDs.

2104
01:41:55,620 --> 01:42:01,250
And the electrical industry
is the same way.

2105
01:42:01,250 --> 01:42:03,180
Even the steel industry
to some degree.

2106
01:42:03,180 --> 01:42:06,670
It was quite different from the
early railroads and the

2107
01:42:06,670 --> 01:42:10,470
Lowell mills where a lot of
good tinkerers getting

2108
01:42:10,470 --> 01:42:12,950
together could really
make the thing work.

2109
01:42:12,950 --> 01:42:15,170
These sort of second wave
companies are what you would

2110
01:42:15,170 --> 01:42:18,080
today call high-tech companies,
where it's not

2111
01:42:18,080 --> 01:42:20,490
something you're going to come
up with in your garage is the

2112
01:42:20,490 --> 01:42:23,750
way to make film.

2113
01:42:23,750 --> 01:42:25,290
Rubber is that way.

2114
01:42:25,290 --> 01:42:26,076
PROFESSOR: Yeah, [INAUDIBLE].

2115
01:42:26,076 --> 01:42:27,068
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

2116
01:42:27,068 --> 01:42:31,036
that started that Harvard
tried to buy MIT?

2117
01:42:31,036 --> 01:42:33,020
[INAUDIBLE].

2118
01:42:33,020 --> 01:42:35,100
PROFESSOR: Well, it wasn't
so much buying, it was

2119
01:42:35,100 --> 01:42:38,310
amalgamating with it.

2120
01:42:38,310 --> 01:42:41,390
The first attempt happened
during the 1870s, I think.

2121
01:42:41,390 --> 01:42:45,220
Not long after Charles Eliot
became president.

2122
01:42:45,220 --> 01:42:46,550
See, he was hired here.

2123
01:42:46,550 --> 01:42:49,470
Eliot was hired here as a
professor of chemistry around

2124
01:42:49,470 --> 01:42:52,570
1867 if memory serves.

2125
01:42:52,570 --> 01:42:55,820
He was here for roughly two
years, and then he was called

2126
01:42:55,820 --> 01:42:57,700
to Harvard as president there.

2127
01:42:57,700 --> 01:42:59,790
And he had written this article
called "The New

2128
01:42:59,790 --> 01:43:03,540
Education," which he was,
in effect, sounding

2129
01:43:03,540 --> 01:43:04,740
the glories of MIT.

2130
01:43:04,740 --> 01:43:06,300
Saying, this is the
way, folks.

2131
01:43:06,300 --> 01:43:07,810
This is the New Education.

2132
01:43:07,810 --> 01:43:12,730
So when he went to Harvard, he
wanted to try to reconfigure

2133
01:43:12,730 --> 01:43:15,640
Harvard's system along the lines
of MIT. and what better

2134
01:43:15,640 --> 01:43:19,760
way to do it than to absorb MIT
into the Harvard system.

2135
01:43:19,760 --> 01:43:22,400
So the first attempt was made
fairly early in his

2136
01:43:22,400 --> 01:43:22,920
presidency.

2137
01:43:22,920 --> 01:43:27,130
I would say as early
as 1873 or '74.

2138
01:43:27,130 --> 01:43:30,250
There will be an essay in the
book that we're reading about

2139
01:43:30,250 --> 01:43:31,630
that subject.

2140
01:43:31,630 --> 01:43:33,440
It goes through all
the different--

2141
01:43:33,440 --> 01:43:35,870
DAVID MINDELL: Even in 1861,
I think as the governor is

2142
01:43:35,870 --> 01:43:38,810
signing the charter, he looks up
and he says to Rogers, why

2143
01:43:38,810 --> 01:43:40,380
aren't you guys getting together
with Harvard and

2144
01:43:40,380 --> 01:43:40,860
doing this?

2145
01:43:40,860 --> 01:43:42,580
PROFESSOR: Right,
Governor Andrew.

2146
01:43:42,580 --> 01:43:44,990
There were efforts even-- yeah,
even during the charter

2147
01:43:44,990 --> 01:43:47,790
phase that the governor of
Massachusetts who was a

2148
01:43:47,790 --> 01:43:51,810
Harvard graduate said,
wait a minute.

2149
01:43:51,810 --> 01:43:53,920
Why do you want to do this
separately from Harvard?

2150
01:43:53,920 --> 01:43:56,150
Why don't you do it in
concert with Harvard?

2151
01:43:56,150 --> 01:44:01,520
And so Rogers was constantly
being sort of put upon about

2152
01:44:01,520 --> 01:44:04,110
trying to nudge up
against Harvard.

2153
01:44:04,110 --> 01:44:07,170
And, of course, his resistance
was he was fearful that his

2154
01:44:07,170 --> 01:44:09,040
vision would not be enacted
at Harvard.

2155
01:44:09,040 --> 01:44:12,330
Plus, he had some intellectual
enemies there.

2156
01:44:12,330 --> 01:44:14,170
Agassiz was one of them.

2157
01:44:14,170 --> 01:44:18,320
His primary intellectual
opponent, and continued to be

2158
01:44:18,320 --> 01:44:23,540
one well into the 1870s.

2159
01:44:23,540 --> 01:44:25,180
It's an ongoing process.

2160
01:44:25,180 --> 01:44:28,830
As I said earlier, it happens
at least five or six times.

2161
01:44:28,830 --> 01:44:31,050
Harvard did not give up
after one attempt.

2162
01:44:31,050 --> 01:44:33,370
They kept doing it.

2163
01:44:33,370 --> 01:44:38,350
And Eliot was the most avid of
all about trying to absorb MIT

2164
01:44:38,350 --> 01:44:40,300
into Harvard because
he had been here.

2165
01:44:40,300 --> 01:44:44,600
He had seen what was good about
the place, and wanted it

2166
01:44:44,600 --> 01:44:46,350
moved into Harvard.

2167
01:44:46,350 --> 01:44:48,400
DAVID MINDELL: How many of you
today would vote in favor of a

2168
01:44:48,400 --> 01:44:49,650
merger with Harvard?

2169
01:44:54,590 --> 01:44:56,730
That's about how it came out
in the 19th century also.

2170
01:44:56,730 --> 01:45:00,530
PROFESSOR: That was
just about right.

2171
01:45:00,530 --> 01:45:03,140
Now, how many of you would
vote for a merger, say if

2172
01:45:03,140 --> 01:45:07,270
somebody gave you $50,000?

2173
01:45:07,270 --> 01:45:08,340
Wouldn't do it anyway.

2174
01:45:08,340 --> 01:45:11,990
See, this is true believer
territory here.

2175
01:45:11,990 --> 01:45:14,302
Good.

2176
01:45:14,302 --> 01:45:18,604
AUDIENCE: The time was
it that obvious, too?

2177
01:45:18,604 --> 01:45:22,880
Or was there more debate?

2178
01:45:22,880 --> 01:45:24,830
PROFESSOR: As I recollect in the
first time around, it was

2179
01:45:24,830 --> 01:45:25,780
pretty cut and dry.

2180
01:45:25,780 --> 01:45:28,620
People here were saying, no,
we don't need to do that.

2181
01:45:28,620 --> 01:45:30,840
But later on, it came
very close.

2182
01:45:30,840 --> 01:45:34,300
During the early 1900s, there
was a moment when Harvard and

2183
01:45:34,300 --> 01:45:36,100
MIT became very close.

2184
01:45:36,100 --> 01:45:38,810
I think it was President
Pritchard who actually

2185
01:45:38,810 --> 01:45:40,900
approved a merger.

2186
01:45:40,900 --> 01:45:44,630
And then, that kind of got
opposition and backed off.

2187
01:45:44,630 --> 01:45:46,280
And this will be discussed
later.

2188
01:45:46,280 --> 01:45:50,440
But there was a moment when MIT
and Harvard were actually

2189
01:45:50,440 --> 01:45:52,770
granting joint degrees if
I'm not mistaken for

2190
01:45:52,770 --> 01:45:53,520
a very brief time.

2191
01:45:53,520 --> 01:45:53,990
DAVID MINDELL: Yeah, it only
failed because the

2192
01:45:53,990 --> 01:45:56,780
Massachusetts Supreme Court
ruled, however, that they're

2193
01:45:56,780 --> 01:45:58,570
not allowed to spend the money
they were using for it for

2194
01:45:58,570 --> 01:45:59,860
that purpose.

2195
01:45:59,860 --> 01:46:01,450
PROFESSOR: It came close
to happening in

2196
01:46:01,450 --> 01:46:03,140
the early 20th century.

2197
01:46:03,140 --> 01:46:06,050
William Rogers must have rolled
over on his grave.

2198
01:46:06,050 --> 01:46:09,260
DAVID MINDELL: I think there
were moments where it came

2199
01:46:09,260 --> 01:46:12,660
down to MIT might close if it
didn't find itself financially

2200
01:46:12,660 --> 01:46:13,420
more support.

2201
01:46:13,420 --> 01:46:16,390
And so it was under those
kind of stresses.

2202
01:46:16,390 --> 01:46:20,400
But I think once there's a
community of alums, they felt

2203
01:46:20,400 --> 01:46:22,920
pretty strongly that it
should stay as it is.

2204
01:46:22,920 --> 01:46:24,890
That's in the reading
for next week.

2205
01:46:24,890 --> 01:46:28,480
PROFESSOR: Yeah, it's
interesting, too, that that

2206
01:46:28,480 --> 01:46:34,290
discussion of mergers really
fades after Maclaurin has this

2207
01:46:34,290 --> 01:46:37,740
campus built over here, gets
the Eastman money.

2208
01:46:37,740 --> 01:46:42,400
MIT then is pretty well
defining its own life.

2209
01:46:42,400 --> 01:46:45,900
And that sort of fades
off the screen.

2210
01:46:45,900 --> 01:46:51,431
AUDIENCE: Why is the merger
discussion so one-sided?

2211
01:46:51,431 --> 01:46:54,691
Why does Harvard want to merge
with MIT, but MIT not want to

2212
01:46:54,691 --> 01:46:56,290
merge with Harvard?

2213
01:46:56,290 --> 01:46:59,330
PROFESSOR: Well, I know the
Rogers side of the story is

2214
01:46:59,330 --> 01:47:03,120
that he was fearful that if
that merger were to take

2215
01:47:03,120 --> 01:47:08,170
place, that the core programs
that he wanted to see

2216
01:47:08,170 --> 01:47:13,240
introduced, like laboratories
for students, an emphasis on

2217
01:47:13,240 --> 01:47:17,560
science interacting with
practical applications, would

2218
01:47:17,560 --> 01:47:19,200
eventually fall by
the wayside.

2219
01:47:19,200 --> 01:47:22,480
Because they were fearful of
Harvard's emphasis on the

2220
01:47:22,480 --> 01:47:24,860
traditional liberal arts.

2221
01:47:24,860 --> 01:47:29,140
Harvard is, to this day in
many ways, controlled by

2222
01:47:29,140 --> 01:47:33,370
humanities faculty, or social
science humanities faculties,

2223
01:47:33,370 --> 01:47:35,620
rather than science faculty.

2224
01:47:35,620 --> 01:47:37,636
AUDIENCE: So then why would
Harvard so badly want

2225
01:47:37,636 --> 01:47:39,660
to merge with MIT?

2226
01:47:39,660 --> 01:47:40,090
PROFESSOR: Why?

2227
01:47:40,090 --> 01:47:40,520
AUDIENCE: Yeah.

2228
01:47:40,520 --> 01:47:43,750
PROFESSOR: Because it was MIT
It was the cutting edge.

2229
01:47:43,750 --> 01:47:45,670
It was the New Education.

2230
01:47:45,670 --> 01:47:48,490
It was the new way of doing
science and engineering, which

2231
01:47:48,490 --> 01:47:50,720
they felt they wanted
to incorporate in

2232
01:47:50,720 --> 01:47:51,630
to the Harvard system.

2233
01:47:51,630 --> 01:47:53,590
DAVID MINDELL: Well, sort of the
opposite problem they had,

2234
01:47:53,590 --> 01:47:55,840
which was that they
couldn't manage to

2235
01:47:55,840 --> 01:47:56,940
start it on their own.

2236
01:47:56,940 --> 01:47:58,570
They tried in a number
of different ways.

2237
01:47:58,570 --> 01:47:59,250
PROFESSOR: It never worked.

2238
01:47:59,250 --> 01:48:01,380
DAVID MINDELL: And their
attempts to do technical

2239
01:48:01,380 --> 01:48:04,950
education were always co-opted
by the more old school

2240
01:48:04,950 --> 01:48:07,500
scientists who saw
it as natural

2241
01:48:07,500 --> 01:48:10,010
philosophy and not so much--

2242
01:48:10,010 --> 01:48:13,390
you also got to remember, MIT's
celebrating its 150th

2243
01:48:13,390 --> 01:48:14,900
anniversary this year.

2244
01:48:14,900 --> 01:48:17,500
What was the last anniversary
Harvard celebrated?

2245
01:48:17,500 --> 01:48:18,230
Anybody remember?

2246
01:48:18,230 --> 01:48:20,300
You probably weren't
here for it.

2247
01:48:20,300 --> 01:48:23,450
Because it was already almost
10 years ago, I think.

2248
01:48:23,450 --> 01:48:25,750
350.

2249
01:48:25,750 --> 01:48:29,620
So they have 200 years on MIT.

2250
01:48:29,620 --> 01:48:30,850
Big difference.

2251
01:48:30,850 --> 01:48:35,970
How many MIT graduates have
been in the White House?

2252
01:48:35,970 --> 01:48:37,040
Zero.

2253
01:48:37,040 --> 01:48:39,770
How many Harvard graduates have
been in the White House?

2254
01:48:39,770 --> 01:48:40,830
Quite a number of them.

2255
01:48:40,830 --> 01:48:43,200
How many Harvard graduates
are in Congress?

2256
01:48:43,200 --> 01:48:43,940
Lots of them.

2257
01:48:43,940 --> 01:48:44,470
Senators?

2258
01:48:44,470 --> 01:48:46,150
All over the place.

2259
01:48:46,150 --> 01:48:48,490
Very, very different
sort of social

2260
01:48:48,490 --> 01:48:52,040
structure to that school.

2261
01:48:52,040 --> 01:48:53,920
PROFESSOR: It is a different
breed of cat.

2262
01:48:53,920 --> 01:48:54,890
DAVID MINDELL: Harvard played
a big role in the American

2263
01:48:54,890 --> 01:48:55,840
Revolution.

2264
01:48:55,840 --> 01:48:57,710
Harvard graduates played a
big role in the American

2265
01:48:57,710 --> 01:48:59,190
Revolution, which
we can't claim.

2266
01:49:01,940 --> 01:49:03,720
PROFESSOR: But there were
MIT graduates who fought

2267
01:49:03,720 --> 01:49:06,426
in the Civil War.

2268
01:49:06,426 --> 01:49:07,080
DAVID MINDELL: There were?

2269
01:49:07,080 --> 01:49:08,050
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

2270
01:49:08,050 --> 01:49:10,900
They came back after the war
and went to school here.

2271
01:49:10,900 --> 01:49:12,830
But they fought in
the Civil War.

2272
01:49:12,830 --> 01:49:13,570
They survived.

2273
01:49:13,570 --> 01:49:16,340
They were survivors.

2274
01:49:16,340 --> 01:49:17,954
Yes?

2275
01:49:17,954 --> 01:49:20,906
AUDIENCE: I know this is much
later, but when did MIT become

2276
01:49:20,906 --> 01:49:22,382
a great economic--

2277
01:49:22,382 --> 01:49:25,340
[INAUDIBLE], economics--

2278
01:49:25,340 --> 01:49:27,240
PROFESSOR: I think that probably
dates from the

2279
01:49:27,240 --> 01:49:31,080
arrival of Paul Samuelson as a
professor of economics here.

2280
01:49:31,080 --> 01:49:33,310
And that would have been
after World War II.

2281
01:49:33,310 --> 01:49:34,440
DAVID MINDELL: Yeah, he came
during World War II.

2282
01:49:34,440 --> 01:49:36,810
PROFESSOR: You're familiar
with Paul Samuelson?

2283
01:49:36,810 --> 01:49:38,130
He just died, what?

2284
01:49:38,130 --> 01:49:39,590
About a year ago.

2285
01:49:39,590 --> 01:49:41,310
Very famous economist.

2286
01:49:41,310 --> 01:49:43,540
Arguably the most--

2287
01:49:43,540 --> 01:49:46,600
he wrote a textbook in economics
that I used as a

2288
01:49:46,600 --> 01:49:49,880
college student.

2289
01:49:49,880 --> 01:49:52,550
And it was like in its seventh
edition when I used it.

2290
01:49:52,550 --> 01:49:55,130
And it's been used
over the years in

2291
01:49:55,130 --> 01:49:57,280
general economics classes.

2292
01:49:57,280 --> 01:49:59,640
So he became very famous
for his textbook.

2293
01:49:59,640 --> 01:50:03,290
That was the leading textbook
in economics for many years.

2294
01:50:03,290 --> 01:50:06,500
And then, he won
a Nobel Prize.

2295
01:50:06,500 --> 01:50:09,900
And that department has won
a lot of Nobel Prizes.

2296
01:50:09,900 --> 01:50:14,280
And so under his leadership
and others-- he wasn't the

2297
01:50:14,280 --> 01:50:18,400
only one there-- but Robert
Solow is another very famous

2298
01:50:18,400 --> 01:50:21,390
economist who is now retired,
but is very

2299
01:50:21,390 --> 01:50:23,830
active around here.

2300
01:50:23,830 --> 01:50:27,480
They really brokered that
department into one of the

2301
01:50:27,480 --> 01:50:29,320
best in the world.

2302
01:50:29,320 --> 01:50:30,550
And ti still is.

2303
01:50:30,550 --> 01:50:33,440
I think it's still considered
to be one of the top

2304
01:50:33,440 --> 01:50:34,810
departments in the
United States.

2305
01:50:34,810 --> 01:50:35,950
DAVID MINDELL: But that's
post-World War II.

2306
01:50:35,950 --> 01:50:37,360
PROFESSOR: It's post-World
War II.

2307
01:50:37,360 --> 01:50:38,620
Yeah, definitely.

2308
01:50:38,620 --> 01:50:41,000
DAVID MINDELL: I mean, directly
post-World War II.

2309
01:50:41,000 --> 01:50:42,400
Samuelson came here and
he worked in the

2310
01:50:42,400 --> 01:50:43,660
radiation lab on radar.

2311
01:50:43,660 --> 01:50:44,920
PROFESSOR: Did he?

2312
01:50:44,920 --> 01:50:47,570
I didn't know that.

2313
01:50:47,570 --> 01:50:50,190
Interesting.

2314
01:50:50,190 --> 01:50:52,090
Well, good.

2315
01:50:52,090 --> 01:50:55,710
Now, we'll stop at this point.

2316
01:50:55,710 --> 01:50:59,180
We'll continue talking
about this era.

2317
01:50:59,180 --> 01:51:02,670
I want to really focus
on Rogers next week.

2318
01:51:02,670 --> 01:51:05,560
We focused a lot on him today,
I don't know there's a whole

2319
01:51:05,560 --> 01:51:06,390
lot more to say.

2320
01:51:06,390 --> 01:51:06,980
But there will be.

2321
01:51:06,980 --> 01:51:09,800
I want you to read the essay
about him and read some of

2322
01:51:09,800 --> 01:51:13,370
those primary documents, just to
get a sense of what they're

2323
01:51:13,370 --> 01:51:14,440
talking about there.

2324
01:51:14,440 --> 01:51:18,080
That article about the New
Education is worthwhile

2325
01:51:18,080 --> 01:51:21,630
because it's really making a
proclamation to the rest of

2326
01:51:21,630 --> 01:51:23,820
the country about there's
something new and different

2327
01:51:23,820 --> 01:51:26,860
going on here in Boston,
and it's MIT.

2328
01:51:26,860 --> 01:51:30,860
It's that sort of argument
that's being made there.

2329
01:51:30,860 --> 01:51:33,480
These are not the most
scintillating papers to read

2330
01:51:33,480 --> 01:51:33,940
in the world.

2331
01:51:33,940 --> 01:51:35,710
So work through them.

2332
01:51:35,710 --> 01:51:36,270
Read them.

2333
01:51:36,270 --> 01:51:37,820
You don't have to study
them closely.

2334
01:51:37,820 --> 01:51:43,390
We're just trying to give
you a taste of what that

2335
01:51:43,390 --> 01:51:46,950
formalistic literature looked
like in those days.

2336
01:51:46,950 --> 01:51:50,135
But you got to look at to get
a sense of, what was it?

2337
01:51:50,135 --> 01:51:51,900
Yo don't need to memorize
it, just get a

2338
01:51:51,900 --> 01:51:53,150
sense of what it was.