Cathedrals in the Wheatfields: Parables from Stanford's Founding

This is an Archive of a Past Event

Featuring:

David M. Kennedy, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Emeritus, Stanford University
Stanford University, B.A., 1963, History
Yale University, M.A., 1964, Ph.D.,1968, American Studies

James T. Campbell, Edgar E. Robinson Professor of History, Stanford University
Yale University, B.A., 1980, History
Stanford University, M.A., 1983, Ph.D., 1989, History

Leland and Jane Stanford founded their university amidst the kinetic tumult of Gilded Age America. It was a time of swashbuckling capitalist ambition, let-‘er-rip financial finagling, and epic corruption. It was also a time of accelerating immigration, the rapid peopling and development of the great American West – and the golden age of American philanthropy, when so-called Robber Barons like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and the Stanfords lavished their millions on building lasting institutions to serve the common weal (well before the tax code conferred any advantage for doing so). James Campbell and David Kennedy will revisit that founding moment, exploring the ways in which the circumstances of Stanford's birth might give guidance to the university in its second century and beyond.

This program is jointly presented by Stanford Historical Society and Stanford 125. RSVP requested.