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Encoded
Archival Descriptions - EAD (Finding Aids)
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<eadheader langencoding="ISO639-2"
findaidstatus="unverified-partial-draft"
audience="internal">
<eadid>ru.0024</eadid>
<filedesc>
<titlestmt>
<titleproper encodinganalog="245$a">Inventory of
James Rowland Angell presidential records,
<date>1921-1937</date><num>Record Unit
24</num></titleproper>
</titlestmt>
<publicationstmt>
<publisher>Manuscripts and Archives, Yale
University Library</publisher>
<address>
<addressline><emph render="underline">Yale
University Archives</emph></addressline>
<addressline><emph render="underline">Yale
Record Group 2-A</emph></addressline>
<addressline><emph render="underline">Records of
the president's office</emph></addressline>
<addressline>New Haven,
Connecticut</addressline>
</address>
<date normal="1998-01-01"
type="copyright">Copyright © 1998, Yale
University Library</date>
</publicationstmt>
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<langusage>Finding aid written in
<language>English.</language>
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<archdesc level="otherlevel">
<did>
<origination>
<corpname>Yale University. President's
Office.</corpname>
</origination>
<unittitle>James Rowland Angell presidential
records, <unitdate>1921-1937</unitdate>
</unittitle>
<physdesc>
<extent>84.25 linear ft.</extent>
</physdesc>
<abstract>The records consist of correspondence,
annual reports, Memoranda, and subject files
documenting Angell's activities as president of
Yale University. The records contain substantive
documentation on virtually every aspect of the
University's administration, its schools,
departments, and other major units. The files
pertaining to the founding of the School of
Nursing, The Institute of Human Relations, and
the residential colleges are particularly
significant.</abstract>
</did>
<bioghist>
<p>James Rowland Angell was born on May 8, 1869
in Burlington, Vermont. He attended the
University of Michigan (B.A., 1890; M.A., 1891),
Harvard (M.A., 1892) and the University of
Berlin. From 1893-1919 Angell was a professor of
psychology at the University of Chicago and
served as acting president from 1918-1919. In
1921 he resigned as president of the Carnegie
Corporation to accept the presidency of Yale
University, a position he held until 1937. As
president of Yale, Angell instituted a major
reorganization of the undergraduate curriculum,
brought in new faculty, expanded the Graduate
School, and increased Yale's stature as a
national center of higher education.</p>
<p>Major achievements of his administration
included the founding of the Yale School of
Nursing (1923); the organization of the
Institute of Psychology (1924), which was
expanded into the Institute of Human Relations
(1929); and the adoption of a residential
college plan for undergraduates. Angell died in
Hamden, Connecticut on March 4, 1949.</p>
</bioghist>
<admininfo>
<prefercite>
<p>James Rowland Angell presidential records,
(RU 24). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale
University Library.</p>
</prefercite>
</admininfo>
<odd>
<p>Forms part of Yale Record Group 2-A (YRG
2-A), Records of the president's Office.</p>
<address>
<addressline>Manuscripts &
Archives</addressline>
<addressline>Sterling Memorial
Library</addressline>
<addressline>P.O. Box 208240</addressline>
<addressline>New Haven, CT
06520-8420</addressline>
</address>
</odd>
<bioghist>
<p><emph render="bold">ANGELL,</emph> James
Rowland, university president, was born in
Burlington, Vt., May 8, 1869, son of James
Burrill and Sarah Swope (Caswell) Angell and a
descendant of Thomas Angell, who came to America
from England with Roger Williams (q.v.) in 1631
and settled in Providence, R.I. From Thomas and
his wife, Alice Ashton, the descent was through
John and Ruth Field, Thomas and Sarah Drown,
Jeremiah and Mary Mathewson, Andrew and Tabitha
Harris, Charles and Olive Aldrich, and Andrew
and Amey Aldrich, the grandparents of James R.
Angell. His father (q.v.) was successively
professor at Brown University, editor of the
Providence Journal, president of the
universities of Vermont and Michigan, and U.S.
minister to China and Turkey. His mother was a
daughter of Alexis Caswell (q.v.), president of
Brown University. James R. Angell received an
A.B. degree at the University of Michigan in
1890 and an A.M. degree in the following year in
psychology, economics and American history.
After taking a second master's degree in 1892 at
Harvard University, where he came under the
influence of William James (q.v.) in his
advanced studies in psychology, he continued
postgraduate work in Europe, chiedy at the
universities of Berlin and Hatle, also studying
in Vienna, Paris and Leipzig. In 1893 he went to
the University of Minnesota as instructor in
philosophy. A year later he joined John Dewey
(q.v.) at the University of Chicago as assistant
professor of philosophy and psychology, and in
1905 became full professor and head of a new
special department of psychology. For fourteen
years he took little part in general faculty
activities, devoting his time throughout that
period almost solely to psychology. His
administrative work began in 1908 when he
accepted the office of dean of the senior
colleges at the University of Chicago. In 1911
he became dean of the faculties, a post which
entailed various responsible executive functions
relating to problems of undergraduate
scholarship and activities and conferences
thereon with faculty colleagues. In 1914 he was
selected as American exchange professor at the
Sorbonne, Paris, and in 1915 as special lecturer
on psychology at Columbia University. Later he
spoke at many colleges and universities. During
the First World War his services were enlisted
by the U.S. government as a member of the
preliminary psychology committee of the Office
of the Surgeon General, U.S. Army, committees of
the Office of the Adjutant General on
classification of personnel and on education and
special training, and as a member of the
National Research Council. The protracted
absence of Harry P. Judson (q.v.), president of
the University of Chicago, led to Angell's
designation as vice-president in 1918 and as
such he here the chief administrative
responsibility during the next year. After the
war he continued his work with the Nation
Research Council as its chairman for one year
(1919-20), then became president of the Carnegie
Corporation of New York. In 1921 he was elected
president of Yale University to succeed Arthur
T. Hadley (q.v.), being the first president of
Yale since 1765 who was not a graduate of that
University. His administration, which continued
until the close of the academic year 1936-37,
when he reached the statutory retirement age of
sixty-eight, was in many respects the most
constructive in Yale's history. All new
buildings were designed a common architectural
pattern, giving the Yale campus one of the
greatest collections of Gothic architecture in
the Western Hemisphere. During his presidency
thirty-five buildings were erected, many of them
having individual endowments for maintenance, at
an aggregate cost of $52,000,000; the total
endowment increased from slightly over
$25,000,000 to more than $105,000,000 the work
begun by Hadley co-ordinating the various
schools and departments was continued, and new
facilities and opportunities for study in
various fields were provided. Among the more
important of the new structures were several
erected under provisions of the will of John W.
Sterling (q.v.), including the Sterling
Chemistry Laboratory; Sterling Hall of Medicine;
Sterling Memorial Library, costing over
$5,000,000 and designed to house 5,000,000
volumes; Sterling Tower, for the Scientific
School; and the Sterling Law and Graduate School
quadrangles. Other important structures erected
were new buildings for the Sage School of
Forestry and the Peabody Museum of Natural
History, William L. Harkness Educational
Building a building for the university
Department of Health, the Raleigh Fitkin
Memorial Clinic for Children. Sheffield
Scientific School administration building,
Institute of Human Relations building, Hall of
Graduate Studies, Gallery of Fine Arts, the
Harry Payne Whitney Memorial Gymnasium, the
Charles E. Coxe Memorial Field Gymnasium, the
Divinity School quadrangles erected with funds
given by the Sterling trustees, John D.
Rockefeller, Jr. (q.v.), and others, and an
imposing Greek colonnade built as a memorial to
Yale men who fell in the First World War. In
1924 Angell recommended to the board of trustees
a reorganization of the undergraduate student
body which would provide adequate housing under
conditions resembling those of the Oxford and
Cambridge colleges. The plan remained in
abeyance until 1930, when it was definitely
matured and adopted. Edward S. Harkness agreed
to finance eight units of the program which came
into operation in 1933 when seven residential
colleges, Branford, Calhoun, Davenport,
Johnathan Edwards, Pierson, Saybrook and
Trambull, were put into service. Two others were
added later. Berkeley in 1934 and Timothy Dwight
in 1935. This change was probably the most
revolutionary in the history of Yale. The
arrangement recognized the social and
educational values inherent in small groups,
giving every undergraduate the opportunity to
benefit by direct social relationship with his
classmates and by frequent contact with members
of the faculty. The colleges were planned to
co-operate with the undergraduate schools to
evolve whatever combinations of formal and
informal instruction made the work of each
undergraduate most instructive and effective.
Each had its own library, dining hall, kitchen,
common rooms and squash courts, with
accommodations for from 160 to 299 students.
Each college had its own master living in the
college, and associated with him as active
fellows ten or twelve members of the faculty,
some residing there and all having rooms in
which to meet students. At various times during
Angell's administration the Sterling Estate
trustees, in addition to making appropriations
for buildings, created thirty-two professional
chairs for distinguished achievement, carrying
unusually large salaries and the control of
substantial sums for research. They also
provided for a large number of scholarships and
fellowships for advanced students. The total
thus made available for educational work was
nearly $12,000,000. As a result of
considerations which he urged in 1924 and after
several years of preparatory work, a fund of
$20,993,918, to be used exclusively for
education purposes, was raised in 1928 through
gifts from over 20,000 graduates and other
friends of the university. One of the largest
single donations to Yale and the last important
one during his administration was a gift of
upwards of $10,000,000 made anonymously in June,
1937, for the establishment of the Jane Coffin
Childs Memorial dedicated to the study of
cancer. Among the major additions to and changes
in the university structure not already
mentioned were the combination, in 1923, of the
faculties of Yale College, Sheffield Scientific
School, and Common Freshman Year into a general
under-graduate faculty to deal with such
problems as concerned two or more of these
divisions of the university and, the creation in
the same year, of the School of Nursing. The
latter was one of the first two nurse-training
schools, the other being at Western Reserve
University, established on a parity with other
schools and colleges in a university and the
first to make the completion of a college course
an entrance requirement. In 1924 a gift of
Edward S. Harkness made possible the
establishment of a Department of Drama and a
University Theatre, in the School of Fine Arts,
and in the same year a grant by the Laura
Spelman Rockefeller Memorial was used to
establish an Institute of Psychology. In 1929
through gifts from various foundations, the
Institute of Human Relations was organized to
bring all the resources of modern science and
medicine to bear on the basic problems of human
behavior and human society. Among the early
studies undertaken under the institute's
auspices were researches in bankruptcy,
psychology, juvenile delinquency, human
relations in industry, and the development of
young children. In 1932 the should of
Engineering, originally founded in 1852 and
since 1861 a part of Sheffield Scientific
School, was again set up as a separate school,
offering both undergraduate and graduate
courses. University athletics were also
developed under Angell by the appointment of a
central directing head so that sports could he
co-ordinated and broadened. A lover of sports
since his own undergraduate days when he
excelled in baseball and tennis, he sought to
interest students in the games they would play
after they left college. A university, in his
view, should produce a body of men physically
fit, a group for whom sports took a place in a
well-rounded life, not dwarfing other interests.
His conception of education defined it as a
companion, in that it should make a man more at
home with himself and give him something to live
with, besides, as William James said, enabling
him to recognize a good man when he sees one.
After retiring from the presidency of Yale in
1937, Angell accepted an appointment as
educational counselor to the National
Broadcasting Company, of which he was a
director. He spent his first year with NBC
studying foreign and American systems of
broadcasting to determine the relationship
between radio and education. After going abroad
for a survey, he made recommendations which
guided the company's expanding activities in the
field of public service. He served as general
director of the NBC Inter-American University of
the Air. He was the director of the Hall of Fame
at New York University from 1944 until his
death, and honorary national president of the
English-Speaking Union, having been its national
president in 1938-46. For many years he was a
member of the General and International
education boards and Rockefeller Foundation.
Besides many monographs in scientific journals,
his published writings, most of which belonged
to his teaching period as a psychologist, were
<emph render="quoted">Psychology</emph> (1904),
<emph render="quoted">An Introduction to
Psychology</emph> (1918), and <emph
render="quoted">American Education</emph>
(1937). He also edited <emph
render="quoted">Psychological Monographs.</emph>
Angell was a director of the New York Life
Insurance Co. and the RCA Institute, Inc., and a
trustee of the American Museum of Natural
History and the Museum of Science and Industry,
New York city. He became president in 1947 of
the Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Laboratory, Bar
Harbor, Me., founded for cancer research by the
family of the former president of the Hudson
Motor Co. Honorary degrees were awarded him as
follows: Litt.D. by Harvard, Yale, Princeton,
Columbia, Cincinnati, Chicago, and McGill
(1921), Middlebury College (1922), Brown
University and Wesleyan College (1923),
University of Illinois (1929), University of
Michigan (1931), Wabash College (1932), New York
University and University of California (1934),
and Ph.D. by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in
1924. He was decorated chevalier of the French
Legion of Honor in 1930 and became an officer in
1931; was made a grand officer of the Order of
the Crown of Italy in 1935, and was awarded a
gold medal by the National Institute of Social
Sciences in 1937. In his honor the James Rowland
Angell Chair in Psychology was endowed at Yale,
and among several other memorials to him in New
Haven was a wing in the Yale Faculty Club. He
was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences and a member of the British
Psychological Society, American Psychological
Association (pros. 1906), American Philosophical
Society, National Academy of Sciences, Society
of the Cincinnati, University Club, Boston,
Graduate Club Association, New Haven, Cosmos
Club, Washington, D.C., Century Club and Yale
Club of New York city, Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma XI,
Delta Kappa Epsilon and Kappa Delta Pi. His
religious affiliation was with the
Congregational church, and in politics he was an
independent. Classical music and good plays and
books were his special interests, and golf,
sailing and tramping were his favorite
recreations. He was married twice: (1) in Des
Moines, Iowa, Dec. 18, 1894, to Marian Isabel,
daughter of Charles Leach Watrous of that city,
a nurseryman, and had two children, James
Watrous and Marian Caswell, who married William
Rockefeller McAlpin; his first wife died in
1931: (2) in Portland, Me., Aug. 2, 1932, to
Katharine (Cramer) Woodman, daughter of Stuart
Warren Cramer of Charlotte, N.C., and widow of
Paul Woodman. Angell died in Hamden, Conn., Mar.
4, 1949.</p>
<note>
<p><emph render="underline">The National
Cyclopedia of American Biography</emph> Vol. 40,
1955</p>
</note>
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