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PROFESSOR: Professor Mindell
will be a little late today.

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He's at a lunch for, I think,
department heads or something.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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

00:07:50.600 --> 00:07:56.270
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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curriculum.

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A classic, by that I mean an
educational process that

00:08:06.710 --> 00:08:11.120
really emphasized the classic
languages, like Greek and

00:08:11.120 --> 00:08:14.870
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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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

00:09:31.880 --> 00:09:33.440
United States.

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If you look at say, for example,
engineering schools

00:09:37.340 --> 00:09:39.780
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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What?

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AUDIENCE: West Point.

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PROFESSOR: West Point
is the first.

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Yes, absolutely.

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

00:09:55.100 --> 00:09:57.760
influenced by French ideas.

00:09:57.760 --> 00:10:00.830
Very mathematically-oriented
curriculum.

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Very oriented towards
civil engineering.

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Not mechanical as much
as civil engineering.

00:10:06.570 --> 00:10:08.530
And the other school is what?

00:10:08.530 --> 00:10:09.410
AUDIENCE: RPI.

00:10:09.410 --> 00:10:12.460
PROFESSOR: RPI founded
in 1824.

00:10:12.460 --> 00:10:16.940
And now, the current president
of RPI is an MIT graduate.

00:10:16.940 --> 00:10:18.720
So we're all over
the place now.

00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:20.330
This is an imperial operation
that we're

00:10:20.330 --> 00:10:21.885
talking about, right?

00:10:21.885 --> 00:10:23.150
No, not really.

00:10:23.150 --> 00:10:26.790
But MIT's influence, of course,
has become very, very

00:10:26.790 --> 00:10:30.550
significant in terms of
education influences over the

00:10:30.550 --> 00:10:32.710
world in the last, what?

00:10:32.710 --> 00:10:34.020
70 years or so.

00:10:34.020 --> 00:10:36.130
Especially since World War II.

00:10:36.130 --> 00:10:42.210
But those are four areas that
really are at play during this

00:10:42.210 --> 00:10:46.180
period that mark an interesting
best of times way

00:10:46.180 --> 00:10:48.860
of thinking about what
was going on during

00:10:48.860 --> 00:10:50.610
this period of time.

00:10:50.610 --> 00:10:53.950
And maybe the best way to
illustrate this is to talk a

00:10:53.950 --> 00:10:59.890
bit about an event that took
place in 1851 in London when

00:10:59.890 --> 00:11:02.330
the British held what was called
the London Crystal

00:11:02.330 --> 00:11:03.860
Palace exhibition.

00:11:03.860 --> 00:11:08.590
This was the first large
international exhibition that

00:11:08.590 --> 00:11:09.890
we are familiar with today.

00:11:09.890 --> 00:11:12.170
Or maybe not so much
your generation.

00:11:12.170 --> 00:11:14.300
But when I was your age growing
up, there were all

00:11:14.300 --> 00:11:17.610
sorts of these international
exhibitions that were taking

00:11:17.610 --> 00:11:21.220
place, primarily built around
science and technology.

00:11:21.220 --> 00:11:23.040
But this was the first,
the first big

00:11:23.040 --> 00:11:24.140
one was held in London.

00:11:24.140 --> 00:11:27.600
It was organized or sponsored
by the Prince Consort, the

00:11:27.600 --> 00:11:30.190
husband of Queen Victoria,
Albert.

00:11:30.190 --> 00:11:32.280
And it attracted all
the nations of the

00:11:32.280 --> 00:11:33.530
world pretty much.

00:11:35.910 --> 00:11:41.040
And at London, every nation
displayed their wares, things

00:11:41.040 --> 00:11:42.720
they were proud of.

00:11:42.720 --> 00:11:47.160
And the United States had
a lot of space there.

00:11:47.160 --> 00:11:52.330
And the American delegate to
the exhibition got very

00:11:52.330 --> 00:11:56.320
worried because they had too
much space to exhibit fairly

00:11:56.320 --> 00:11:57.690
few things.

00:11:57.690 --> 00:12:00.560
And he was writing back to his
sponsors in New York saying,

00:12:00.560 --> 00:12:02.590
you've got to send
me more stuff.

00:12:02.590 --> 00:12:06.500
Our display spaces
may be 25% full.

00:12:06.500 --> 00:12:08.580
The Brits are making
fun of us.

00:12:08.580 --> 00:12:11.900
And so they would send some
material over, and they'd put

00:12:11.900 --> 00:12:12.940
it in display.

00:12:12.940 --> 00:12:17.110
And the British magazine Punch,
which is sort of a

00:12:17.110 --> 00:12:22.640
satirical magazine of the time,
was making great fun of

00:12:22.640 --> 00:12:25.530
this backwater nation and
what it was displaying.

00:12:25.530 --> 00:12:29.980
Plug tobacco from Henrico
County, Virginia, or apples

00:12:29.980 --> 00:12:34.780
from Vermont, or apple
peelers from Ohio,

00:12:34.780 --> 00:12:36.750
really mundane things.

00:12:36.750 --> 00:12:39.350
When you were comparing this
with French exhibitions of

00:12:39.350 --> 00:12:40.130
[? sieve ?]

00:12:40.130 --> 00:12:42.750
china, or the Russian--

00:12:42.750 --> 00:12:45.120
the famous Russian enamel--

00:12:45.120 --> 00:12:46.370
what's the name of it?

00:12:49.200 --> 00:12:50.890
It's very famous.

00:12:50.890 --> 00:12:54.300
I never remember the name, but
it's a very famous, highly

00:12:54.300 --> 00:12:57.356
ornate and extremely
expensive today.

00:12:57.356 --> 00:12:58.730
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].

00:12:58.730 --> 00:13:00.220
PROFESSOR: Well, they're
like those.

00:13:00.220 --> 00:13:01.040
They can be like that.

00:13:01.040 --> 00:13:03.370
But it has a name and I
cannot remember it.

00:13:03.370 --> 00:13:04.470
Doesn't matter.

00:13:04.470 --> 00:13:07.620
High-end stuff was being
exhibited there.

00:13:07.620 --> 00:13:11.920
The British were exhibiting
famous steam engines and

00:13:11.920 --> 00:13:14.950
technologies, famous
locomotives.

00:13:14.950 --> 00:13:16.420
And here's the United
States with its

00:13:16.420 --> 00:13:18.420
apple peelers and stuff.

00:13:18.420 --> 00:13:21.840
Well, eventually, the US
exhibit got filled up.

00:13:21.840 --> 00:13:24.700
Punch was making a lot of
fun of what was there.

00:13:24.700 --> 00:13:28.560
And then certain competitions
begin to be held.

00:13:28.560 --> 00:13:31.300
And lo and behold, the
Americans started

00:13:31.300 --> 00:13:34.080
winning some prizes.

00:13:34.080 --> 00:13:40.590
For example, the harvester
guy from Chicago.

00:13:40.590 --> 00:13:46.350
Cyrus McCormick exhibited his
reapers for cutting wheat,

00:13:46.350 --> 00:13:48.410
grain, crops like that.

00:13:48.410 --> 00:13:52.020
And he won a prize for beating
out in a competition several

00:13:52.020 --> 00:13:55.940
other reapers that were
displayed there.

00:13:55.940 --> 00:14:00.490
Charles Goodyear, Goodyear Tire
and Rubber Company, was

00:14:00.490 --> 00:14:03.540
displaying boots, rubber boots,
and things that were

00:14:03.540 --> 00:14:05.510
being made with his
vulcanized rubber.

00:14:05.510 --> 00:14:08.250
And he won some recognition.

00:14:08.250 --> 00:14:12.570
Another one, really quite an
interesting one, was a

00:14:12.570 --> 00:14:14.290
locksmith from New York City.

00:14:14.290 --> 00:14:20.490
A guy named Alfred Hobbs,
H-O-B-B-S, displayed his

00:14:20.490 --> 00:14:24.220
padlocks that he had
made in New York.

00:14:24.220 --> 00:14:27.630
And claimed that they
could not be picked.

00:14:27.630 --> 00:14:29.550
And they had a competition
in London.

00:14:29.550 --> 00:14:33.200
There was a very famous British
lockmaker, named

00:14:33.200 --> 00:14:36.110
Joseph Bramah, who made
all the locks for the

00:14:36.110 --> 00:14:37.680
big banks in England.

00:14:37.680 --> 00:14:39.620
And they had put
up this prize.

00:14:39.620 --> 00:14:42.640
I think it was quite a lot of
money, maybe as much as 500

00:14:42.640 --> 00:14:46.100
pounds, which is still
a lot of money today.

00:14:46.100 --> 00:14:49.260
And that was the prize if you
could pick Bramah's lock.

00:14:49.260 --> 00:14:53.790
Well, damned if Hobbs didn't
succeed in picking the British

00:14:53.790 --> 00:14:55.250
lockmaker's locks.

00:14:55.250 --> 00:14:57.260
And that got a lot
of attention.

00:14:57.260 --> 00:15:00.410
Because all a sudden, British
banks became vulnerable.

00:15:00.410 --> 00:15:02.240
People started asking questions
about, well, how

00:15:02.240 --> 00:15:05.000
secure are our faults
after all?

00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:09.230
And immediately, Hobbs, being an
enterprising Yankee, moved

00:15:09.230 --> 00:15:13.390
his business to London to try
to pick up on some of that

00:15:13.390 --> 00:15:17.220
excess business that
was coming his way.

00:15:17.220 --> 00:15:20.480
And then, there was a yacht
race that was held off the

00:15:20.480 --> 00:15:22.260
coast of England.

00:15:22.260 --> 00:15:24.070
And it was called--

00:15:24.070 --> 00:15:26.910
well, I don't know that the
race had any name at that

00:15:26.910 --> 00:15:29.970
time, but the yacht
America beat the

00:15:29.970 --> 00:15:32.100
British yacht, Titannia.

00:15:32.100 --> 00:15:35.330
And that was a serious blow
because Great Britain, at that

00:15:35.330 --> 00:15:38.450
time, had the largest, the most
powerful and famous navy

00:15:38.450 --> 00:15:39.790
in the world.

00:15:39.790 --> 00:15:42.130
And here, these Yankees come
along and beat them in this

00:15:42.130 --> 00:15:43.370
Yacht race.

00:15:43.370 --> 00:15:46.260
So that was sort of a
slap in the face.

00:15:46.260 --> 00:15:48.720
Finally, there were people like
Samuel Colt who were in

00:15:48.720 --> 00:15:52.440
London exhibiting the revolving
pistols, for its day

00:15:52.440 --> 00:15:54.730
a very innovative firearm.

00:15:54.730 --> 00:15:57.520
And then finally, there was a
little company up in Windsor,

00:15:57.520 --> 00:16:00.210
Vermont, named Robbins
and Lawrence.

00:16:00.210 --> 00:16:01.570
You've never heard of
them before and you

00:16:01.570 --> 00:16:02.560
probably never will.

00:16:02.560 --> 00:16:07.660
But they exhibited six rifles,
military rifles, that were

00:16:07.660 --> 00:16:09.550
made for the US Army
that were made with

00:16:09.550 --> 00:16:11.440
interchangeable parts.

00:16:11.440 --> 00:16:13.910
And they were taking them apart,
mixing the parts, and

00:16:13.910 --> 00:16:15.070
putting them back together.

00:16:15.070 --> 00:16:18.090
And everyone was very impressed
about that.

00:16:18.090 --> 00:16:21.450
And again, no one in Europe
was making guns with

00:16:21.450 --> 00:16:24.140
interchangeable parts
at the time, so that

00:16:24.140 --> 00:16:25.790
aroused a lot of interest.

00:16:25.790 --> 00:16:30.730
And that, in turn, prompted the
British government to send

00:16:30.730 --> 00:16:33.250
a committee to the United
States to explore--

00:16:33.250 --> 00:16:36.150
and the name of the committee
is self-explanatory.

00:16:36.150 --> 00:16:39.380
It's called the Committee on
the Machinery of the United

00:16:39.380 --> 00:16:42.360
States of America.

00:16:42.360 --> 00:16:45.430
That covers a lot
of territory.

00:16:45.430 --> 00:16:47.780
Not just gunmaking machinery.

00:16:47.780 --> 00:16:50.810
They land the New York
in April of 1854.

00:16:50.810 --> 00:16:51.920
They leave in August.

00:16:51.920 --> 00:16:54.650
And then the process, they come

00:16:54.650 --> 00:16:56.710
immediately to New England.

00:16:56.710 --> 00:16:57.600
Well, why New England?

00:16:57.600 --> 00:17:01.550
Because at that time, Boston
in the New England area was

00:17:01.550 --> 00:17:05.849
the center point of American
industry at that time.

00:17:05.849 --> 00:17:08.050
And so they immediately
head to New England.

00:17:08.050 --> 00:17:09.290
And where do they go first?

00:17:09.290 --> 00:17:12.770
They go to the Springfield
Armory out in Springfield,

00:17:12.770 --> 00:17:15.910
Massachusetts, which was not
just famous for making guns

00:17:15.910 --> 00:17:17.770
with interchangeable parts--

00:17:17.770 --> 00:17:20.369
and it's a government-owned
armory.

00:17:20.369 --> 00:17:23.589
It also was very famous as being
sort of a clearinghouse

00:17:23.589 --> 00:17:25.849
of technological information.

00:17:25.849 --> 00:17:29.000
If you got a letter from your
congressman or some dignitary,

00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:31.665
they would give you access to
this place to examine all of

00:17:31.665 --> 00:17:37.640
its machinery, gauging systems,
patterns, drawings,

00:17:37.640 --> 00:17:39.340
and you could make copies
of this stuff.

00:17:39.340 --> 00:17:41.730
And it was free.

00:17:41.730 --> 00:17:44.670
So the Brits took advantage
of that right off the bat.

00:17:44.670 --> 00:17:47.660
So they went to Springfield
immediately, took a good look

00:17:47.660 --> 00:17:48.830
see what was going on there.

00:17:48.830 --> 00:17:54.390
Then they proceeded to make a
tour of the whole eastern

00:17:54.390 --> 00:17:57.550
coast of the United States
as far south as Richmond.

00:17:57.550 --> 00:18:00.030
And then from Richmond, they
went west out into the

00:18:00.030 --> 00:18:01.510
Pittsburgh area--

00:18:01.510 --> 00:18:03.650
Wheeling, West Virginia,
Pittsburgh.

00:18:03.650 --> 00:18:06.230
And then they swung further
north around the Great Lakes

00:18:06.230 --> 00:18:08.000
up into Buffalo, New
York, and then came

00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:09.930
across upstate New York.

00:18:09.930 --> 00:18:11.640
I believe on the New York
Central Railroad.

00:18:11.640 --> 00:18:14.200
It was just build at the time.

00:18:14.200 --> 00:18:16.810
If not, they would've used the
Erie Canal, which parallels

00:18:16.810 --> 00:18:18.490
pretty much that railroad.

00:18:18.490 --> 00:18:22.240
And then, they dipped back down
in New England and spent

00:18:22.240 --> 00:18:23.820
a lot of time in New England.

00:18:23.820 --> 00:18:29.420
Ending up buying $105,000 worth
of machine tools for

00:18:29.420 --> 00:18:32.850
really, the reconstruction of
the British Enfield Armory,

00:18:32.850 --> 00:18:36.590
which was the main government
armory in England.

00:18:36.590 --> 00:18:40.410
Now, that's a significant moment
because up until this

00:18:40.410 --> 00:18:45.186
point, pretty much the United
States had been a borrower of

00:18:45.186 --> 00:18:46.870
technology and technological
information.

00:18:46.870 --> 00:18:50.900
This is one of the big moments
in which the shift had begun,

00:18:50.900 --> 00:18:54.130
in which new technologies and
information were beginning to

00:18:54.130 --> 00:18:57.150
make their way from the United
States to Europe.

00:19:00.460 --> 00:19:04.430
It was sort of a wake-up call.

00:19:04.430 --> 00:19:07.560
In a way, I think parallel to
what's happening today with

00:19:07.560 --> 00:19:10.470
reference to the growth
of large economies

00:19:10.470 --> 00:19:12.720
in China and India.

00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:14.690
All of a sudden, people are
turning their heads and

00:19:14.690 --> 00:19:16.460
saying, hey, something's
happening there.

00:19:16.460 --> 00:19:19.330
I heard on the radio this
morning that in terms of

00:19:19.330 --> 00:19:23.100
economic prowess, that China
will outgrow the

00:19:23.100 --> 00:19:25.060
United States by--

00:19:25.060 --> 00:19:27.460
well, maybe not in my lifetime,
but in yours.

00:19:27.460 --> 00:19:32.600
By the 2020s, or thereabouts.

00:19:32.600 --> 00:19:34.150
That's significant moment.

00:19:34.150 --> 00:19:35.650
Big shift.

00:19:35.650 --> 00:19:37.620
Whether it happens is
another question.

00:19:37.620 --> 00:19:38.710
Who knows?

00:19:38.710 --> 00:19:44.950
But in any case, that moment
in 1851 indicates why there

00:19:44.950 --> 00:19:49.420
was this feeling that these are
really interesting times.

00:19:49.420 --> 00:19:51.560
These are the best of times
from an engineering and

00:19:51.560 --> 00:19:54.710
technology point of view.

00:19:54.710 --> 00:19:57.570
The economy is moving, and
it's moving very fast.

00:19:57.570 --> 00:20:00.080
There was only one
damper on this.

00:20:00.080 --> 00:20:03.790
It was a panic that took place
in 1857 that slowed--

00:20:03.790 --> 00:20:07.720
it actually slowed production
for a while, but it never

00:20:07.720 --> 00:20:09.520
stopped it.

00:20:09.520 --> 00:20:12.890
And other than that, this was
a moment of great change in

00:20:12.890 --> 00:20:14.740
the United States.

00:20:14.740 --> 00:20:17.240
Now, compare that with the theme
of the worst of times.

00:20:17.240 --> 00:20:18.790
What's going on in
the same period.

00:20:18.790 --> 00:20:21.830
And this is pretty much very
similar to what you-- if you

00:20:21.830 --> 00:20:25.170
read that chapter I wrote on the
1850s in the textbook, you

00:20:25.170 --> 00:20:26.140
get the drift.

00:20:26.140 --> 00:20:28.450
I don't need to go into great
detail about it, but it's all

00:20:28.450 --> 00:20:31.040
about the slavery issue in the
United States and the sort of

00:20:31.040 --> 00:20:34.250
sectional divisions that
are taking places

00:20:34.250 --> 00:20:35.690
as a result of this.

00:20:35.690 --> 00:20:38.790
And it begins--

00:20:38.790 --> 00:20:41.000
if you're to talk about, well,
when does the big debate about

00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:44.280
slavery take place and when
does it originate?

00:20:44.280 --> 00:20:48.520
It was being discussed as early
as the 1780s when the US

00:20:48.520 --> 00:20:51.190
Constitution was
being debated.

00:20:51.190 --> 00:20:54.060
How are slaves going to be
counted in terms of voting and

00:20:54.060 --> 00:20:55.260
things like that?

00:20:55.260 --> 00:21:01.750
And then later, in 1820, the
first big political issue

00:21:01.750 --> 00:21:04.390
concerning slavery came up
with reference to the

00:21:04.390 --> 00:21:08.750
admission of Missouri into the
Union as a slave state.

00:21:08.750 --> 00:21:12.250
And the great compromise that
was achieved at that time was,

00:21:12.250 --> 00:21:16.000
OK, you bring in Missouri as a
slave state, we'll bring in

00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:17.790
Maine as a free state.

00:21:17.790 --> 00:21:21.020
And that sort of tit for tat
sort of balance maintained

00:21:21.020 --> 00:21:25.040
itself up until 1850, when
California was brought into a

00:21:25.040 --> 00:21:27.570
Union as a free state
and nothing came

00:21:27.570 --> 00:21:29.660
in as a slave state.

00:21:29.660 --> 00:21:30.700
Why is that significant?

00:21:30.700 --> 00:21:35.270
Because it gave free states the
edge in the US Senate in

00:21:35.270 --> 00:21:36.260
terms of voting.

00:21:36.260 --> 00:21:38.170
Each state got two
US senators.

00:21:38.170 --> 00:21:41.190
So that meant the Senate now was
under the control of free

00:21:41.190 --> 00:21:43.460
state politicians.

00:21:43.460 --> 00:21:45.390
That's a big deal.

00:21:45.390 --> 00:21:51.760
But between the Missouri
Compromise and 1861, when the

00:21:51.760 --> 00:21:58.430
war comes, there are a series
of cascading crises that I

00:21:58.430 --> 00:22:03.370
would say create a psychology
of crisis by the 1850s that

00:22:03.370 --> 00:22:06.300
make things worse, and
worse, and worse.

00:22:06.300 --> 00:22:10.120
And more tension and more
division, so much so that you

00:22:10.120 --> 00:22:14.570
have South Carolina seceding
from the Union in December of

00:22:14.570 --> 00:22:18.230
1860, right after Lincoln's
election as president.

00:22:18.230 --> 00:22:18.960
Why Lincoln?

00:22:18.960 --> 00:22:23.220
Why was Lincoln such
a feared figure?

00:22:23.220 --> 00:22:25.630
Well, he represented the
Republican Party.

00:22:25.630 --> 00:22:28.470
This is the same party we have
today, Republican Party.

00:22:28.470 --> 00:22:31.960
It was created an 1854,
the origins of it.

00:22:31.960 --> 00:22:34.380
And the Republican Party started
out, one of its chief

00:22:34.380 --> 00:22:38.870
points was no expansion of
slavery into new territories.

00:22:38.870 --> 00:22:40.585
It wasn't, let's get
rid of slavery.

00:22:40.585 --> 00:22:44.230
It was just, we're against the
expansion of slavery into new

00:22:44.230 --> 00:22:45.670
territories that would
come into the

00:22:45.670 --> 00:22:47.530
United States as states.

00:22:47.530 --> 00:22:49.130
But Lincoln stood for that.

00:22:49.130 --> 00:22:52.070
He was not an abolitionist
in the sense of immediate

00:22:52.070 --> 00:22:53.440
abolition of slavery
everywhere.

00:22:53.440 --> 00:22:54.410
He was not that.

00:22:54.410 --> 00:22:57.230
He eventually would come to that
during the war, but not

00:22:57.230 --> 00:22:59.000
at the beginning of the war.

00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:02.460
And just to talk about Lincoln
in this context is extremely

00:23:02.460 --> 00:23:03.050
interesting.

00:23:03.050 --> 00:23:05.400
Because he is--

00:23:05.400 --> 00:23:07.720
you're bringing me flowers?

00:23:07.720 --> 00:23:09.600
How thoughtful?

00:23:09.600 --> 00:23:16.000
Anyway, he's a masterful
politician, who really--

00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:18.560
in many ways, sort of skirts
around the slavery issue and

00:23:18.560 --> 00:23:22.310
uses it when he has to, to make
policy with reference to

00:23:22.310 --> 00:23:24.760
pursuit of the Civil War.

00:23:24.760 --> 00:23:27.930
But prior to the Civil War, you
have a series of crises

00:23:27.930 --> 00:23:30.320
that really bring it on.

00:23:30.320 --> 00:23:33.070
And I would say if you were to
ask me, well, what were they?

00:23:33.070 --> 00:23:36.310
I'll give you my
three top ones.

00:23:36.310 --> 00:23:38.100
I'm not going to relay
every one of them.

00:23:38.100 --> 00:23:39.550
You can look them up.

00:23:39.550 --> 00:23:45.620
But one is definitely the famous
Wilmot Proviso of 1846.

00:23:45.620 --> 00:23:48.900
This was a bill that was put up
in Congress by a Free Soil

00:23:48.900 --> 00:23:51.100
Democratic, congressman
from Pennsylvania.

00:23:51.100 --> 00:23:53.600
Actually, from my hometown.

00:23:53.600 --> 00:23:58.510
I'm very proud of David Wilmot
because he was the initiator

00:23:58.510 --> 00:23:59.940
of this Wilmot Proviso.

00:23:59.940 --> 00:24:01.460
And what did that say?

00:24:01.460 --> 00:24:04.710
Well, it said-- basically, it
was attached to an army

00:24:04.710 --> 00:24:07.570
appropriations bill for the
Mexican war, which said that

00:24:07.570 --> 00:24:10.610
if the United States is to
secure any territory from

00:24:10.610 --> 00:24:13.750
Mexico as a result of this
war, that territory, if

00:24:13.750 --> 00:24:16.090
organized into states,
has to come into the

00:24:16.090 --> 00:24:17.780
Union as free states.

00:24:17.780 --> 00:24:22.000
Well, you can understand why
Southerners got very upset

00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:22.670
about that.

00:24:22.670 --> 00:24:26.530
And that issued a heated debate
that continued right up

00:24:26.530 --> 00:24:28.790
until 1861.

00:24:28.790 --> 00:24:31.890
After the Wilmot Proviso, it
seemed that every Congress

00:24:31.890 --> 00:24:35.550
there was something brought to
the forefront that was about

00:24:35.550 --> 00:24:39.220
the extension or non-extension
of slavery.

00:24:39.220 --> 00:24:42.660
Another moment that was very,
I think, had a great deal of

00:24:42.660 --> 00:24:46.740
influence was the publication
of Harriet Beecher Stowe's

00:24:46.740 --> 00:24:48.660
novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin.

00:24:48.660 --> 00:24:51.370
That appeared in 1851, the
same year that I just

00:24:51.370 --> 00:24:54.810
mentioned with reference to the
best of times, the great

00:24:54.810 --> 00:24:56.970
London Crystal Palace
exhibition.

00:24:56.970 --> 00:25:00.010
That got a huge readership.

00:25:00.010 --> 00:25:05.120
And as a result of her critique
really, in this novel

00:25:05.120 --> 00:25:09.930
of slavery and how evil it was,
turned a lot of people

00:25:09.930 --> 00:25:13.860
against the idea of
slavery and it's

00:25:13.860 --> 00:25:15.740
being a righteous cause.

00:25:15.740 --> 00:25:18.840
So that had a lot of feedback.

00:25:18.840 --> 00:25:22.680
There was actually reward put
on her head in the South.

00:25:22.680 --> 00:25:24.620
I think it's in South Carolina,
which is one of the

00:25:24.620 --> 00:25:27.810
more hard line states
at that time.

00:25:27.810 --> 00:25:31.220
But she was not a
person who was--

00:25:31.220 --> 00:25:34.510
she dared not travel South of
the Mason-Dixon line because

00:25:34.510 --> 00:25:36.750
anyone could shoot
her or whatever.

00:25:36.750 --> 00:25:39.630
She was a woman that
was wanted.

00:25:39.630 --> 00:25:44.180
And so her book, which started
out as newspaper articles,

00:25:44.180 --> 00:25:45.850
eventually got a huge
readership.

00:25:45.850 --> 00:25:51.820
I think next to the Bible, it
was the largest-selling book

00:25:51.820 --> 00:25:53.480
of the 19th century.

00:25:53.480 --> 00:25:55.200
That's how big this thing was.

00:25:55.200 --> 00:25:56.330
Huge.

00:25:56.330 --> 00:25:59.950
And then finally, I think the
third point I would say that

00:25:59.950 --> 00:26:03.240
really, probably was the straw
that broke the camel's back,

00:26:03.240 --> 00:26:06.230
was when the abolitionist
John Brown raided

00:26:06.230 --> 00:26:09.290
Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

00:26:09.290 --> 00:26:12.360
Now, Harpers Ferry today is
located in the panhandle of

00:26:12.360 --> 00:26:13.100
West Virginia.

00:26:13.100 --> 00:26:15.850
It's about 60 miles west
of Washington, DC,

00:26:15.850 --> 00:26:17.620
on the Potomac River.

00:26:17.620 --> 00:26:22.270
But at that time, Harpers Ferry
had one of the two large

00:26:22.270 --> 00:26:23.870
national armories,

00:26:23.870 --> 00:26:25.380
government-owned armories there.

00:26:25.380 --> 00:26:27.510
And the reason he raided Harpers
Ferry was that he

00:26:27.510 --> 00:26:31.160
wanted to seize firearms that
were being stored there.

00:26:31.160 --> 00:26:33.950
Some 10,000 guns were
in storage there.

00:26:33.950 --> 00:26:37.780
And arm slaves, and start a
slave rebellion against slave

00:26:37.780 --> 00:26:40.490
masters because they were right
on the Virginia border.

00:26:40.490 --> 00:26:43.090
Literally, you cross the river
and you were in Virginia.

00:26:43.090 --> 00:26:48.250
And the Brown Raid really sent
the fear of the Lord

00:26:48.250 --> 00:26:49.190
throughout the South.

00:26:49.190 --> 00:26:52.450
I mean, I've written a book
about Harpers Ferry, and I

00:26:52.450 --> 00:26:54.140
know what the local
reaction was.

00:26:54.140 --> 00:26:57.640
People became totally
paranoid.

00:26:57.640 --> 00:27:00.520
As far as they were concerned
after that raid, there was an

00:27:00.520 --> 00:27:03.470
abolitionist lurking
behind every tree.

00:27:03.470 --> 00:27:08.150
And they organized militias and
they did runaway hunts.

00:27:08.150 --> 00:27:13.900
And it was very much like a
vigilante moment in the sense

00:27:13.900 --> 00:27:15.430
that the whole South became

00:27:15.430 --> 00:27:17.470
vigilantitized, if that's a word.

00:27:17.470 --> 00:27:18.980
It's not a word.

00:27:18.980 --> 00:27:19.610
What would it be?

00:27:19.610 --> 00:27:21.800
Vigilant--

00:27:21.800 --> 00:27:22.770
vigilized?

00:27:22.770 --> 00:27:24.690
No, I don't know.

00:27:24.690 --> 00:27:28.420
Anyway, I will just change the
sentence and say, vigilante

00:27:28.420 --> 00:27:31.935
groups grew by leaps and
bounds after that raid.

00:27:31.935 --> 00:27:32.420
AUDIENCE: Vigilant.

00:27:32.420 --> 00:27:33.520
PROFESSOR: Vigilant.

00:27:33.520 --> 00:27:34.870
There you go.

00:27:34.870 --> 00:27:37.030
Paranoid vigilance.

00:27:37.030 --> 00:27:40.400
Anyway, following that, of
course, that took place in

00:27:40.400 --> 00:27:41.910
October of 1859.

00:27:41.910 --> 00:27:44.130
The following year was
an election year.

00:27:44.130 --> 00:27:45.530
And that's when Lincoln
gets elected.

00:27:45.530 --> 00:27:50.400
Well, you can imagine why this
became such a heated election.

00:27:50.400 --> 00:27:51.380
There were, what?

00:27:51.380 --> 00:27:55.000
There were at least three or
four candidates in that

00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:58.400
election, and Lincoln wins not
with the majority vote.

00:27:58.400 --> 00:28:00.550
But he gets him enough to get
himself elected in the

00:28:00.550 --> 00:28:01.800
electoral college.

00:28:04.660 --> 00:28:07.520
And then you have, within a
month of Lincoln's election,

00:28:07.520 --> 00:28:10.820
you have that secession
crisis.

00:28:10.820 --> 00:28:13.710
South Carolina goes out on
December 20, and it's followed

00:28:13.710 --> 00:28:17.800
by around seven other deep
Southern states.

00:28:17.800 --> 00:28:21.000
Interestingly, the northern tier
of Southern states, like

00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:22.990
Virginia, do not go
out until later.

00:28:22.990 --> 00:28:25.480
Virginia and Tennessee,
they don't secede

00:28:25.480 --> 00:28:27.720
until at least April.

00:28:27.720 --> 00:28:30.610
I think it's April that
Virginia secedes.

00:28:30.610 --> 00:28:34.720
But by then, within
days, war comes.

00:28:34.720 --> 00:28:37.330
And the irony of all this
is that the war--

00:28:37.330 --> 00:28:38.100
the Sumter--

00:28:38.100 --> 00:28:40.940
the attack on Fort Sumter, which
signals the beginning of

00:28:40.940 --> 00:28:45.600
the American Civil War, is four
days after William Barton

00:28:45.600 --> 00:28:50.390
Rogers got his charter from the
state of Massachusetts to

00:28:50.390 --> 00:28:53.950
establish the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.

00:28:53.950 --> 00:28:58.370
Not a good time to be getting
into the education business

00:28:58.370 --> 00:29:02.080
because all eyes were shifted
on the secession crisis.

00:29:02.080 --> 00:29:04.870
All budgets were being shifted
toward getting ready in

00:29:04.870 --> 00:29:07.210
preparation for war.

00:29:07.210 --> 00:29:11.380
And all of a sudden, there's
this big, national crisis in

00:29:11.380 --> 00:29:15.780
which this new fledgling
institution is supposed to be

00:29:15.780 --> 00:29:17.450
taking root.

00:29:17.450 --> 00:29:23.990
And it doesn't really take root
until the war ends when

00:29:23.990 --> 00:29:25.740
students are admitted.

00:29:25.740 --> 00:29:28.910
And I think it's the
spring of 1860--

00:29:28.910 --> 00:29:31.470
early 1865.

00:29:31.470 --> 00:29:33.850
So literally, MIT is
established in the

00:29:33.850 --> 00:29:35.870
midst of civil war.

00:29:35.870 --> 00:29:37.260
And just to follow that out--

00:29:37.260 --> 00:29:39.590
well, no, I won't follow
it out anymore.

00:29:39.590 --> 00:29:41.216
Those are basically--

00:29:41.216 --> 00:29:44.870
that's the good and the bad
story of the 1850s.

00:29:44.870 --> 00:29:47.250
It's a very complex time.

00:29:47.250 --> 00:29:52.690
And it's one of those historical
moments that is

00:29:52.690 --> 00:29:57.620
filled with tension, and change,
and reorientation.

00:29:57.620 --> 00:30:00.200
It's just a critical
moment in history.

00:30:00.200 --> 00:30:02.760
And then, it's capped by the
outbreak of the Civil War,

00:30:02.760 --> 00:30:06.050
right at the moment when this
place is being founded.

00:30:06.050 --> 00:30:10.010
I really wonder sometimes how
in the world Rogers held it

00:30:10.010 --> 00:30:11.750
all together.

00:30:11.750 --> 00:30:16.780
He must have worked very hard
to try to just keep things

00:30:16.780 --> 00:30:19.450
together enough so that the
Institution itself could

00:30:19.450 --> 00:30:21.020
survive through that
war, and then

00:30:21.020 --> 00:30:26.810
open up to a few students.

00:30:26.810 --> 00:30:28.765
Not a huge number, I
forget the number.

00:30:28.765 --> 00:30:32.620
It's under a hundred when
they first open up.

00:30:32.620 --> 00:30:34.640
One thing to note, however,
is that he's a

00:30:34.640 --> 00:30:37.110
progressive in many ways.

00:30:37.110 --> 00:30:41.070
He's very much in favor of women
coming to the Institute

00:30:41.070 --> 00:30:45.770
at a time when most colleges
were not in favor of that.

00:30:49.460 --> 00:30:53.320
It was still an institution that
was dominated by males,

00:30:53.320 --> 00:30:54.500
there's no doubt about that.

00:30:54.500 --> 00:30:57.270
Women tended to be part-time
students, or they were called

00:30:57.270 --> 00:31:00.550
"special students." That term
is still used today,

00:31:00.550 --> 00:31:08.480
"specials." And it's not until,
I would say the 1970s

00:31:08.480 --> 00:31:11.620
or thereabouts, that women began
to grow in proportion to

00:31:11.620 --> 00:31:14.250
the number of men at MIT.

00:31:14.250 --> 00:31:18.110
But William Barton Rogers was
always in favor of allowing

00:31:18.110 --> 00:31:21.500
women to come to the Institute,
which in itself was

00:31:21.500 --> 00:31:22.810
sort of innovative.

00:31:22.810 --> 00:31:25.390
He tended to be on the right
side of a lot of issues.

00:31:25.390 --> 00:31:27.850
For example, when Darwin
announced--

00:31:27.850 --> 00:31:30.440
I'm giving away my bias
against Darwin.

00:31:30.440 --> 00:31:35.420
But when Darwin published The
Origins of Species, of course

00:31:35.420 --> 00:31:38.320
he got a lot of flack from
scientists around the world.

00:31:38.320 --> 00:31:40.240
One of whom was Louis--

00:31:40.240 --> 00:31:42.125
I never pronounce
his name right.

00:31:42.125 --> 00:31:42.590
AUDIENCE: Agassiz.

00:31:42.590 --> 00:31:43.180
PROFESSOR: Aggasiz.

00:31:43.180 --> 00:31:45.910
I want to say "Ah-ga-zay."
It's Aggasiz.

00:31:45.910 --> 00:31:49.320
There's a school that used to be
called the Agassiz School.

00:31:49.320 --> 00:31:50.680
You'd think I'd remember it.

00:31:50.680 --> 00:31:57.720
But he was at Harvard, and he
was a big critic of Darwin's.

00:31:57.720 --> 00:32:01.450
Our friend Rogers, on the
other hand, stood up and

00:32:01.450 --> 00:32:05.850
debated, and really defended
the Darwinian idea in the

00:32:05.850 --> 00:32:06.570
United States.

00:32:06.570 --> 00:32:08.730
He was one of the primary
defenders in this area.

00:32:08.730 --> 00:32:12.580
So that counts in his
favor, I think.

00:32:12.580 --> 00:32:16.410
A man who pioneered the field
of geology in the United

00:32:16.410 --> 00:32:19.030
States, we'll talk a little bit
more about that next week.

00:32:19.030 --> 00:32:21.850
But he's an important
intellectual force.

00:32:21.850 --> 00:32:25.610
And he had this vision for a new
type of institution that

00:32:25.610 --> 00:32:28.280
he wanted to see established,
which eventually became the

00:32:28.280 --> 00:32:30.420
place that we're sitting
in today.

00:32:30.420 --> 00:32:33.940
So I must tell you that I didn't
know much about William

00:32:33.940 --> 00:32:36.870
Barton Rogers four years ago.

00:32:36.870 --> 00:32:38.410
I knew he was the founder
of MIT, and I

00:32:38.410 --> 00:32:39.580
didn't know much else.

00:32:39.580 --> 00:32:42.870
And then, there was a book that
was being published for

00:32:42.870 --> 00:32:45.960
the 150th anniversary of MIT by
one of my colleagues and he

00:32:45.960 --> 00:32:49.520
asked me to write an
essay about Rogers.

00:32:49.520 --> 00:32:52.650
And my answer primarily
was, crap.

00:32:52.650 --> 00:32:54.840
Why do I have to do that?

00:32:54.840 --> 00:32:57.000
Because I didn't know anything
about the subject.

00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:00.860
And I thought, somebody
else should do this.

00:33:00.860 --> 00:33:04.060
But I agreed, primarily because
he's a good colleague,

00:33:04.060 --> 00:33:06.840
and a friend, and it's
hard to say no.

00:33:06.840 --> 00:33:08.700
And at that point, I started
reading up on

00:33:08.700 --> 00:33:09.890
the history of MIT.

00:33:09.890 --> 00:33:12.980
And the more I read about this
place, the more amazed I am

00:33:12.980 --> 00:33:17.300
about what it is, what it stands
for, how it developed.

00:33:17.300 --> 00:33:18.460
It's an amazing story.

00:33:18.460 --> 00:33:22.020
So I'm hoping that during the
term you'll get bits and

00:33:22.020 --> 00:33:28.050
pieces of this story, and kind
of pull them together.

00:33:28.050 --> 00:33:31.420
We don't have a history
of MIT.

00:33:31.420 --> 00:33:34.640
There is no single book that you
can pull off the bookshelf

00:33:34.640 --> 00:33:37.640
and say, this is the
history of MIT.

00:33:37.640 --> 00:33:38.580
That doesn't exist.

00:33:38.580 --> 00:33:41.620
There are lots of bits and
pieces of history of MIT, but

00:33:41.620 --> 00:33:45.570
no one book that does that.

00:33:45.570 --> 00:33:50.040
And somebody should do it, I
think, because it's really--

00:33:50.040 --> 00:33:51.290
it's an important institution.

00:33:54.200 --> 00:33:56.900
I know I'm proud to be here
and I think you are, too.

00:33:56.900 --> 00:33:59.080
I know you work very hard.

00:33:59.080 --> 00:34:02.410
And you probably bitch and
moan about that a lot.

00:34:02.410 --> 00:34:07.120
For good reason, but it's worth
it when you get the

00:34:07.120 --> 00:34:09.394
education, get the Brass
Rat and leave here.

00:34:09.394 --> 00:34:12.310
You've got something you can
be proud of, too, I think.

00:34:12.310 --> 00:34:13.389
It's quite a place.

00:34:13.389 --> 00:34:18.010
And just, the more I learn about
it, the more amazed I am

00:34:18.010 --> 00:34:20.110
about all that's
happened here.

00:34:20.110 --> 00:34:23.239
And the story even gets more
dramatic the further we come

00:34:23.239 --> 00:34:24.800
to the present.

00:34:24.800 --> 00:34:26.960
And David Mindell knows a lot
about that part of the

00:34:26.960 --> 00:34:28.120
Institute's history.

00:34:28.120 --> 00:34:35.800
So that's where we are for
today's talk or lecture.

00:34:35.800 --> 00:34:39.760
Now, you want to take a break
for a few minutes and I will

00:34:39.760 --> 00:34:42.090
collaborate with my colleague
about the discussion.

00:34:42.090 --> 00:34:45.630
We'll have a little discussion
about this and

00:34:45.630 --> 00:34:46.949
move on from there.

00:34:46.949 --> 00:34:48.199
OK?

00:34:50.350 --> 00:34:52.750
Huge numbers.

00:34:52.750 --> 00:34:57.110
By my count, roughly
750,000 died.

00:34:57.110 --> 00:34:59.960
Now, that's not necessarily
battlefield deaths, it's

00:34:59.960 --> 00:35:02.580
including people whose wounds
killed them after the war was

00:35:02.580 --> 00:35:05.110
over, things like that.

00:35:05.110 --> 00:35:08.470
So it's a really bloody war.

00:35:08.470 --> 00:35:11.010
And I don't know what percentage
of the population

00:35:11.010 --> 00:35:15.250
that is, but it's a significant
number.

00:35:15.250 --> 00:35:18.920
It would be like losing--

00:35:18.920 --> 00:35:21.050
say, if we were to have a
similar war today, it would

00:35:21.050 --> 00:35:27.280
probably be in the order of
losing maybe 1, 1.5 million

00:35:27.280 --> 00:35:28.840
soldiers in the war.

00:35:28.840 --> 00:35:31.143
Would we stand for that today?

00:35:31.143 --> 00:35:34.460
That's pretty bad.

00:35:34.460 --> 00:35:37.310
It's bad enough when you're
losing thousands, but when

00:35:37.310 --> 00:35:41.350
you're losing over a million,
that's getting into a whole

00:35:41.350 --> 00:35:43.700
different realm.

00:35:43.700 --> 00:35:48.530
As you say, it's one of these
moments that is not apparently

00:35:48.530 --> 00:35:49.280
the best time.

00:35:49.280 --> 00:35:50.530
And yet, you see it coming.

00:35:56.720 --> 00:36:02.480
What are the earmarks
of knowing that it

00:36:02.480 --> 00:36:03.260
was the right moment?

00:36:03.260 --> 00:36:07.020
What was Roger's thinking when
he was thinking about trying

00:36:07.020 --> 00:36:09.090
to establish a polytechnic
institute?

00:36:09.090 --> 00:36:13.530
As I said earlier, he starts
thinking about this as early

00:36:13.530 --> 00:36:16.060
as the late 1820s.

00:36:16.060 --> 00:36:19.810
He's very close to his
brother, Henry.

00:36:19.810 --> 00:36:25.420
Interestingly, Henry's full name
was Henry Darwin Rogers.

00:36:25.420 --> 00:36:27.680
Their father was an
immigrant from--

00:36:27.680 --> 00:36:31.430
I believe they came
from Scotland.

00:36:31.430 --> 00:36:33.250
Or maybe Northern Ireland,
I'm not sure.

00:36:33.250 --> 00:36:36.730
But he clearly was familiar with
the Darwin family, which

00:36:36.730 --> 00:36:39.980
was not just-- this would have
been Charles' father, I

00:36:39.980 --> 00:36:41.990
suspect, or someone like that.

00:36:41.990 --> 00:36:45.960
But in any case, here are these
two brothers talking

00:36:45.960 --> 00:36:51.420
about the need for a polytechnic
institute.

00:36:51.420 --> 00:36:54.240
They're not engineers.

00:36:54.240 --> 00:36:56.440
They're scientists.

00:36:56.440 --> 00:36:59.190
William Barton Rogers, I guess
if you would have asked him in

00:36:59.190 --> 00:37:01.810
1825, what are you?

00:37:01.810 --> 00:37:03.330
He would have probably
called himself--

00:37:06.210 --> 00:37:09.170
what would be the word for
physicist in those days?

00:37:09.170 --> 00:37:10.700
DAVID MINDELL: Natural
philosopher.

00:37:10.700 --> 00:37:13.700
PROFESSOR: Natural philosopher,
yeah.

00:37:13.700 --> 00:37:16.820
When he first established the
Institute, one of the courses

00:37:16.820 --> 00:37:19.060
he thought was basically
the physics course.

00:37:19.060 --> 00:37:22.090
That didn't last for long
because his obligations were

00:37:22.090 --> 00:37:25.520
so many that he had to hire
somebody to do it.

00:37:25.520 --> 00:37:30.170
And then he made the shift
during the 1820s and '30s into

00:37:30.170 --> 00:37:31.330
the field of geology.

00:37:31.330 --> 00:37:35.620
He was one of the early
geologists in this country.

00:37:35.620 --> 00:37:39.280
And really makes his name in
that area that we can talk

00:37:39.280 --> 00:37:40.200
more about next week.

00:37:40.200 --> 00:37:44.520
But when you look at the period,
there's a lot of stuff

00:37:44.520 --> 00:37:46.360
going on that would have
indicated, yes,

00:37:46.360 --> 00:37:48.470
we need these places.

00:37:48.470 --> 00:37:52.800
But we're right in the middle
of an Industrial Revolution.

00:37:52.800 --> 00:37:55.780
We'll see from the essay that
I've written-- did you read

00:37:55.780 --> 00:37:56.740
the essay I wrote yet?

00:37:56.740 --> 00:37:59.050
That's next week, I think.

00:37:59.050 --> 00:38:05.120
You'll see in there that he
conducts a geological survey

00:38:05.120 --> 00:38:07.810
of the state of Virginia, which
proved to be a political

00:38:07.810 --> 00:38:12.370
nightmare for him because of the
fighting that went on over

00:38:12.370 --> 00:38:14.820
what should be his
primary mission.

00:38:14.820 --> 00:38:17.890
That state is divided between
Eastern and Western interests,

00:38:17.890 --> 00:38:20.220
and they were vying with one
another about, what should

00:38:20.220 --> 00:38:22.240
this survey really be about?

00:38:22.240 --> 00:38:24.280
He got caught in the
middle of that.

00:38:24.280 --> 00:38:28.680
And in the process of trying
to make everyone happy, he

00:38:28.680 --> 00:38:32.260
doesn't have enough assistance
of people who are technically

00:38:32.260 --> 00:38:36.050
competent to do the surveys,
and the note-taking, and

00:38:36.050 --> 00:38:36.750
things like that.

00:38:36.750 --> 00:38:40.300
Clearly that's one impetus to
him, was starting to think

00:38:40.300 --> 00:38:43.930
about, boy, do we need people
who are trained to be able to

00:38:43.930 --> 00:38:47.790
do the sort of work that's
necessary to explore our

00:38:47.790 --> 00:38:51.020
industrial resources, or
actually go into these

00:38:51.020 --> 00:38:53.900
industrial areas and
actually run them.

00:38:53.900 --> 00:38:58.255
That's one of the sources of
his idea about MIT were--

00:38:58.255 --> 00:39:01.280
he wasn't calling it
MIT in those days.

00:39:01.280 --> 00:39:05.070
The name MIT for him doesn't
emerge until the late 1850s.

00:39:05.070 --> 00:39:07.480
Much later.

00:39:07.480 --> 00:39:09.560
He's teaching in Virginia
this time.

00:39:09.560 --> 00:39:11.120
He's born and raised
in Virginia.

00:39:11.120 --> 00:39:15.080
His dad taught at William
and Mary College.

00:39:15.080 --> 00:39:18.710
And so he's raised in
the slave society.

00:39:18.710 --> 00:39:22.790
And yet, surely-- well, he
marries a woman from Boston,

00:39:22.790 --> 00:39:26.830
but he's never--

00:39:26.830 --> 00:39:29.270
I've never seen anything in his
writings that indicated

00:39:29.270 --> 00:39:31.200
that he was pro-slavery.

00:39:31.200 --> 00:39:32.060
Quite the opposite.

00:39:32.060 --> 00:39:34.400
He was opposed to slavery.

00:39:34.400 --> 00:39:40.540
And so he found Boston a much
more acceptable climate to be

00:39:40.540 --> 00:39:44.770
living in once he moved
up here in the 1850s.

00:39:44.770 --> 00:39:49.750
But this business about why
did he do it during--

00:39:49.750 --> 00:39:55.230
he gets the idea and starts
pushing for it around 1859.

00:39:55.230 --> 00:39:57.810
Why then?

00:39:57.810 --> 00:40:01.940
Clearly, there are needs,
no doubt about it.

00:40:01.940 --> 00:40:04.470
But you got to ask yourself,
well, to what extent was he

00:40:04.470 --> 00:40:06.880
aware of the degree
of the political

00:40:06.880 --> 00:40:08.340
tensions in the crisis?

00:40:08.340 --> 00:40:12.400
It was two years before
the war came.

00:40:12.400 --> 00:40:15.280
And that slavery issue
had been going on

00:40:15.280 --> 00:40:18.470
for how many years?

00:40:18.470 --> 00:40:20.130
20, 30?

00:40:20.130 --> 00:40:24.720
You can count back as many
as 60 years, or more.

00:40:24.720 --> 00:40:30.760
So I could well imagine that
someone like Rogers would be

00:40:30.760 --> 00:40:32.930
thinking, well, yeah.

00:40:32.930 --> 00:40:35.740
There's a lot of tension
here, but it's not

00:40:35.740 --> 00:40:38.190
going to happen now.

00:40:38.190 --> 00:40:41.430
He was probably taken by
surprise would be my guess.

00:40:41.430 --> 00:40:42.672
DAVID MINDELL: Really?

00:40:42.672 --> 00:40:44.826
There's another way
to read it where--

00:40:44.826 --> 00:40:48.480
PROFESSOR: Did I ask you?

00:40:48.480 --> 00:40:49.080
DAVID MINDELL: I told
you I was going to

00:40:49.080 --> 00:40:49.630
sit here and listen.

00:40:49.630 --> 00:40:52.020
PROFESSOR: Yeah, he's going to
sit over there like a jaybird.

00:40:52.020 --> 00:40:54.080
DAVID MINDELL: Where he's
married to an abolitionist.

00:40:57.510 --> 00:41:00.930
Boston, in general in New
England society, is--

00:41:00.930 --> 00:41:03.590
there's a lot of abolitionist
fervor.

00:41:03.590 --> 00:41:06.230
People are extremely political
active-- that's one thing he

00:41:06.230 --> 00:41:08.180
likes about New England.

00:41:08.180 --> 00:41:12.710
He goes on vacation with Emma
Savage's family and they have

00:41:12.710 --> 00:41:15.140
all these political
discussions.

00:41:15.140 --> 00:41:19.610
So then you could say, maybe he
sees the founding of MIT as

00:41:19.610 --> 00:41:21.350
a political act.

00:41:21.350 --> 00:41:21.910
PROFESSOR: That's interesting.

00:41:21.910 --> 00:41:23.100
DAVID MINDELL: And it's
interesting then to think

00:41:23.100 --> 00:41:29.560
about what kind of political act
it might be if it was one.

00:41:29.560 --> 00:41:30.890
PROFESSOR: That's interesting.

00:41:30.890 --> 00:41:35.370
So a political act in the sense
that it would be a place

00:41:35.370 --> 00:41:40.420
that was doing a new style of
education to be sure, coupling

00:41:40.420 --> 00:41:44.040
it with reform sentiment that
is so rampant in Boston--

00:41:44.040 --> 00:41:46.970
Boston is the center the
abolitionist movement.

00:41:46.970 --> 00:41:49.920
William Lloyd Garrison's paper
was centered here in Boston,

00:41:49.920 --> 00:41:54.120
so he's pushing at a button here
that's very interesting.

00:41:54.120 --> 00:41:55.200
I hadn't thought about that.

00:41:55.200 --> 00:41:58.940
DAVID MINDELL: Or Rogers has
a vision of a world where

00:41:58.940 --> 00:42:00.830
technology is important.

00:42:00.830 --> 00:42:05.060
The people who engineer and deal
with it are important,

00:42:05.060 --> 00:42:08.890
which wasn't really
the case then.

00:42:08.890 --> 00:42:12.940
And that that's a world that
he sees as a counter to the

00:42:12.940 --> 00:42:17.870
world that he left in the South
where it's agrarian.

00:42:17.870 --> 00:42:20.780
It's much more political in
different kinds of ways.

00:42:20.780 --> 00:42:27.440
And he wants to educate a cadre
of technical experts who

00:42:27.440 --> 00:42:31.690
can run the world in a more,
maybe dispassionate way than

00:42:31.690 --> 00:42:32.530
he found in the South.

00:42:32.530 --> 00:42:33.430
PROFESSOR: Oh, god.

00:42:33.430 --> 00:42:36.640
That's really interesting.

00:42:36.640 --> 00:42:38.280
You should be leading
this discussion.

00:42:38.280 --> 00:42:42.100
That's very interesting now,
educating a cadre of

00:42:42.100 --> 00:42:45.280
individuals who would be capable
of sort of leading the

00:42:45.280 --> 00:42:48.150
world in a different way.

00:42:48.150 --> 00:42:52.090
What does that mean to
educate this cadre?

00:42:52.090 --> 00:42:54.300
What kind of individual would
you want to be educating?

00:42:56.930 --> 00:43:01.130
We know that MIT was founded to
try to combine the useful

00:43:01.130 --> 00:43:04.220
arts, or what we would describe
as engineering today,

00:43:04.220 --> 00:43:07.870
with science, the pursuit of
science, trying to bring them

00:43:07.870 --> 00:43:10.490
together, have them interact,
and produce something--

00:43:10.490 --> 00:43:15.860
a student is a special
product in a way.

00:43:15.860 --> 00:43:22.580
But what about that ultimate
vision of creating a cadre of

00:43:22.580 --> 00:43:27.450
graduates that are going to go
out and shape or reshape the

00:43:27.450 --> 00:43:32.060
world to a new way of thinking
about things?

00:43:32.060 --> 00:43:34.280
That's very interesting.

00:43:34.280 --> 00:43:38.520
Let me push it a little bit
further and say this.

00:43:38.520 --> 00:43:46.020
Up until the founding of MIT in
1861, there had been this

00:43:46.020 --> 00:43:48.830
process of industrialization,
which was centered around

00:43:48.830 --> 00:43:53.270
transportation, building
railroads, and creating

00:43:53.270 --> 00:43:56.540
factories for producing
everything from boots and

00:43:56.540 --> 00:44:00.470
shoes, to cotton textiles,
to sewing machines.

00:44:00.470 --> 00:44:05.100
And these things were
accompanied not only by the

00:44:05.100 --> 00:44:08.500
machinery, and the labor forces,
and things like that,

00:44:08.500 --> 00:44:11.770
but they were also accompanied
by an attempt to try to learn

00:44:11.770 --> 00:44:13.510
how to manage them.

00:44:13.510 --> 00:44:15.460
So many of them were
big enterprises.

00:44:15.460 --> 00:44:17.720
Railroads are employing
thousands of people.

00:44:17.720 --> 00:44:20.550
Pennsylvania Railroad employed
1,200 people by

00:44:20.550 --> 00:44:23.190
1859 I would say.

00:44:23.190 --> 00:44:26.100
And factories, like the Lowell
Mills, are employing 200 or

00:44:26.100 --> 00:44:29.405
300 in each building, let alone
the whole town, which

00:44:29.405 --> 00:44:33.920
would be well over 1,000.

00:44:33.920 --> 00:44:39.360
If you're seeing management
emerging alongside of this

00:44:39.360 --> 00:44:45.510
educational process, it would
mean to me that Rogers has got

00:44:45.510 --> 00:44:49.420
to be interested not just
in teaching science and

00:44:49.420 --> 00:44:52.680
engineering, but also trying
to get students to think

00:44:52.680 --> 00:44:55.530
about, how do you manage these
enterprises once you go out to

00:44:55.530 --> 00:44:56.990
work in them?

00:44:56.990 --> 00:44:59.170
And what is that all about?

00:44:59.170 --> 00:45:02.040
What is management really about
when you talk about

00:45:02.040 --> 00:45:03.010
managing things?

00:45:03.010 --> 00:45:05.400
Coordination and control.

00:45:05.400 --> 00:45:06.810
It's trying to control things.

00:45:09.910 --> 00:45:14.080
That's an important part
of this business.

00:45:14.080 --> 00:45:16.360
That brings a different
dimension to the--

00:45:16.360 --> 00:45:21.010
now, they're not teaching that
in liberal arts colleges or

00:45:21.010 --> 00:45:25.650
the classical curriculum
colleges.

00:45:25.650 --> 00:45:29.580
They're creating "gentlemen."
They're not creating ladies

00:45:29.580 --> 00:45:31.840
because there were very few
ladies in any schools, but

00:45:31.840 --> 00:45:34.640
they are creating gentleman
to go on to law school,

00:45:34.640 --> 00:45:36.590
or stuff like that.

00:45:36.590 --> 00:45:40.380
So there's a different
breed of cat being

00:45:40.380 --> 00:45:43.710
made in these schools.

00:45:43.710 --> 00:45:49.600
If what David says is true, it's
as much about learning

00:45:49.600 --> 00:45:51.670
how to control things
as it is learning

00:45:51.670 --> 00:45:53.190
about how to do things.

00:45:53.190 --> 00:45:57.990
Learning and doing also involves
learning how to

00:45:57.990 --> 00:46:00.810
impose some control over that.

00:46:00.810 --> 00:46:06.430
What are the problems that might
arise with that sort of

00:46:06.430 --> 00:46:07.680
enterprise?

00:46:10.190 --> 00:46:13.620
I think it's an interesting
question because if you look

00:46:13.620 --> 00:46:15.290
at it from, say labor.

00:46:15.290 --> 00:46:17.430
What's the labor management?

00:46:17.430 --> 00:46:19.495
That's the dichotomy is
labor management.

00:46:22.216 --> 00:46:25.140
MIT ends up on the management
side, I would say, more than

00:46:25.140 --> 00:46:28.070
on the labor side of things.

00:46:28.070 --> 00:46:31.450
This is right at the moment when
you're beginning to see

00:46:31.450 --> 00:46:33.380
serious labor management
divisions.

00:46:33.380 --> 00:46:36.180
I didn't talk about that in
my lecture, but definitely

00:46:36.180 --> 00:46:38.810
happening during these years.

00:46:38.810 --> 00:46:42.750
So MIT is sort of adding to the
strength of the managerial

00:46:42.750 --> 00:46:46.390
side of technological change
and science then to the

00:46:46.390 --> 00:46:50.275
so-called labor-oriented
rank and file side.

00:46:53.310 --> 00:46:56.630
That, in itself, is a very
interesting statement about

00:46:56.630 --> 00:46:58.190
what the Institute is about.

00:47:00.980 --> 00:47:04.170
Openly about.

00:47:04.170 --> 00:47:06.200
Don't need to apologize
for it, but need to be

00:47:06.200 --> 00:47:08.890
aware of it I think.

00:47:08.890 --> 00:47:11.660
That in establishing that sort
of school, you're going to be

00:47:11.660 --> 00:47:15.280
more interested in those
managerial sides of

00:47:15.280 --> 00:47:18.960
controlling and coordinating
large enterprises.

00:47:18.960 --> 00:47:22.080
Where are the early graduates
going from MIT?

00:47:22.080 --> 00:47:23.440
Now, you haven't read
about this, so

00:47:23.440 --> 00:47:24.990
I'll answer the question.

00:47:24.990 --> 00:47:28.700
Many of them are going to large
railroad companies.

00:47:28.700 --> 00:47:31.410
They're sending a lot of their
young graduates off to work as

00:47:31.410 --> 00:47:32.690
engineers on railroads.

00:47:32.690 --> 00:47:37.790
Not running locomotives, but to
build lines, coordinating

00:47:37.790 --> 00:47:40.820
control of the operation of the
railroad, stuff like that.

00:47:40.820 --> 00:47:44.670
That's where a lot of these
young men are going.

00:47:44.670 --> 00:47:48.840
So it's an interesting
thought about that.

00:47:52.300 --> 00:47:54.330
DAVID MINDELL: One of the words
that caught me in the

00:47:54.330 --> 00:47:57.610
conversation, and in the
responses, was the sense that

00:47:57.610 --> 00:48:00.870
the founding of MIT was
inevitable in any way.

00:48:00.870 --> 00:48:03.210
And maybe we made it seem that
way with some of the material

00:48:03.210 --> 00:48:08.400
we've been looking at, but if
you zoom out one level--

00:48:08.400 --> 00:48:11.510
and even, the industrialization
of America

00:48:11.510 --> 00:48:14.720
maybe looks inevitable
in some way.

00:48:14.720 --> 00:48:18.300
But it was not inevitable,
and was incredibly

00:48:18.300 --> 00:48:19.830
fraught with conflict.

00:48:19.830 --> 00:48:23.160
There was nothing like the kind
of presumption today that

00:48:23.160 --> 00:48:26.050
technological development
equals economic progress

00:48:26.050 --> 00:48:28.470
equals social progress.

00:48:28.470 --> 00:48:32.510
And it's not too much of an
exaggeration to say the entire

00:48:32.510 --> 00:48:36.420
American Civil War was fought
over different visions of what

00:48:36.420 --> 00:48:38.170
America might be.

00:48:38.170 --> 00:48:45.680
One being an agrarian, rural,
essentially non-industrialized

00:48:45.680 --> 00:48:49.850
economy with the kind of social
order of slavery and

00:48:49.850 --> 00:48:50.770
racial divisions.

00:48:50.770 --> 00:48:53.810
And also, very much a
traditional class structure

00:48:53.810 --> 00:48:54.790
around that.

00:48:54.790 --> 00:48:59.920
And the other being much more
represented by the North,

00:48:59.920 --> 00:49:02.030
industrialized, very
managerial, very

00:49:02.030 --> 00:49:04.930
technological, heavily
railroads.

00:49:04.930 --> 00:49:08.200
No small number of the leading
Union generals were railroad

00:49:08.200 --> 00:49:12.410
executives before the war,
including McClellan.

00:49:12.410 --> 00:49:14.490
And so if you look at
the war in that--

00:49:14.490 --> 00:49:16.985
and all of the tensions leading
up to the war, and it

00:49:16.985 --> 00:49:18.920
was pretty explicit
at the time.

00:49:18.920 --> 00:49:21.290
Thomas Jefferson very
much viewed--

00:49:21.290 --> 00:49:25.340
this is 40, 50 years before, but
viewed the country in this

00:49:25.340 --> 00:49:26.400
kind of agrarian way.

00:49:26.400 --> 00:49:28.310
We weren't going to make the
same kind of mistakes that

00:49:28.310 --> 00:49:32.800
England made and have a dirty
industrial economy.

00:49:32.800 --> 00:49:35.550
If you look at the war in that
way, then the founding of MIT

00:49:35.550 --> 00:49:41.090
is very much almost like a move
in a chess board for one

00:49:41.090 --> 00:49:45.780
side, which is obviously the
one toward, this is what an

00:49:45.780 --> 00:49:49.210
ordered industrial,
Northern-dominated

00:49:49.210 --> 00:49:51.580
economy could be.

00:49:51.580 --> 00:49:55.130
And it happens to be the side
that won, but it was 3/4 of

00:49:55.130 --> 00:49:58.035
million people had to die
between here and there, much

00:49:58.035 --> 00:50:02.650
the less another half century
of conflict over--

00:50:02.650 --> 00:50:05.200
Roe's books about how half the
problem was just trying to get

00:50:05.200 --> 00:50:08.820
people to come to work at the
same time every day, and work

00:50:08.820 --> 00:50:09.950
through the planting season.

00:50:09.950 --> 00:50:11.700
Because you couldn't have a
factory unless you get people

00:50:11.700 --> 00:50:12.240
to do that.

00:50:12.240 --> 00:50:14.610
And that was 30 years of
conflict just to get

00:50:14.610 --> 00:50:15.860
people to do that.

00:50:18.150 --> 00:50:23.640
PROFESSOR: There's a phrase
about when you start making

00:50:23.640 --> 00:50:25.880
machinery and putting them
in things that are called

00:50:25.880 --> 00:50:28.040
factories, which are new.

00:50:28.040 --> 00:50:32.320
We're familiar with them, but
people in the age had never

00:50:32.320 --> 00:50:33.640
seen these things before.

00:50:33.640 --> 00:50:35.600
They just knew that there was
good money to be made.

00:50:35.600 --> 00:50:38.020
You could make cash wages
by working in

00:50:38.020 --> 00:50:41.120
one of these places.

00:50:41.120 --> 00:50:42.580
It was inviting in that sense.

00:50:42.580 --> 00:50:45.150
But on the other hand, going in
there to work and having to

00:50:45.150 --> 00:50:49.530
work to regimented hours, and be
expected to produce so much

00:50:49.530 --> 00:50:51.800
stuff during the day.

00:50:51.800 --> 00:50:55.160
One of the managers of an early
textile operation said,

00:50:55.160 --> 00:50:58.870
this is like trying to put
a deer in a harness.

00:50:58.870 --> 00:50:59.570
Imagine that.

00:50:59.570 --> 00:51:02.400
Just think about putting
a deer in a harness.

00:51:02.400 --> 00:51:03.870
That just doesn't work.

00:51:03.870 --> 00:51:06.500
There's going to be a lot of
bucking and resistance, and

00:51:06.500 --> 00:51:08.430
going nowhere sort of.

00:51:08.430 --> 00:51:12.620
And so it's a tricky business,
no doubt about it.

00:51:12.620 --> 00:51:16.330
David mentions just getting
workers to work according to

00:51:16.330 --> 00:51:18.560
clocked hours.

00:51:18.560 --> 00:51:19.700
We're so used to--

00:51:19.700 --> 00:51:23.580
I mean, either we're wearing
watches, or you've got it on

00:51:23.580 --> 00:51:25.980
your cell phones, all
of us are very

00:51:25.980 --> 00:51:28.380
time-oriented in this age.

00:51:28.380 --> 00:51:33.760
But 200 years ago, very few
people, only wealthy people

00:51:33.760 --> 00:51:36.120
could afford to own
a pocket watch.

00:51:36.120 --> 00:51:38.090
They were really expensive.

00:51:38.090 --> 00:51:40.660
And only the wealthiest
households had these tall

00:51:40.660 --> 00:51:42.640
clocks in their hallways
and stuff like that.

00:51:42.640 --> 00:51:46.410
Most people didn't have
time-keeping devices.

00:51:46.410 --> 00:51:49.770
That comes in with the coming
of industry, with factories

00:51:49.770 --> 00:51:50.610
and things like that.

00:51:50.610 --> 00:51:53.250
In fact, it's factories that
start making the early, cheap

00:51:53.250 --> 00:51:56.750
clocks you can buy for
a couple of dollars.

00:51:56.750 --> 00:51:59.870
There's a famous traveler
who goes in--

00:51:59.870 --> 00:52:02.620
it's a British visitor who
travels in the Southeastern

00:52:02.620 --> 00:52:07.770
part of the United States,
writing in the late '20s,

00:52:07.770 --> 00:52:09.290
early '30s thereabouts.

00:52:09.290 --> 00:52:10.990
And he's writing about--

00:52:10.990 --> 00:52:13.800
I'm going to take that back,
it's a woman traveler.

00:52:13.800 --> 00:52:15.770
Sorry.

00:52:15.770 --> 00:52:16.940
Traveling in these areas.

00:52:16.940 --> 00:52:19.640
And one of the things she
notices is that--

00:52:19.640 --> 00:52:23.010
and she comes into Arkansas,
which is pretty much in the

00:52:23.010 --> 00:52:26.680
deep recesses of the United
States at that time.

00:52:26.680 --> 00:52:30.130
Well, Arkansas, West of the
Mississippi, 1832 or

00:52:30.130 --> 00:52:32.960
thereabouts, is really
in the deep recesses.

00:52:32.960 --> 00:52:34.260
That's frontier country.

00:52:34.260 --> 00:52:35.300
That's what I mean by that.

00:52:35.300 --> 00:52:36.260
Are you from Arkansas?

00:52:36.260 --> 00:52:37.050
AUDIENCE: No.

00:52:37.050 --> 00:52:40.170
PROFESSOR: I didn't mean to
insult Arkansas people.

00:52:40.170 --> 00:52:44.300
But in any case, she makes this
comment about, I travel

00:52:44.300 --> 00:52:47.700
around the countryside and I
enter these cabins with dirt

00:52:47.700 --> 00:52:50.810
floors, hardly a stick of
furniture, and there's a

00:52:50.810 --> 00:52:55.930
Connecticut clock sitting
on the fireplace mantle.

00:52:55.930 --> 00:53:00.320
They'd rather own a clock
than owning furniture.

00:53:00.320 --> 00:53:04.220
That was unheard of
50 years earlier.

00:53:04.220 --> 00:53:05.830
You couldn't afford something
like that.

00:53:05.830 --> 00:53:08.625
And yet, boy, they were buying
them like crazy.

00:53:08.625 --> 00:53:11.080
Be it these clocks are being
made in Connecticut, and then

00:53:11.080 --> 00:53:13.700
taken literally, in wagons
across the country, and sold

00:53:13.700 --> 00:53:18.180
off by the thousands to people
for a couple dollars a piece.

00:53:18.180 --> 00:53:20.920
Your grandparents or parents
may have some of them.

00:53:20.920 --> 00:53:24.890
They're old brass works clocks
that when they strike the

00:53:24.890 --> 00:53:27.600
hour, it'd wake the dead.

00:53:27.600 --> 00:53:31.660
They're very, very available,
even today.

00:53:31.660 --> 00:53:34.230
But that sense of time and time

00:53:34.230 --> 00:53:36.610
orientation as a new dimension.

00:53:36.610 --> 00:53:38.140
People are not used to
it and they go on

00:53:38.140 --> 00:53:39.700
strike in many instances.

00:53:39.700 --> 00:53:40.960
They try to resist this.

00:53:40.960 --> 00:53:43.920
And that's part of that
management, trying to get that

00:53:43.920 --> 00:53:47.400
control that didn't exist.

00:53:47.400 --> 00:53:50.720
No one knew about it.

00:53:50.720 --> 00:53:55.430
Jefferson refers to the slavery
issue in the 1820s as

00:53:55.430 --> 00:53:58.410
trying to hold a wolf
by the ears.

00:53:58.410 --> 00:54:03.190
He is very concerned about the
future of slavery in America.

00:54:03.190 --> 00:54:06.540
He never remits his slaves
as far as I know.

00:54:06.540 --> 00:54:09.430
But the other wolf that was
being held by the ears at this

00:54:09.430 --> 00:54:14.590
time has to do with labor
management, the problems that

00:54:14.590 --> 00:54:16.230
were going to emerge.

00:54:16.230 --> 00:54:19.160
Lowell, a great industrial
city in the 1820s was

00:54:19.160 --> 00:54:21.410
considered to be a utopia.

00:54:21.410 --> 00:54:24.290
It was a place that people
wanted to work at.

00:54:24.290 --> 00:54:27.010
But by the 1840s, there are
all sorts of strikes

00:54:27.010 --> 00:54:28.180
going on out there.

00:54:28.180 --> 00:54:32.630
Protesting time rules and the
cost of living in boarding

00:54:32.630 --> 00:54:33.970
houses, and stuff like that.

00:54:33.970 --> 00:54:35.100
So it gets very complex.

00:54:35.100 --> 00:54:38.650
And Rogers is living through
all of this, and seeing it,

00:54:38.650 --> 00:54:41.960
and trying to come to some
conclusion about, how do I

00:54:41.960 --> 00:54:44.790
enter into this educational
process?

00:54:44.790 --> 00:54:46.505
How do I make it better
supposedly?

00:54:49.220 --> 00:54:53.900
So it's a complex, interesting
era that is the era

00:54:53.900 --> 00:54:55.780
that he lives in.

00:54:55.780 --> 00:55:02.350
Now, there's another question
that was raised today, but how

00:55:02.350 --> 00:55:06.460
did Rogers get the money
to find benefactors?

00:55:06.460 --> 00:55:10.590
When you graduate from MIT,
MIT Alumni Association is

00:55:10.590 --> 00:55:12.770
going to get your name
and address.

00:55:12.770 --> 00:55:15.290
And several times a year you're
going to get mailings

00:55:15.290 --> 00:55:18.680
from them saying, we need
your benefaction.

00:55:18.680 --> 00:55:21.300
You need to help us keep
the Institute going for

00:55:21.300 --> 00:55:24.720
fellowships, and scholarships,
and a new swimming pool, or

00:55:24.720 --> 00:55:27.210
whatever it may be.

00:55:27.210 --> 00:55:30.150
It's through that sort of giving
that is very important

00:55:30.150 --> 00:55:32.410
to the operation of
any school today.

00:55:32.410 --> 00:55:35.240
It was important
to Rogers then.

00:55:35.240 --> 00:55:41.670
When you read my essay next
week, the title of the essay

00:55:41.670 --> 00:55:44.550
is called "Godspeed the
Institute." It's in

00:55:44.550 --> 00:55:46.130
quotations.

00:55:46.130 --> 00:55:49.500
That's actually a quote from
an early benefactor of MIT.

00:55:49.500 --> 00:55:54.060
He was a doctor here in Boston,
Harvard graduate, a

00:55:54.060 --> 00:55:56.800
surgeon, made a lot of money
investing in local

00:55:56.800 --> 00:55:57.550
industries--

00:55:57.550 --> 00:55:59.645
railroads, textile mills.

00:55:59.645 --> 00:56:02.670
Made a lot of money, and
he had money to give.

00:56:02.670 --> 00:56:05.470
And rather than giving it to
Harvard, he gives it to MIT.

00:56:05.470 --> 00:56:09.550
It's like $40,000, quite a lot
of money for that time.

00:56:09.550 --> 00:56:13.160
And I can imagine how people
at Harvard felt about that.

00:56:13.160 --> 00:56:16.540
Because he was turning on a
different direction here.

00:56:16.540 --> 00:56:20.930
But he was interested in sort
of the practical hands-on

00:56:20.930 --> 00:56:24.470
orientation that Rogers was
trying to develop in the

00:56:24.470 --> 00:56:27.720
Institute with reference to
bringing science and the

00:56:27.720 --> 00:56:31.680
useful arts in contact
with each other.

00:56:31.680 --> 00:56:34.310
But that was one form.

00:56:34.310 --> 00:56:36.820
Where else would you be getting
money to run a place

00:56:36.820 --> 00:56:38.070
like this early on?

00:56:41.608 --> 00:56:43.000
AUDIENCE: From the military?

00:56:43.000 --> 00:56:43.980
PROFESSOR: Well, military.

00:56:43.980 --> 00:56:46.020
Who said military?

00:56:46.020 --> 00:56:47.760
OK.

00:56:47.760 --> 00:56:48.670
Say a little more.

00:56:48.670 --> 00:56:50.430
Military in what way?

00:56:50.430 --> 00:56:51.480
How would you imagine that?

00:56:51.480 --> 00:56:55.917
AUDIENCE: There's a lot of
government contracts maybe

00:56:55.917 --> 00:56:56.903
back then, I don't know.

00:56:56.903 --> 00:57:01.200
PROFESSOR: Yeah, absolutely.

00:57:01.200 --> 00:57:03.820
It's not so much military money,
but it's war-related.

00:57:07.370 --> 00:57:11.250
Legislation that's passed by
the Lincoln administration.

00:57:11.250 --> 00:57:13.920
Interestingly, Lincoln is a
Republican, a member of the

00:57:13.920 --> 00:57:15.410
Republican Party.

00:57:15.410 --> 00:57:17.820
Early member of the
Republican Party.

00:57:17.820 --> 00:57:21.570
In those days, Republican
Party was all about big

00:57:21.570 --> 00:57:23.520
government, believe it or not.

00:57:23.520 --> 00:57:26.550
Today it's just the
other way around.

00:57:26.550 --> 00:57:30.120
What the Democrats were in the
1860s, the Republicans are

00:57:30.120 --> 00:57:32.470
today, and vice versa.

00:57:32.470 --> 00:57:36.640
So in Lincoln's day, one of the
big proposals that was put

00:57:36.640 --> 00:57:41.130
up, and you'll read about it
next week is, trying to get

00:57:41.130 --> 00:57:44.910
grants for the establishment
of state universities that

00:57:44.910 --> 00:57:49.900
would emphasize mechanical and
agricultural pursuits.

00:57:49.900 --> 00:57:55.030
Texas A&M. A&M, Agricultural
Mechanical colleges.

00:57:55.030 --> 00:57:57.650
I went to Penn State.

00:57:57.650 --> 00:58:00.280
That's a land-grant school.

00:58:00.280 --> 00:58:03.770
All of these schools come out
of a piece of Civil War

00:58:03.770 --> 00:58:06.920
legislation called the Morrill
Land-Grant Act, which

00:58:06.920 --> 00:58:10.010
literally put up money--

00:58:10.010 --> 00:58:13.060
it gave money to each state
based on the number of

00:58:13.060 --> 00:58:15.540
representatives they had in the
House of Representatives

00:58:15.540 --> 00:58:17.030
and the number of US
senators they had.

00:58:17.030 --> 00:58:21.120
I think it's 30,000 acres
per representative.

00:58:21.120 --> 00:58:24.430
They'd give that land to the
state legislature, which in

00:58:24.430 --> 00:58:28.840
turn could keep the land for as
long as they want, or they

00:58:28.840 --> 00:58:32.690
could turn it into script and
sell it to investors.

00:58:32.690 --> 00:58:34.490
Where was that land located?

00:58:34.490 --> 00:58:36.890
This is a sore point for those
of you who are from the

00:58:36.890 --> 00:58:39.890
Midwest, especially places
like Minnesota,

00:58:39.890 --> 00:58:42.060
Iowa, places like that.

00:58:42.060 --> 00:58:44.950
Most of the land was from
out on that area

00:58:44.950 --> 00:58:46.390
and not in the East.

00:58:46.390 --> 00:58:49.040
There were some plots,
but not much.

00:58:49.040 --> 00:58:53.720
And that land was used by the
Massachusetts legislature to

00:58:53.720 --> 00:58:58.460
parcel out in terms of
government grants.

00:58:58.460 --> 00:59:02.020
Here's government giving out
money, in effect, to places

00:59:02.020 --> 00:59:05.570
like MIT, University of
Massachusetts are the two main

00:59:05.570 --> 00:59:08.600
beneficiaries of that.

00:59:08.600 --> 00:59:11.260
MIT is a land-grant college.

00:59:11.260 --> 00:59:12.510
Did you know that?

00:59:16.350 --> 00:59:19.180
MIT emerges right out of this
land-grant tradition, and it's

00:59:19.180 --> 00:59:21.060
arguably one of the first.

00:59:21.060 --> 00:59:24.740
It may be the first land-grant
college in the United States,

00:59:24.740 --> 00:59:29.730
which we kind of don't recognize
because MIT is a

00:59:29.730 --> 00:59:31.890
private corporation
at the same time.

00:59:31.890 --> 00:59:35.320
You would think, this is not
Penn State or it's not Ohio

00:59:35.320 --> 00:59:37.070
State, which are both
land-grant schools.

00:59:37.070 --> 00:59:39.960
Those are state universities.

00:59:39.960 --> 00:59:42.840
This is a private corporation.

00:59:42.840 --> 00:59:46.350
And yet, its initial funding,
a big part of it, both the

00:59:46.350 --> 00:59:50.180
land over in Boston and money
from the legislature, came

00:59:50.180 --> 00:59:54.500
from the state through this
piece of national legislation

00:59:54.500 --> 00:59:57.790
that's sort of filtered down
into various states for the

00:59:57.790 --> 01:00:00.130
establishment of
these colleges.

01:00:00.130 --> 01:00:02.880
So it's an interesting
process that happens.

01:00:02.880 --> 01:00:05.150
That's important.

01:00:05.150 --> 01:00:09.280
So there are moments when
I can imagine that big

01:00:09.280 --> 01:00:11.040
government is a bad thing.

01:00:11.040 --> 01:00:13.800
But there are also moments when
big government can be a

01:00:13.800 --> 01:00:14.830
good thing.

01:00:14.830 --> 01:00:17.130
In this instance, I think it
was not just good, it was

01:00:17.130 --> 01:00:20.850
extremely important for the
future of the United States.

01:00:20.850 --> 01:00:22.860
Think of the hundreds of
thousands of graduates who

01:00:22.860 --> 01:00:25.100
have come out of
these colleges.

01:00:25.100 --> 01:00:30.890
Not just MIT, but extremely
important to the development--

01:00:30.890 --> 01:00:33.500
the economic development
of the country.

01:00:33.500 --> 01:00:36.380
And that all started with a
federal piece of legislation.

01:00:36.380 --> 01:00:38.560
DAVID MINDELL: We were just
talking during the break, the

01:00:38.560 --> 01:00:43.320
21 names that signed
the MIT charter.

01:00:43.320 --> 01:00:46.290
Rogers is one of them.

01:00:46.290 --> 01:00:48.530
We know a little bit about a
couple of them, Roe and I, but

01:00:48.530 --> 01:00:50.060
we don't know that much about
the rest of them.

01:00:50.060 --> 01:00:52.260
They're not all names that you'd
instantly recognize.

01:00:52.260 --> 01:00:55.100
But it's worth asking, in
addition to the government,

01:00:55.100 --> 01:00:59.450
why would these presumably
prominent, moneyed Boston

01:00:59.450 --> 01:01:02.650
people care about founding
this school?

01:01:02.650 --> 01:01:03.900
What are their interest in it?

01:01:06.850 --> 01:01:08.430
He wouldn't have been able
to do it by himself.

01:01:08.430 --> 01:01:14.080
He needed this kind of social
group to support him.

01:01:14.080 --> 01:01:15.330
PROFESSOR: Definitely.

01:01:16.870 --> 01:01:18.290
DAVID MINDELL: It's a good paper
topic for someone, but

01:01:18.290 --> 01:01:19.720
we should talk about it now.

01:01:19.720 --> 01:01:22.490
Who are those 21 people?

01:01:22.490 --> 01:01:23.800
PROFESSOR: That would be
a good topic, just

01:01:23.800 --> 01:01:27.190
to look into one.

01:01:27.190 --> 01:01:30.080
For example, just here's one
that I do know about, a guy

01:01:30.080 --> 01:01:33.860
named James B Francis.

01:01:33.860 --> 01:01:35.420
Has anyone ever heard
of him before?

01:01:35.420 --> 01:01:36.870
I doubt it.

01:01:36.870 --> 01:01:38.700
There's no reason you
should, probably.

01:01:38.700 --> 01:01:43.090
But in his day, James B Francis
was probably the most

01:01:43.090 --> 01:01:47.330
important hydraulic engineer,
surely in the United States,

01:01:47.330 --> 01:01:48.170
if not the world.

01:01:48.170 --> 01:01:49.540
He was very, very important.

01:01:49.540 --> 01:01:54.050
He built the canal system in
Lowell, which was America's

01:01:54.050 --> 01:01:55.200
leading industrial--

01:01:55.200 --> 01:01:57.970
surely, leading water-powered
entity.

01:01:57.970 --> 01:02:01.980
You can go up there today and
still see those power canals

01:02:01.980 --> 01:02:07.740
that have been there for what,
200 years I suppose.

01:02:07.740 --> 01:02:09.410
And he was responsible.

01:02:09.410 --> 01:02:11.420
He's the guy that
engineered this.

01:02:11.420 --> 01:02:14.350
And he was a close associate
of Rogers.

01:02:14.350 --> 01:02:18.830
Rogers clearly recruited him or
told him about his vision

01:02:18.830 --> 01:02:20.870
for this new polytechnic
institute.

01:02:20.870 --> 01:02:24.670
And Francis immediately
signed on to it.

01:02:24.670 --> 01:02:28.590
Now, Francis's papers exist
up in Lowell at the Lowell

01:02:28.590 --> 01:02:29.680
Historical Society.

01:02:29.680 --> 01:02:35.220
But I don't think anyone has
looked into, what was going on

01:02:35.220 --> 01:02:37.680
between him and William
Rogers?

01:02:37.680 --> 01:02:39.740
Were they having a
correspondence?

01:02:39.740 --> 01:02:41.440
Probably they were.

01:02:41.440 --> 01:02:44.250
I have no idea exactly.

01:02:44.250 --> 01:02:46.760
What were they saying?

01:02:46.760 --> 01:02:49.360
Where were they in concert
with one another?

01:02:49.360 --> 01:02:50.640
Did they have disagreements?

01:02:50.640 --> 01:02:55.860
I don't know, but he's an
example of this group of 21

01:02:55.860 --> 01:02:58.090
that we don't know much
about that would be

01:02:58.090 --> 01:02:59.510
interesting to know.

01:02:59.510 --> 01:03:01.310
Where did that support come
from because they were

01:03:01.310 --> 01:03:04.640
critical in supporting
the Institute.

01:03:04.640 --> 01:03:08.470
So another guy who was involved
in that group is a

01:03:08.470 --> 01:03:10.770
guy named Jacob Bigelow.

01:03:10.770 --> 01:03:13.020
And he's the fellow who writes--
he's a Harvard

01:03:13.020 --> 01:03:16.750
faculty member, isn't
he, for a while?

01:03:16.750 --> 01:03:18.900
Interesting how many
Harvard people are

01:03:18.900 --> 01:03:21.650
involved in this place.

01:03:21.650 --> 01:03:24.460
Almost all the early faculty
are Harvard graduates,

01:03:24.460 --> 01:03:26.416
believe it or not.

01:03:26.416 --> 01:03:28.900
The early physicists are
Harvard graduates.

01:03:28.900 --> 01:03:30.910
The chemists are Harvard
graduates.

01:03:30.910 --> 01:03:33.560
Where else are they going
to get their staff?

01:03:33.560 --> 01:03:36.250
There are some people that are
coming out of industry.

01:03:36.250 --> 01:03:38.925
But the architecture department
here is founded by

01:03:38.925 --> 01:03:41.200
a Harvard graduate,
a guy named Ware.

01:03:41.200 --> 01:03:42.560
You'll read about
it next week.

01:03:42.560 --> 01:03:45.930
But it's interesting that that
connection, there's this

01:03:45.930 --> 01:03:49.330
tension and yet, connection at
the same time between these

01:03:49.330 --> 01:03:53.220
two institutions that one tries
to take over the other

01:03:53.220 --> 01:03:53.820
at least, what?

01:03:53.820 --> 01:03:59.390
Five or six times during the
19th, early 20th centuries.

01:03:59.390 --> 01:04:03.200
There's this very interesting
connection between those two

01:04:03.200 --> 01:04:06.930
institutions that still
exists in many ways.

01:04:06.930 --> 01:04:12.570
But it's this ongoing process
and the connections of Harvard

01:04:12.570 --> 01:04:16.070
people joining MIT, being a part
of this whole process.

01:04:16.070 --> 01:04:20.920
Bigelow being a Harvard person
who supports the

01:04:20.920 --> 01:04:23.000
establishment of MIT.

01:04:23.000 --> 01:04:25.270
Because they see a need.

01:04:25.270 --> 01:04:30.260
Harvard has, supposedly,
an engineering program.

01:04:30.260 --> 01:04:33.900
The Lawrence School was funded
by a textile magnate here,

01:04:33.900 --> 01:04:39.250
local merchant who owned a lot
of textile mills in the area.

01:04:39.250 --> 01:04:40.190
He gave Harvard--

01:04:40.190 --> 01:04:44.110
I don't know, quite a big bundle
of money to try to

01:04:44.110 --> 01:04:48.240
introduce an engineering
curriculum at Harvard.

01:04:48.240 --> 01:04:51.260
And it never quite took off.

01:04:51.260 --> 01:04:53.420
It was used for a lot of
different purposes, but it

01:04:53.420 --> 01:04:56.040
never succeeded really,
in doing what Rogers

01:04:56.040 --> 01:04:56.930
was doing down here.

01:04:56.930 --> 01:04:59.780
And I think that's one of the
reasons why a lot of these

01:04:59.780 --> 01:05:02.600
Harvard folks who had interests
in the practical

01:05:02.600 --> 01:05:06.710
world, if you want to call it
that, gravitated toward MIT

01:05:06.710 --> 01:05:08.412
when it was founded.

01:05:08.412 --> 01:05:12.790
It's an interesting development
there, too.

01:05:12.790 --> 01:05:14.670
Well, look, I'm talking.

01:05:17.170 --> 01:05:19.440
Somebody's asking questions,
but I end up

01:05:19.440 --> 01:05:20.530
talking about them.

01:05:20.530 --> 01:05:23.650
So that's not a discussion.

01:05:23.650 --> 01:05:28.410
That's a monologue.

01:05:28.410 --> 01:05:31.030
I think from day one, there
was a research component

01:05:31.030 --> 01:05:33.280
introduced into the
curriculum at MIT.

01:05:33.280 --> 01:05:34.530
And that was through
laboratories.

01:05:37.510 --> 01:05:41.370
In the days prior to
MIT's existence,

01:05:41.370 --> 01:05:42.950
laboratories existed.

01:05:42.950 --> 01:05:44.710
But they were primarily to--

01:05:44.710 --> 01:05:47.040
you would hold demonstrations.

01:05:47.040 --> 01:05:49.570
You would do chemical
experiments in front of the

01:05:49.570 --> 01:05:52.680
students, but the students
were watching.

01:05:52.680 --> 01:05:55.490
They weren't at the Bunsen
burner doing things, or

01:05:55.490 --> 01:05:56.880
anything like that.

01:05:56.880 --> 01:06:00.140
And with MIT, that changes.

01:06:00.140 --> 01:06:01.440
One of Rogers'--

01:06:01.440 --> 01:06:04.430
I think it's an innovation, is
to get students in the lab

01:06:04.430 --> 01:06:07.060
doing things, doing research.

01:06:07.060 --> 01:06:10.300
There's a fellow, trying
to remember his name.

01:06:10.300 --> 01:06:13.250
He was educated here at MIT
as an undergraduate as a

01:06:13.250 --> 01:06:17.540
physicist, who goes on to
found the electrical

01:06:17.540 --> 01:06:19.470
engineering department at MIT.

01:06:19.470 --> 01:06:21.880
Becomes a faculty member
after he graduates and

01:06:21.880 --> 01:06:23.710
does graduate work.

01:06:23.710 --> 01:06:25.340
I'm not sure if he does
it here or not.

01:06:25.340 --> 01:06:26.060
Probably not.

01:06:26.060 --> 01:06:28.710
Probably went to Germany,
or somewhere like that.

01:06:28.710 --> 01:06:32.870
He founds the electrical
engineering department.

01:06:32.870 --> 01:06:35.950
But it was all about his
writing a paper as an

01:06:35.950 --> 01:06:38.790
undergraduate student in a
physics laboratory that he got

01:06:38.790 --> 01:06:43.040
published that sent him on his
way toward this interesting

01:06:43.040 --> 01:06:45.860
career as an academic
and as a researcher.

01:06:45.860 --> 01:06:49.850
But the research orientation
of MIT has existed--

01:06:49.850 --> 01:06:52.640
well, almost from day one.

01:06:52.640 --> 01:06:53.910
That's interesting.

01:06:53.910 --> 01:06:57.470
DAVID MINDELL: The idea of MIT
as a research institution

01:06:57.470 --> 01:07:01.055
where the professors are doing
primarily research and then

01:07:01.055 --> 01:07:03.720
the students sort of come
along and participate is

01:07:03.720 --> 01:07:05.860
later, and not really until
the 20th century

01:07:05.860 --> 01:07:07.380
does that get going.

01:07:07.380 --> 01:07:10.310
I mean, students are always
working in the laboratories

01:07:10.310 --> 01:07:11.560
for their own education.

01:07:11.560 --> 01:07:14.540
But the fact that the professors
are leading these

01:07:14.540 --> 01:07:16.610
big research programs,
that's not so much

01:07:16.610 --> 01:07:17.290
there at the beginning.

01:07:17.290 --> 01:07:19.430
PROFESSOR: OK, yeah.

01:07:19.430 --> 01:07:20.280
DAVID MINDELL: There's
a distinction there.

01:07:20.280 --> 01:07:21.520
PROFESSOR: You need to make
a distinction there.

01:07:21.520 --> 01:07:23.490
Yeah, OK.

01:07:23.490 --> 01:07:26.360
But the guy's name I'm
thinking of is Cross,

01:07:26.360 --> 01:07:31.110
C-R-O-S-S. And he actually did
research in an undergraduate

01:07:31.110 --> 01:07:33.350
lab and resulted in the
publication of a paper.

01:07:33.350 --> 01:07:34.650
That's research at one level.

01:07:34.650 --> 01:07:36.600
But you're talking about
research, what?

01:07:36.600 --> 01:07:38.190
Funded by the Air Force?

01:07:38.190 --> 01:07:41.310
DAVID MINDELL: Or even by
foundations and things.

01:07:41.310 --> 01:07:44.220
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

01:07:44.220 --> 01:07:45.110
Well, that's true.

01:07:45.110 --> 01:07:48.140
DAVID MINDELL: If you look
today, anybody know how much

01:07:48.140 --> 01:07:52.930
of MIT's budget is undergraduate
tuition?

01:07:52.930 --> 01:07:55.740
What percentage?

01:07:55.740 --> 01:07:57.450
PROFESSOR: I have no idea.

01:07:57.450 --> 01:08:00.562
DAVID MINDELL: Anybody
want to guess?

01:08:00.562 --> 01:08:01.550
AUDIENCE: 20.

01:08:01.550 --> 01:08:02.800
DAVID MINDELL: 20%?

01:08:04.600 --> 01:08:05.088
AUDIENCE: 5%.

01:08:05.088 --> 01:08:05.700
DAVID MINDELL: 5%?

01:08:05.700 --> 01:08:08.410
AUDIENCE: Are we talking about
sources of money or what we

01:08:08.410 --> 01:08:09.290
spend on it?

01:08:09.290 --> 01:08:13.020
DAVID MINDELL: How much of
MIT's total budget--

01:08:13.020 --> 01:08:17.270
if you add up the tuition that
each of you pay, forget about

01:08:17.270 --> 01:08:18.689
financial aid for the moment.

01:08:18.689 --> 01:08:21.960
Multiply it by the number of
undergraduates and put that

01:08:21.960 --> 01:08:25.854
over the total budget of the
place, what's the proportion?

01:08:25.854 --> 01:08:26.960
AUDIENCE: It's like 5%.

01:08:26.960 --> 01:08:28.250
DAVID MINDELL: It's
like 5% or 10%.

01:08:28.250 --> 01:08:29.500
It's pretty small.

01:08:31.609 --> 01:08:34.270
And compare that to, like a
Williams College, where it's

01:08:34.270 --> 01:08:35.920
close to 100%.

01:08:35.920 --> 01:08:38.430
It's a very different place.

01:08:38.430 --> 01:08:43.250
So that wasn't so much
true early on.

01:08:43.250 --> 01:08:47.100
And even then, the tuition pays
a pretty small amount of

01:08:47.100 --> 01:08:50.029
what it actually cost to educate
an undergraduate.

01:08:50.029 --> 01:08:54.170
So that gives you some sense
of the orientation of the

01:08:54.170 --> 01:08:57.370
place, where you have hundreds
of millions of dollars coming

01:08:57.370 --> 01:09:00.180
from federal and other kinds of

01:09:00.180 --> 01:09:01.740
sources to support research.

01:09:01.740 --> 01:09:03.640
And students pay tuition, too.

01:09:03.640 --> 01:09:05.270
And they're a big part of it.

01:09:05.270 --> 01:09:09.090
And MIT does consider itself
educational in a big way.

01:09:09.090 --> 01:09:12.620
But the research is just huge.

01:09:12.620 --> 01:09:16.109
The model that's emerged, and it
really, in a way, took 100

01:09:16.109 --> 01:09:20.640
of the 150 years, is
research-based education.

01:09:20.640 --> 01:09:23.260
Which is a little different from
the early model of kind

01:09:23.260 --> 01:09:26.590
of laboratory-based education.

01:09:26.590 --> 01:09:30.050
So we'll see that over the
course of the next weeks as we

01:09:30.050 --> 01:09:36.240
read about it that, you don't
have MIT professors winning

01:09:36.240 --> 01:09:39.890
Nobel Prizes during
the 19th century.

01:09:39.890 --> 01:09:41.399
If people want to get a PhD--

01:09:41.399 --> 01:09:43.380
we mentioned this I
think last time--

01:09:43.380 --> 01:09:46.550
in any of the sciences, they're
going to Germany.

01:09:46.550 --> 01:09:48.939
Maybe to England, but
particularly to Germany to get

01:09:48.939 --> 01:09:52.330
it well into the 20th century.

01:09:52.330 --> 01:09:56.840
And the whole idea of graduate
education really comes in

01:09:56.840 --> 01:10:00.170
around the turn of
the 20th century.

01:10:00.170 --> 01:10:02.000
So in that sense,
it's different

01:10:02.000 --> 01:10:03.810
from what it is today.

01:10:03.810 --> 01:10:06.890
It's more like a kind of
undergraduate teaching--

01:10:06.890 --> 01:10:08.010
maybe like Olin College.

01:10:08.010 --> 01:10:09.435
Anybody ever heard of
Olin College out

01:10:09.435 --> 01:10:10.600
in the suburbs here?

01:10:10.600 --> 01:10:13.280
That probably is more like
what early MIT was

01:10:13.280 --> 01:10:16.280
like than MIT today.

01:10:16.280 --> 01:10:18.670
PROFESSOR: Interesting.

01:10:18.670 --> 01:10:20.580
And that all, in many
ways, was modeled

01:10:20.580 --> 01:10:21.780
after MIT, wasn't it?

01:10:21.780 --> 01:10:24.410
There were a number of
MIT consultants.

01:10:24.410 --> 01:10:26.640
It was Woodie Flowers,
and people like that.

01:10:26.640 --> 01:10:28.850
DAVID MINDELL: I think Olin is
modeled after a lot of things

01:10:28.850 --> 01:10:30.990
that are very hard to do at MIT,
which is why they were

01:10:30.990 --> 01:10:31.590
able to do them.

01:10:31.590 --> 01:10:35.990
PROFESSOR: Maybe that was it,
it was the wish list.

01:10:35.990 --> 01:10:36.800
Well, that's interesting.

01:10:36.800 --> 01:10:41.910
So from a corporate, government
research sort of

01:10:41.910 --> 01:10:45.840
orientation, I guess the
corporate would be coming

01:10:45.840 --> 01:10:49.680
first around World War I
thereabouts, under Maclaurin.

01:10:49.680 --> 01:10:55.550
There was a president here named
Maclaurin who moved MIT

01:10:55.550 --> 01:11:00.700
in a direction, I think, toward
applied research.

01:11:00.700 --> 01:11:03.690
Was it called the technology
plan or something like that?

01:11:03.690 --> 01:11:06.990
And we'll see more
of that later on.

01:11:06.990 --> 01:11:09.020
Yeah, that's different than
what I'm talking about.

01:11:09.020 --> 01:11:12.220
But the idea of getting students
in laboratories, and

01:11:12.220 --> 01:11:15.680
having them literally use the
equipment, that's a new ball

01:11:15.680 --> 01:11:16.480
game there.

01:11:16.480 --> 01:11:17.860
Even that was novel.

01:11:17.860 --> 01:11:19.070
DAVID MINDELL: One example there
that's worth looking

01:11:19.070 --> 01:11:23.580
into is Alexander Graham Bell,
who's teaching here on campus.

01:11:23.580 --> 01:11:26.050
Anybody know where he physically
actually invented

01:11:26.050 --> 01:11:28.560
the telephone?

01:11:28.560 --> 01:11:30.420
AUDIENCE: Wasn't it over
on Main Street?

01:11:30.420 --> 01:11:32.090
DAVID MINDELL: Yeah, it was
downtown in Boston over

01:11:32.090 --> 01:11:35.410
where-- basically where
Government Center is now.

01:11:35.410 --> 01:11:37.510
There's a little teeny
plaque right there.

01:11:37.510 --> 01:11:39.000
You can almost not notice it.

01:11:39.000 --> 01:11:40.950
It says, this is
the place where

01:11:40.950 --> 01:11:42.170
famous, "Come here, Watson.

01:11:42.170 --> 01:11:44.860
I need you now," was.

01:11:44.860 --> 01:11:48.030
But he didn't do that as
part of a lab at MIT.

01:11:48.030 --> 01:11:49.970
Today you would think, of
course, if there was an

01:11:49.970 --> 01:11:53.090
instructor here who was doing
research into telephony, he'd

01:11:53.090 --> 01:11:55.690
be doing it on campus in a lab
with graduate students, and so

01:11:55.690 --> 01:11:56.460
on and so forth.

01:11:56.460 --> 01:11:58.460
That's not how it worked then.

01:11:58.460 --> 01:12:00.590
He was doing it in his
own laboratory.

01:12:00.590 --> 01:12:02.440
PROFESSOR: There's another
plaque over on Main Street.

01:12:02.440 --> 01:12:03.450
Who mentioned Main Street?

01:12:03.450 --> 01:12:05.180
Did you, Eric?

01:12:05.180 --> 01:12:06.945
Isn't there a plaque on
Main Street that--

01:12:06.945 --> 01:12:07.240
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].

01:12:07.240 --> 01:12:07.620
PROFESSOR: Pardon?

01:12:07.620 --> 01:12:08.871
AUDIENCE: Is that the
Polaroid one?

01:12:08.871 --> 01:12:10.610
PROFESSOR: Yeah, it's
a Polaroid building.

01:12:10.610 --> 01:12:13.720
But I think it's a reference
to Alexander Graham Bell.

01:12:13.720 --> 01:12:15.280
DAVID MINDELL: Maybe the first
exchange, which was when he

01:12:15.280 --> 01:12:16.030
first got it going.

01:12:16.030 --> 01:12:16.970
PROFESSOR: Yeah, it could be.

01:12:16.970 --> 01:12:17.780
I've forgotten what it is.

01:12:17.780 --> 01:12:20.430
But I remember seeing it
as I was walking by.

01:12:20.430 --> 01:12:21.530
AUDIENCE: He was an
instructor here.

01:12:21.530 --> 01:12:23.410
He was teaching.

01:12:23.410 --> 01:12:25.350
I'm not sure if he was actually
teaching at the

01:12:25.350 --> 01:12:26.940
moment he made that invention.

01:12:26.940 --> 01:12:29.050
I don't know how they
overlap together.

01:12:29.050 --> 01:12:30.560
PROFESSOR: Interesting.

01:12:30.560 --> 01:12:35.580
I have not encountered
that sort of

01:12:35.580 --> 01:12:38.880
thought coming from him.

01:12:38.880 --> 01:12:41.120
But I have to admit,
I have not read--

01:12:41.120 --> 01:12:44.170
I have not been in the archives
to read everything

01:12:44.170 --> 01:12:45.780
that he wrote at the time.

01:12:45.780 --> 01:12:50.510
I suspect there are some
references there.

01:12:50.510 --> 01:12:54.110
What I see, from the literature
I've been reading,

01:12:54.110 --> 01:12:57.330
is primarily a concern about
just institution building.

01:12:57.330 --> 01:13:00.370
I mean, he had a lot on his
plate just trying to get this

01:13:00.370 --> 01:13:02.110
place started.

01:13:02.110 --> 01:13:07.490
He was very sympathetic to
reform groups in Boston, the

01:13:07.490 --> 01:13:10.890
abolitionist movement
being one of them.

01:13:10.890 --> 01:13:13.620
There were a bunch of reform
movements that were underway

01:13:13.620 --> 01:13:16.770
during the 1850s, abolitionism
being the most famous

01:13:16.770 --> 01:13:18.420
probably, and the most
controversial.

01:13:18.420 --> 01:13:23.160
But temperance against
drinking.

01:13:23.160 --> 01:13:25.650
Wouldn't that be something if
William Barton Rogers was a

01:13:25.650 --> 01:13:26.900
temperance advocate?

01:13:29.640 --> 01:13:32.900
That could totally screw up
the 150th anniversary.

01:13:32.900 --> 01:13:33.980
DAVID MINDELL: Or the entire--

01:13:33.980 --> 01:13:36.160
PROFESSOR: I say that
as a house master.

01:13:36.160 --> 01:13:37.880
DAVID MINDELL: Only a house
master would raise that issue.

01:13:37.880 --> 01:13:41.380
PROFESSOR: Only a house master
could resonate to that.

01:13:41.380 --> 01:13:42.240
I don't know.

01:13:42.240 --> 01:13:48.560
But he was surely influenced
by these reform groups.

01:13:48.560 --> 01:13:51.660
But his reform was
educational, no

01:13:51.660 --> 01:13:54.520
question about it.

01:13:54.520 --> 01:13:59.520
DAVID MINDELL: I think if you
look at how people like

01:13:59.520 --> 01:14:02.820
Nathaniel Hawthorne responded
to the Civil War, there was

01:14:02.820 --> 01:14:04.610
certainly a strain there.

01:14:04.610 --> 01:14:06.900
He was a slightly earlier--

01:14:06.900 --> 01:14:08.150
anybody ever heard of the
transcendentalists?

01:14:11.170 --> 01:14:12.565
Obviously, Thoreau
and Emerson.

01:14:12.565 --> 01:14:16.900
But then there were all these
other- Nathaniel Hawthorne,

01:14:16.900 --> 01:14:20.220
Bronson Alcott, who was the
father of Louisa May Alcott,

01:14:20.220 --> 01:14:24.770
who wrote Little Women, was a
very big educational reformer.

01:14:24.770 --> 01:14:28.090
This was sort of more
in the 1830s, 1840s.

01:14:28.090 --> 01:14:30.420
You read what these people
were writing.

01:14:30.420 --> 01:14:33.840
They were basically like '60s
counterculture hippies of the

01:14:33.840 --> 01:14:35.620
day in a certain way.

01:14:35.620 --> 01:14:37.020
They were pretty radical.

01:14:37.020 --> 01:14:39.000
There was free love movements
among them.

01:14:39.000 --> 01:14:42.230
They were starting utopian
communities, all kinds of

01:14:42.230 --> 01:14:44.710
wacky things there.

01:14:44.710 --> 01:14:46.370
I don't think Rogers
really fell into

01:14:46.370 --> 01:14:49.050
that category so much.

01:14:49.050 --> 01:14:52.370
So people like Hawthorne and
Herman Melville later,

01:14:52.370 --> 01:14:54.950
responded to the Civil War with
the question you asked

01:14:54.950 --> 01:14:58.240
about, gee, is this just too
much industrialization?

01:14:58.240 --> 01:14:59.770
Just leads to war.

01:14:59.770 --> 01:15:02.490
Too much machinery, and it's all
dehumanizing and destroys

01:15:02.490 --> 01:15:03.020
the environment.

01:15:03.020 --> 01:15:05.910
There certainly were some
questions raised about that.

01:15:05.910 --> 01:15:09.550
But I think William Barton
Rogers would say, not enough

01:15:09.550 --> 01:15:12.600
rationality, not enough
science leads

01:15:12.600 --> 01:15:13.710
people to act crazy.

01:15:13.710 --> 01:15:18.660
We need better, more rational
management in the same way

01:15:18.660 --> 01:15:22.400
that Roe was talking
about before.

01:15:22.400 --> 01:15:24.890
PROFESSOR: That was his focus,
as best I can tell.

01:15:24.890 --> 01:15:29.450
After he died, his wife edited
what she considered to be his

01:15:29.450 --> 01:15:31.360
most important correspondence.

01:15:31.360 --> 01:15:34.790
And that resulted in
a two-volume book.

01:15:34.790 --> 01:15:37.530
Basically, of his letters.

01:15:37.530 --> 01:15:41.220
And I've read a lot of them.

01:15:41.220 --> 01:15:43.100
Can't say I've read every
one of them, but I've

01:15:43.100 --> 01:15:43.910
read a lot of them.

01:15:43.910 --> 01:15:47.770
And I don't remember
encountering the sort of

01:15:47.770 --> 01:15:51.030
reform-oriented movements that
were very, very much in

01:15:51.030 --> 01:15:54.940
evidence around here, other than
his distaste for slavery.

01:15:54.940 --> 01:15:58.110
He clearly was not in
favor of slavery.

01:15:58.110 --> 01:16:00.910
But on the other hand, I don't
think he was out there

01:16:00.910 --> 01:16:03.730
attending anti-slavery rallies
and stuff like that.

01:16:03.730 --> 01:16:06.530
He had his own vision of what
he wanted to do from an

01:16:06.530 --> 01:16:07.750
educational perspective.

01:16:07.750 --> 01:16:10.540
That took a lot of time,
just doing that.

01:16:10.540 --> 01:16:13.580
Thinking about, how do you
form a curriculum?

01:16:13.580 --> 01:16:15.580
Where do you get the money
to start the school?

01:16:15.580 --> 01:16:17.030
How do you get the land?

01:16:17.030 --> 01:16:20.660
Those are pretty daunting
questions when you're starting

01:16:20.660 --> 01:16:23.200
from scratch, which he was.

01:16:23.200 --> 01:16:24.870
He was not a wealthy man.

01:16:24.870 --> 01:16:27.010
The first part of your question
is easy to answer,

01:16:27.010 --> 01:16:30.090
and that is that it happened
fairly often.

01:16:30.090 --> 01:16:33.570
If somebody passed away who
was a famous engineer,

01:16:33.570 --> 01:16:38.420
oftentimes the wife, or a
cousin, or somebody would edit

01:16:38.420 --> 01:16:40.210
the correspondence.

01:16:40.210 --> 01:16:47.190
I think, for example, there's
like a 32-volume set of the

01:16:47.190 --> 01:16:50.190
correspondence of Eleuthere
Irenee du Pont who was the

01:16:50.190 --> 01:16:52.430
founder of the DuPont company.

01:16:52.430 --> 01:16:55.750
Even earlier than Rogers in
the 19th century that was

01:16:55.750 --> 01:17:00.460
edited by a woman who was a
descendant of his, but wasn't

01:17:00.460 --> 01:17:02.090
one of his daughters
or even his wife.

01:17:02.090 --> 01:17:05.690
But waited for probably 50
years before she got

01:17:05.690 --> 01:17:07.350
interested in doing it.

01:17:07.350 --> 01:17:09.780
So it varies about the time.

01:17:09.780 --> 01:17:12.370
It may not happen five years
after a person's life.

01:17:12.370 --> 01:17:14.790
It may happen 50 or 60
years afterwards.

01:17:14.790 --> 01:17:16.970
But that happens.

01:17:16.970 --> 01:17:18.300
You'll see it fairly often,

01:17:18.300 --> 01:17:20.630
especially in the 19th century.

01:17:20.630 --> 01:17:24.330
There are a few businesspeople
that do that.

01:17:24.330 --> 01:17:27.400
The Appleton family here in
Boston are one of the founders

01:17:27.400 --> 01:17:30.150
of the big textile mills
up in Lowell.

01:17:30.150 --> 01:17:33.580
And there were several volumes
edited by their descendants of

01:17:33.580 --> 01:17:35.500
their correspondence.

01:17:35.500 --> 01:17:36.870
What were they trying
to achieve?

01:17:36.870 --> 01:17:43.300
And clearly, that correspondence
is selective.

01:17:43.300 --> 01:17:45.440
You got to ask yourself, well,
were they including every

01:17:45.440 --> 01:17:46.860
letter in there?

01:17:46.860 --> 01:17:49.580
Because most of that
correspondence is about the

01:17:49.580 --> 01:17:50.920
vision they had for
the institution.

01:17:50.920 --> 01:17:54.420
It was very rosy.

01:17:54.420 --> 01:17:59.270
We have an obligation to be
stewards of what we have, and

01:17:59.270 --> 01:18:01.580
we use our money to
promote things.

01:18:01.580 --> 01:18:05.260
Very civic-spirited.

01:18:05.260 --> 01:18:07.610
But on the other hand, there's
not a word in that

01:18:07.610 --> 01:18:10.950
correspondence about the labor
management problems that

01:18:10.950 --> 01:18:13.280
emerged during his lifetime.

01:18:13.280 --> 01:18:15.460
Didn't he write anything
about that?

01:18:15.460 --> 01:18:16.560
If so, where is it?

01:18:16.560 --> 01:18:19.470
What happened to it in
the correspondence?

01:18:19.470 --> 01:18:24.020
So those things have to be
looked at as something that

01:18:24.020 --> 01:18:26.310
has been selective.

01:18:26.310 --> 01:18:29.450
There's a process of
interpretation going on there,

01:18:29.450 --> 01:18:32.270
as there is in all history.

01:18:32.270 --> 01:18:35.250
Even I, when I write a book or
something, and working in

01:18:35.250 --> 01:18:38.590
original archives, you
select facts to

01:18:38.590 --> 01:18:41.710
construct your history.

01:18:41.710 --> 01:18:44.090
And there are things that you
may leave out that David would

01:18:44.090 --> 01:18:48.040
say are very important
that Smith ignored.

01:18:48.040 --> 01:18:51.450
And that's one of the reasons
I became a historian, is I'm

01:18:51.450 --> 01:18:54.340
very interested in how
do these differing

01:18:54.340 --> 01:18:56.450
interpretations of
the past emerge?

01:18:56.450 --> 01:18:58.600
And then, how do you
reconcile them once

01:18:58.600 --> 01:19:00.390
those differences exist?

01:19:00.390 --> 01:19:03.350
Because they keep getting
reconciled, and re-reconciled.

01:19:03.350 --> 01:19:05.220
And it keeps going on.

01:19:05.220 --> 01:19:08.300
DAVID MINDELL: The MIT archives
probably doesn't have

01:19:08.300 --> 01:19:12.130
a collection of people who
thought William Barton Rogers

01:19:12.130 --> 01:19:15.340
was an idiot and it was a
terrible idea to make this

01:19:15.340 --> 01:19:16.970
Institute of Technology.

01:19:16.970 --> 01:19:19.030
Those people may well
have existed.

01:19:19.030 --> 01:19:22.300
And there may even be scattered
around in their

01:19:22.300 --> 01:19:25.580
archives, around the
Massachusetts State Archives

01:19:25.580 --> 01:19:29.530
of the Massachusetts Historical
Society, letters

01:19:29.530 --> 01:19:30.830
that they wrote to
that effect.

01:19:30.830 --> 01:19:32.730
But it's not something
that MIT has gone out

01:19:32.730 --> 01:19:34.900
of its way to collect.

01:19:34.900 --> 01:19:40.100
And so the archival record
tends to reflect--

01:19:40.100 --> 01:19:42.780
well, it reflects the successes
and it also helps

01:19:42.780 --> 01:19:43.720
make the successes.

01:19:43.720 --> 01:19:49.170
So Barton Rogers' wife, by
compiling his letters,

01:19:49.170 --> 01:19:51.830
undoubtedly she thought she was
doing it because he was a

01:19:51.830 --> 01:19:53.710
historically important figure.

01:19:53.710 --> 01:19:56.290
But collecting his letters and
publishing them also helps

01:19:56.290 --> 01:19:59.650
make him into a historically
important figure.

01:19:59.650 --> 01:20:03.620
And that's the kind of stuff
that historians and archivists

01:20:03.620 --> 01:20:06.400
deal with all the time as far
as, what are the biases in

01:20:06.400 --> 01:20:09.390
terms of what gets saved and
what gets thrown out?

01:20:09.390 --> 01:20:11.190
And who's considered
important enough?

01:20:11.190 --> 01:20:12.690
And who's not considered
important?

01:20:16.160 --> 01:20:19.380
PROFESSOR: She wanted to
memorialize him for one thing.

01:20:19.380 --> 01:20:22.400
I mean, that's why those two
volumes were published is as a

01:20:22.400 --> 01:20:26.005
memorial to her husband, to
having done what she felt was

01:20:26.005 --> 01:20:29.140
an important life's work.

01:20:29.140 --> 01:20:32.670
But in the process, there's all
this selectivity that goes

01:20:32.670 --> 01:20:37.820
on that sort of biases
the record.

01:20:37.820 --> 01:20:40.430
So there's a lot of open
ends in all of

01:20:40.430 --> 01:20:42.750
this study of history.

01:20:42.750 --> 01:20:46.350
And especially, history of MIT
because so little has really

01:20:46.350 --> 01:20:48.230
been published about it.

01:20:48.230 --> 01:20:51.940
You were mentioning, Michelle,

01:20:51.940 --> 01:20:54.240
collections of the MIT archives.

01:20:54.240 --> 01:20:57.140
In certain ways, that archive
is one of the best in the

01:20:57.140 --> 01:20:59.400
country for universities,
I think, if you look at

01:20:59.400 --> 01:21:03.050
laboratories, or professors,
of people like that.

01:21:03.050 --> 01:21:04.330
But if you were to ask--

01:21:04.330 --> 01:21:07.540
go to the library and try
to find out much about

01:21:07.540 --> 01:21:12.200
Burton-Conner house, or the
student housing system.

01:21:12.200 --> 01:21:13.860
You don't find much there.

01:21:13.860 --> 01:21:17.330
At least that's what the
boss told me one day.

01:21:17.330 --> 01:21:20.670
That's been an area that wasn't
collected that I'm sure

01:21:20.670 --> 01:21:22.240
is starting to be
collected now.

01:21:22.240 --> 01:21:25.450
But different people have
different priorities.

01:21:25.450 --> 01:21:30.060
And so there are things that
get forgotten or left out.

01:21:30.060 --> 01:21:31.810
You keep adding, trying
to add to.

01:21:31.810 --> 01:21:36.090
So student life is an important
element in all that.

01:21:36.090 --> 01:21:37.320
DAVID MINDELL: Another question
that you all may

01:21:37.320 --> 01:21:40.670
have, especially as we read next
week is, you look at 1865

01:21:40.670 --> 01:21:42.330
when classes begin.

01:21:42.330 --> 01:21:45.490
And suddenly there are people
like you in these rooms.

01:21:45.490 --> 01:21:48.100
And the question is, who
were those people?

01:21:48.100 --> 01:21:51.320
Were they children
of immigrants

01:21:51.320 --> 01:21:52.400
who got a lucky break?

01:21:52.400 --> 01:21:55.670
Were they children of people
in Boston with money who

01:21:55.670 --> 01:21:57.880
decided that Harvard
wasn't for them?

01:21:57.880 --> 01:22:00.710
Were they people who worked in
the Lowell mills who wanted to

01:22:00.710 --> 01:22:03.620
get a more serious education?

01:22:03.620 --> 01:22:07.140
We have very, very poor
documentation on just, who

01:22:07.140 --> 01:22:08.420
were those early students?

01:22:08.420 --> 01:22:10.310
Why did they come to this
place that no one

01:22:10.310 --> 01:22:12.010
had ever heard of?

01:22:12.010 --> 01:22:14.370
Because at the time, it wasn't
considered important.

01:22:14.370 --> 01:22:17.650
They were considered
faces that were--

01:22:17.650 --> 01:22:20.280
they weren't the president
and the benefactors.

01:22:23.460 --> 01:22:25.590
As an historian, one needs
to get very creative

01:22:25.590 --> 01:22:26.200
to think about it.

01:22:26.200 --> 01:22:29.750
Now, some of those people ended
up becoming famous, and

01:22:29.750 --> 01:22:32.060
wealthy, and preserved
their records, and

01:22:32.060 --> 01:22:32.980
then gave them back.

01:22:32.980 --> 01:22:34.960
And over time, you can piece
some of it together.

01:22:34.960 --> 01:22:37.330
But there is no--

01:22:37.330 --> 01:22:40.580
PROFESSOR: Compared with
Harvard, not as expensive?

01:22:40.580 --> 01:22:45.480
But then, I don't know exactly
who paid for, say the use of

01:22:45.480 --> 01:22:46.610
laboratory equipment.

01:22:46.610 --> 01:22:49.220
Because I know the Institute
had a perennial problem in

01:22:49.220 --> 01:22:51.630
trying to keep its laboratories

01:22:51.630 --> 01:22:53.860
sufficiently equipped.

01:22:53.860 --> 01:22:56.490
Now, did students have to pay
extra fees for that sort of--

01:22:56.490 --> 01:22:59.680
if so, that would've
raised the tuition.

01:22:59.680 --> 01:23:01.095
But I'd have to look that up.

01:23:01.095 --> 01:23:01.760
I don't know.

01:23:01.760 --> 01:23:03.170
DAVID MINDELL: I think we'll see
it in the reading in the

01:23:03.170 --> 01:23:03.990
next couple weeks.

01:23:03.990 --> 01:23:05.140
But it was not expensive.

01:23:05.140 --> 01:23:07.950
It was not the way that
undergraduate education is

01:23:07.950 --> 01:23:11.190
today where for a middle class
family it was really like

01:23:11.190 --> 01:23:12.690
almost as expensive
as their house.

01:23:12.690 --> 01:23:16.880
It was much more of a kind
of fee-based thing.

01:23:16.880 --> 01:23:20.500
And I don't think it was
the major barrier.

01:23:20.500 --> 01:23:24.260
It was not for poor people for
sure, but it was not the major

01:23:24.260 --> 01:23:25.740
barrier to people coming.

01:23:25.740 --> 01:23:28.510
Probably harder for people to
take those years away from the

01:23:28.510 --> 01:23:30.360
workforce than it was
to pay the tuition.

01:23:30.360 --> 01:23:34.040
PROFESSOR: And for many years,
I think through the 1870s and

01:23:34.040 --> 01:23:37.060
in to the 1880s, most of the
students at MIT were not

01:23:37.060 --> 01:23:38.020
full-time students.

01:23:38.020 --> 01:23:40.200
They were special students.

01:23:40.200 --> 01:23:43.130
And they were paying much
smaller fees because they were

01:23:43.130 --> 01:23:47.160
basically people who were
working a 10-hour day, or

01:23:47.160 --> 01:23:49.210
whatever it would be,
and then coming to

01:23:49.210 --> 01:23:51.480
school at night primarily.

01:23:51.480 --> 01:23:52.360
DAVID MINDELL: Not
living on campus.

01:23:52.360 --> 01:23:54.110
PROFESSOR: And not living
on campus, yeah.

01:23:54.110 --> 01:23:55.180
I'd have to look.

01:23:55.180 --> 01:23:58.410
I'm not sure about Boston
University.

01:23:58.410 --> 01:24:01.930
I don't think Boston University
was around at that

01:24:01.930 --> 01:24:04.340
time, but I'd have to look.

01:24:04.340 --> 01:24:05.480
I don't know.

01:24:05.480 --> 01:24:06.230
Good question.

01:24:06.230 --> 01:24:09.430
DAVID MINDELL: You'd have
Bowdoin in Maine.

01:24:09.430 --> 01:24:10.260
PROFESSOR: Yeah, there are--

01:24:10.260 --> 01:24:11.840
DAVID MINDELL: Williams
College I think was--

01:24:11.840 --> 01:24:15.000
PROFESSOR: Amherst, Williams.

01:24:15.000 --> 01:24:16.530
DAVID MINDELL: We
mentioned RPI.

01:24:16.530 --> 01:24:18.160
PROFESSOR: Yep.

01:24:18.160 --> 01:24:20.110
DAVID MINDELL: Most of the early
MIT students, there's

01:24:20.110 --> 01:24:22.070
not great documentation
on this.

01:24:22.070 --> 01:24:24.960
Most of them are from Boston
and pretty close by.

01:24:24.960 --> 01:24:26.900
People didn't travel
the way they do

01:24:26.900 --> 01:24:28.860
today to go to college.

01:24:28.860 --> 01:24:29.310
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

01:24:29.310 --> 01:24:32.980
The one piece of information
I know exists is there were

01:24:32.980 --> 01:24:36.200
surveys done of where did
students come from, not so

01:24:36.200 --> 01:24:39.290
much about their socioeconomic
backgrounds.

01:24:39.290 --> 01:24:41.540
And it's interesting to
watch that circle.

01:24:41.540 --> 01:24:45.290
Initially, strictly MIT
is a local school.

01:24:45.290 --> 01:24:48.510
Most of the students that came
to it lived within a 20-mile

01:24:48.510 --> 01:24:51.040
radius of the campus.

01:24:51.040 --> 01:24:55.350
But then you see that
circumference getting larger,

01:24:55.350 --> 01:24:58.820
and larger, and larger over
the first 30 or 40 years.

01:25:01.420 --> 01:25:04.450
By the early 1900s, you have
students coming here from all

01:25:04.450 --> 01:25:06.580
parts of the United States.

01:25:06.580 --> 01:25:11.300
By the 1890s, for example, the
DuPont family were sending

01:25:11.300 --> 01:25:14.305
some of their sons up
here to school.

01:25:14.305 --> 01:25:17.380
The most important being a guy
named Pierre DuPont who became

01:25:17.380 --> 01:25:20.540
not only the head of the DuPont
Company, but the boss

01:25:20.540 --> 01:25:22.350
of General Motors
for many years.

01:25:22.350 --> 01:25:26.190
Really, made General Motors into
the big corporation that

01:25:26.190 --> 01:25:30.320
it is, with the help
of Alfred Sloan.

01:25:30.320 --> 01:25:33.530
I think DuPont may have hired
him, I'm not sure.

01:25:33.530 --> 01:25:35.680
But Sloan was a graduate
of MIT.

01:25:38.550 --> 01:25:40.060
DAVID MINDELL: Why was a
chemical company involved in

01:25:40.060 --> 01:25:40.870
the auto industry?

01:25:40.870 --> 01:25:41.980
That's a question
you could ask.

01:25:41.980 --> 01:25:43.460
PROFESSOR: Oh.

01:25:43.460 --> 01:25:46.690
Why was the chemical company
of DuPont involved in the

01:25:46.690 --> 01:25:48.100
automobile industry?

01:25:48.100 --> 01:25:50.046
Good question.

01:25:50.046 --> 01:25:51.540
AUDIENCE: Deals?

01:25:51.540 --> 01:25:54.440
Deals in oil--

01:25:54.440 --> 01:25:55.690
PROFESSOR: Not really, no.

01:25:58.630 --> 01:26:01.340
Think of that.

01:26:01.340 --> 01:26:04.080
Who's the chemical engineer
in the class?

01:26:04.080 --> 01:26:07.750
Any chemical engineers,
chemists?

01:26:07.750 --> 01:26:10.078
What do you guess?

01:26:10.078 --> 01:26:10.910
AUDIENCE: I don't know.

01:26:10.910 --> 01:26:12.850
DAVID MINDELL: What part of
a car was made by DuPont?

01:26:12.850 --> 01:26:14.842
That's another way to ask it.

01:26:14.842 --> 01:26:15.330
AUDIENCE: Paint.

01:26:15.330 --> 01:26:16.310
PROFESSOR: Paint, yeah.

01:26:16.310 --> 01:26:18.160
It's the paint.

01:26:18.160 --> 01:26:21.160
GM bought all their
paint from DuPont.

01:26:21.160 --> 01:26:24.430
And then, I think got in trouble
economically, and

01:26:24.430 --> 01:26:29.010
DuPont took over the company,
or a large chunk of the

01:26:29.010 --> 01:26:32.300
company in order to resuscitate
it and get their

01:26:32.300 --> 01:26:34.090
investment back out of it.

01:26:34.090 --> 01:26:37.010
That's when Pierre went in
there and basically took

01:26:37.010 --> 01:26:37.660
things over.

01:26:37.660 --> 01:26:40.204
Yeah, it's all about
paint for DuPont.

01:26:40.204 --> 01:26:43.930
AUDIENCE: I feel like that's a
non-essential part of a car.

01:26:43.930 --> 01:26:46.050
PROFESSOR: But it's
a big part.

01:26:46.050 --> 01:26:55.295
By the 1910s, it's a big
business and a big account

01:26:55.295 --> 01:26:56.600
that you would have.

01:26:56.600 --> 01:26:58.750
DAVID MINDELL: It's off-track
a little bit, but Henry Ford

01:26:58.750 --> 01:27:01.950
was famous for saying you can
have a Model T In any color as

01:27:01.950 --> 01:27:03.450
long as it's black.

01:27:03.450 --> 01:27:05.190
And one of the ways that
General Motors then

01:27:05.190 --> 01:27:08.195
differentiated itself was both
an annual model change where

01:27:08.195 --> 01:27:10.350
it wasn't so standardized and
you could get cars in

01:27:10.350 --> 01:27:12.130
different colors.

01:27:12.130 --> 01:27:15.766
PROFESSOR: And Sloan was right
in the middle of all that.

01:27:15.766 --> 01:27:18.400
Absolutely.

01:27:18.400 --> 01:27:20.400
Any other questions?

01:27:20.400 --> 01:27:24.650
People were very tight with
their pocketbooks.

01:27:24.650 --> 01:27:27.810
You'll see next week in the
essay that I've written, I

01:27:27.810 --> 01:27:30.530
make an argument in there that
government support was very

01:27:30.530 --> 01:27:35.200
important because once potential
private donors saw

01:27:35.200 --> 01:27:38.260
that the state of Massachusetts
was investing in

01:27:38.260 --> 01:27:45.250
MIT with land and money, that
gave private donors a signal

01:27:45.250 --> 01:27:47.670
that this institution
had a future.

01:27:47.670 --> 01:27:51.400
That they took more confidence
in the possibility of this

01:27:51.400 --> 01:27:54.780
actually taking root
and going forward.

01:27:54.780 --> 01:27:58.750
So the guy that wrote that
letter was the doctor.

01:27:58.750 --> 01:28:01.760
I think he gave $40,000
in 1864.

01:28:01.760 --> 01:28:03.580
That was a huge amount
of money.

01:28:03.580 --> 01:28:07.490
And that was partly because--

01:28:07.490 --> 01:28:10.110
he gave the money because he saw
the state of Massachusetts

01:28:10.110 --> 01:28:12.840
investing in MIT and
thought, OK, they

01:28:12.840 --> 01:28:14.160
got a chance to survive.

01:28:14.160 --> 01:28:17.940
I will help them out.

01:28:17.940 --> 01:28:19.390
So that's very important.

01:28:19.390 --> 01:28:21.250
DAVID MINDELL: There's a case to
be made, it came up when we

01:28:21.250 --> 01:28:23.280
were making that video.

01:28:23.280 --> 01:28:26.040
That even though the war was
so disruptive to Rogers'

01:28:26.040 --> 01:28:29.410
plans, there's a case to be made
that having four years

01:28:29.410 --> 01:28:33.410
kind of hiatus before really
having to get the place going

01:28:33.410 --> 01:28:36.950
gave him the time and the
background to get it a little

01:28:36.950 --> 01:28:39.580
bit more established
financially and

01:28:39.580 --> 01:28:41.510
institutionally before
teaching classes.

01:28:41.510 --> 01:28:43.810
Where you'd think, as soon as
you get the charter signed,

01:28:43.810 --> 01:28:45.710
you admit students
the next fall.

01:28:45.710 --> 01:28:48.360
Well, then you're both running
the place and planning it at

01:28:48.360 --> 01:28:51.900
the same time, and this
way he was able to.

01:28:51.900 --> 01:28:54.550
And then, at some point-- and
it would be interesting to

01:28:54.550 --> 01:28:56.560
look at when this point is--

01:28:56.560 --> 01:28:59.310
it became clear the war was
going to be won at some point

01:28:59.310 --> 01:29:00.100
by the North.

01:29:00.100 --> 01:29:02.310
And some people probably
believed

01:29:02.310 --> 01:29:03.520
that from the beginning.

01:29:03.520 --> 01:29:07.710
And then there was a big
reconstruction job to be done.

01:29:07.710 --> 01:29:10.060
And there was at least some
kind of sense of optimism.

01:29:10.060 --> 01:29:14.480
And that's probably when some of
the momentum around 1860--

01:29:14.480 --> 01:29:18.550
I'm sure the second half of
1863, 1864 after Gettysburg,

01:29:18.550 --> 01:29:23.720
it was not a done deal but
the tide had turned.

01:29:23.720 --> 01:29:26.730
And so there was people
looking forward

01:29:26.730 --> 01:29:28.390
and thinking about--

01:29:28.390 --> 01:29:30.320
there's a lot of building
to be done after a war.

01:29:32.940 --> 01:29:36.160
If you're an Iraqi businessman
in 2002, you'd be investing in

01:29:36.160 --> 01:29:38.620
construction equipment,
because that's

01:29:38.620 --> 01:29:41.540
what you got to do.

01:29:41.540 --> 01:29:45.360
PROFESSOR: Well, the Morrill
Land-Grant Act, which is the

01:29:45.360 --> 01:29:48.650
background to all of these state
universities basically,

01:29:48.650 --> 01:29:52.510
that wasn't passed until
the summer of 1862.

01:29:52.510 --> 01:29:57.350
So Rogers, really wouldn't have
had anything to build on.

01:29:57.350 --> 01:30:00.530
If that act hadn't been
past, he would

01:30:00.530 --> 01:30:01.950
have been in big trouble.

01:30:01.950 --> 01:30:05.710
Because no one was ponying up
with free land over in Back

01:30:05.710 --> 01:30:09.520
Bay other than the state of
Massachusetts, who he had to

01:30:09.520 --> 01:30:12.060
do a lot of lobbying with.

01:30:12.060 --> 01:30:14.390
One of the things that
suited him well--

01:30:14.390 --> 01:30:17.680
I should mention this-- was
that Rogers was a very

01:30:17.680 --> 01:30:22.090
effective small "p" politician,
in the sense that

01:30:22.090 --> 01:30:24.620
he knew how to lobby people.

01:30:24.620 --> 01:30:25.610
And how did he learn that?

01:30:25.610 --> 01:30:27.870
He learned it through a very
bitter experience that he had

01:30:27.870 --> 01:30:30.650
had in Virginia as the head of
the state survey in which he

01:30:30.650 --> 01:30:33.980
learned how mean-spirited
politics could be.

01:30:33.980 --> 01:30:38.350
And he really became very astute
at learning how to

01:30:38.350 --> 01:30:42.320
approach legislators, people
like that, to get their

01:30:42.320 --> 01:30:47.680
support for voting funds for
this new institution that he

01:30:47.680 --> 01:30:48.800
was trying to establish.

01:30:48.800 --> 01:30:51.430
So even though he had a bad
experience in Virginia with

01:30:51.430 --> 01:30:54.170
the geological survey, it served
him well in the long

01:30:54.170 --> 01:30:58.400
run in learning how to negotiate
the building of a

01:30:58.400 --> 01:31:01.700
new educational institute
here in Boston.

01:31:01.700 --> 01:31:07.710
He was a smart man, no
doubt about that.

01:31:07.710 --> 01:31:10.460
It's hard to get a read on what
kind of person was he.

01:31:10.460 --> 01:31:13.600
I mean, we know about his
intellectual qualities.

01:31:13.600 --> 01:31:16.720
Obviously, very smart,
very bright, capable.

01:31:16.720 --> 01:31:20.435
But did people call
him William?

01:31:20.435 --> 01:31:23.280
Did they call him Billy?

01:31:23.280 --> 01:31:24.825
They call him Will?

01:31:24.825 --> 01:31:27.220
Did he have a nickname?

01:31:27.220 --> 01:31:29.030
You see his pictures.

01:31:29.030 --> 01:31:31.580
If you were to judge from his
pictures, you always called

01:31:31.580 --> 01:31:37.400
him William, or Mr. Rogers,
or something like that.

01:31:37.400 --> 01:31:38.650
Yeah, Mr. Rogers.

01:31:40.920 --> 01:31:42.880
A double entendre there.

01:31:42.880 --> 01:31:48.660
But he's a hard person
to try to get a sense

01:31:48.660 --> 01:31:49.930
of, what was he like?

01:31:49.930 --> 01:31:52.750
Clearly, very good
with people.

01:31:52.750 --> 01:31:55.020
But at the same time, he
looks as if he's a

01:31:55.020 --> 01:31:57.800
fairly formal person.

01:31:57.800 --> 01:32:01.810
He was raised in a Scots Irish
family, so it was probably a

01:32:01.810 --> 01:32:06.510
fairly strict upbringing
that he had.

01:32:06.510 --> 01:32:09.490
Is he a religious person?

01:32:09.490 --> 01:32:13.530
I've not seen any references
to being a deeply religious

01:32:13.530 --> 01:32:18.720
person, though probably he was
maybe a Presbyterian coming

01:32:18.720 --> 01:32:19.930
from that sort of background.

01:32:19.930 --> 01:32:21.860
I don't know.

01:32:21.860 --> 01:32:24.190
It's possible to find that
out, I just don't know.

01:32:24.190 --> 01:32:26.305
AUDIENCE: How long was he
actually active here once

01:32:26.305 --> 01:32:27.320
classes started?

01:32:27.320 --> 01:32:31.530
PROFESSOR: Well, he
died in 1883.

01:32:31.530 --> 01:32:35.610
And he was very active.

01:32:35.610 --> 01:32:38.830
I'm trying to remember.

01:32:38.830 --> 01:32:40.770
Around-- was it 1873?

01:32:40.770 --> 01:32:42.010
I've forgotten.

01:32:42.010 --> 01:32:45.560
He serves as president
twice, basically.

01:32:45.560 --> 01:32:47.890
He serves a stint getting
the thing started.

01:32:47.890 --> 01:32:49.930
And then he has a
health problem.

01:32:49.930 --> 01:32:52.400
He starts having health
problems in the 1870s.

01:32:52.400 --> 01:32:56.310
And he backs off and he turns
over the Institute to one of

01:32:56.310 --> 01:33:00.020
his most trusted associates.

01:33:00.020 --> 01:33:05.270
And that goes on until
around 18--

01:33:05.270 --> 01:33:08.130
I'm trying to remember
the dates here.

01:33:08.130 --> 01:33:10.260
'79, 80 thereabouts, I think.

01:33:10.260 --> 01:33:13.805
AUDIENCE: It says that he
returned in '78 and continued

01:33:13.805 --> 01:33:14.940
until 1881.

01:33:14.940 --> 01:33:15.920
PROFESSOR: '81, OK.

01:33:15.920 --> 01:33:19.530
And that's sort of the
interim president.

01:33:19.530 --> 01:33:22.560
He was not a well person at that
time, but he was sort of

01:33:22.560 --> 01:33:24.950
filling in until they could find
a new president and the

01:33:24.950 --> 01:33:27.578
new president was Francis
Amasa Walker?

01:33:27.578 --> 01:33:30.270
AUDIENCE: I believe so.

01:33:30.270 --> 01:33:33.890
PROFESSOR: Speaking of
the Civil War, Fran--

01:33:33.890 --> 01:33:35.320
now, he did have a nickname.

01:33:35.320 --> 01:33:36.650
His name was Frank.

01:33:36.650 --> 01:33:39.160
People did call him
Frank Walker.

01:33:39.160 --> 01:33:43.670
But Francis Amasa Walker was
a Civil War general.

01:33:43.670 --> 01:33:48.380
Had earned ribbons and things
for service during the war.

01:33:48.380 --> 01:33:51.300
And then he was--

01:33:51.300 --> 01:33:53.870
as I remember, he was educated,
I believe, at

01:33:53.870 --> 01:33:55.280
Amherst and Yale.

01:33:55.280 --> 01:33:57.810
He went to Yale as
a professor.

01:33:57.810 --> 01:34:00.750
He would have been by our lights
today, someone who was

01:34:00.750 --> 01:34:01.630
in economics.

01:34:01.630 --> 01:34:04.570
He was not an engineer
or scientist.

01:34:04.570 --> 01:34:09.980
And he became very famous for
running the US Census of 1880,

01:34:09.980 --> 01:34:13.210
which was arguably the
best US Census done

01:34:13.210 --> 01:34:14.540
during the 19th century.

01:34:14.540 --> 01:34:15.660
Extremely well done.

01:34:15.660 --> 01:34:18.700
And even today, you can read
it and get a lot of good

01:34:18.700 --> 01:34:24.040
information out of it about
all sorts of things, from

01:34:24.040 --> 01:34:28.280
cotton harvesting to
manufacturing processes.

01:34:28.280 --> 01:34:29.540
But he was in charge of that.

01:34:29.540 --> 01:34:33.000
And then, he came to MIT from
the Census Office in

01:34:33.000 --> 01:34:34.130
Washington, basically.

01:34:34.130 --> 01:34:37.960
He'd been on leave at Yale and
came up here after that.

01:34:37.960 --> 01:34:40.290
So he came here in
'83 did you say?

01:34:43.194 --> 01:34:43.678
AUDIENCE: Oops.

01:34:43.678 --> 01:34:45.614
I had it up here a second ago.

01:34:51.260 --> 01:34:57.400
It has him '81 to
1897 it seems.

01:34:57.400 --> 01:34:57.980
PROFESSOR: OK.

01:34:57.980 --> 01:35:01.400
Well, it's right around in there
because the US Census

01:35:01.400 --> 01:35:04.560
was finished by '82,
or thereabouts.

01:35:04.560 --> 01:35:09.300
And Rogers dies on the platform
of Francis Amasa

01:35:09.300 --> 01:35:12.870
Walker's inaugural day.

01:35:12.870 --> 01:35:17.340
He's literally giving a speech
and keels over and passes away

01:35:17.340 --> 01:35:20.110
on the platform when he's
transferring power, in effect,

01:35:20.110 --> 01:35:22.870
formally to the new president.

01:35:22.870 --> 01:35:25.010
So he dies in '83.

01:35:25.010 --> 01:35:28.470
So that would have meant that
Walker arrived somewhere in

01:35:28.470 --> 01:35:30.460
the previous year.

01:35:30.460 --> 01:35:31.810
DAVID MINDELL: It's worth
talking then a little bit

01:35:31.810 --> 01:35:33.210
about the postwar years.

01:35:35.840 --> 01:35:39.420
The classes start here right at
the end of the war, but in

01:35:39.420 --> 01:35:41.960
terms of the US economy, it
really takes the better part

01:35:41.960 --> 01:35:46.590
of a decade to recover from
the wounds of the war.

01:35:46.590 --> 01:35:51.140
And you can think about 1876,
which is the centennial year.

01:35:51.140 --> 01:35:54.585
There's a big exposition in--

01:35:54.585 --> 01:35:54.860
PROFESSOR: Philadelphia.

01:35:54.860 --> 01:35:57.300
DAVID MINDELL: --Philadelphia,
which features a lot of

01:35:57.300 --> 01:35:59.740
American technology.

01:35:59.740 --> 01:36:03.440
The telegraph makes its first
sort of public debut there for

01:36:03.440 --> 01:36:04.700
the first time.

01:36:04.700 --> 01:36:04.910
PROFESSOR: Telephone.

01:36:04.910 --> 01:36:06.230
You mean the telephone.

01:36:06.230 --> 01:36:07.130
DAVID MINDELL: Telephone.

01:36:07.130 --> 01:36:10.830
Telephone makes public
debut there.

01:36:10.830 --> 01:36:15.010
Edison's electric light
is really 1881.

01:36:15.010 --> 01:36:18.940
And so the kind of industrial,
sometimes it's called the

01:36:18.940 --> 01:36:23.240
second Industrial Revolution
after the Civil War, takes a

01:36:23.240 --> 01:36:24.550
while to get going.

01:36:24.550 --> 01:36:27.410
And it really takes 10 or 15
years for the country to get

01:36:27.410 --> 01:36:31.260
out of the tunnel and the kind
of malaise of recovering from

01:36:31.260 --> 01:36:32.820
this national catastrophe.

01:36:32.820 --> 01:36:35.730
And many of those industrialists
that--

01:36:35.730 --> 01:36:39.670
Andrew Carnegie's and even
Thomas Edison's, these are not

01:36:39.670 --> 01:36:41.620
people who served in
the Civil War.

01:36:41.620 --> 01:36:44.050
They're just a little younger
than that, or they were doing

01:36:44.050 --> 01:36:45.650
other things during the war.

01:36:45.650 --> 01:36:51.170
And the big US Navy sort of
turns its attention towards

01:36:51.170 --> 01:36:53.650
steel only in 1883.

01:36:53.650 --> 01:36:57.480
And those industries,
it's a while.

01:36:57.480 --> 01:37:02.560
In a sense, Rogers is sort of
a product of the generation

01:37:02.560 --> 01:37:04.015
before the war.

01:37:04.015 --> 01:37:06.670
It's people like Walker and
others who really take up the

01:37:06.670 --> 01:37:08.430
call after the war.

01:37:08.430 --> 01:37:11.300
And it takes a while for
that era to get going.

01:37:11.300 --> 01:37:12.640
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

01:37:12.640 --> 01:37:17.380
I think it's during Walker's
administration that MIT really

01:37:17.380 --> 01:37:20.530
starts to take off as an
educational institution.

01:37:20.530 --> 01:37:23.520
Someone was saying, how many
students are living on campus?

01:37:23.520 --> 01:37:26.290
It's during his administration
that you go to full-time

01:37:26.290 --> 01:37:30.350
students away from
special students.

01:37:30.350 --> 01:37:32.970
It's during his administration
that the majority of students

01:37:32.970 --> 01:37:35.920
then are full-time students.

01:37:35.920 --> 01:37:38.260
I don't know about
dormitories.

01:37:38.260 --> 01:37:41.120
I think they did not have dorms
in those days that I'm

01:37:41.120 --> 01:37:41.920
familiar with.

01:37:41.920 --> 01:37:44.400
They probably had to find
rooms in the city

01:37:44.400 --> 01:37:48.290
or things like that.

01:37:48.290 --> 01:37:51.820
I don't think dormitories appear
until the new campus is

01:37:51.820 --> 01:37:52.570
built over here.

01:37:52.570 --> 01:37:55.430
Senior House is the first dorm,
isn't it, on campus?

01:37:55.430 --> 01:37:56.260
DAVID MINDELL: Is it?

01:37:56.260 --> 01:37:57.020
PROFESSOR: I think it is.

01:37:57.020 --> 01:37:58.670
DAVID MINDELL: MIT doesn't
become predominantly

01:37:58.670 --> 01:38:00.245
residential until
the '50s really.

01:38:00.245 --> 01:38:01.600
PROFESSOR: Are you
Senior House?

01:38:01.600 --> 01:38:03.050
AUDIENCE: No, but
I [INAUDIBLE].

01:38:03.050 --> 01:38:04.570
PROFESSOR: I think that's
the oldest of the

01:38:04.570 --> 01:38:06.225
dorms, is Senior House.

01:38:08.940 --> 01:38:14.320
If that's the case, then we're
talking around 1917, 1918.

01:38:14.320 --> 01:38:16.060
Because I think that's
built after the

01:38:16.060 --> 01:38:18.460
main campus is built.

01:38:18.460 --> 01:38:20.520
It's built right around the same
time that the President's

01:38:20.520 --> 01:38:21.440
House is built.

01:38:21.440 --> 01:38:23.990
So that's pretty late.

01:38:23.990 --> 01:38:26.490
But the shift during
Walker's years was

01:38:26.490 --> 01:38:28.600
important because he gives--

01:38:28.600 --> 01:38:31.875
you read it in my essay that
he gives an annual report.

01:38:31.875 --> 01:38:36.420
I think it's in 1894, in which
he sort of ends the report by

01:38:36.420 --> 01:38:38.850
saying the battle of
the New Education--

01:38:38.850 --> 01:38:41.710
and New Education are
capitalized--

01:38:41.710 --> 01:38:43.430
has been won.

01:38:43.430 --> 01:38:47.720
And what he means by that
is that MIT's program of

01:38:47.720 --> 01:38:51.620
education was called the New
Education by none other than

01:38:51.620 --> 01:38:53.650
the president of Harvard.

01:38:53.650 --> 01:38:57.040
A guy named Charles Eliot, who
started his teaching career

01:38:57.040 --> 01:38:59.500
here at MIT in the chemistry
department.

01:38:59.500 --> 01:39:01.920
And then he was here for about
two years, and then Harvard

01:39:01.920 --> 01:39:05.220
hired him as president of
Harvard University.

01:39:05.220 --> 01:39:07.760
So there's all of this
back and forth

01:39:07.760 --> 01:39:09.350
between Harvard and MIT.

01:39:09.350 --> 01:39:12.170
But Eliot coins the phrase--

01:39:12.170 --> 01:39:16.550
he writes a two-part essay in
The Atlantic magazine, which

01:39:16.550 --> 01:39:20.080
is still being published, called
"The New Education." I

01:39:20.080 --> 01:39:23.510
think part of it, in fact, you
have to read for next week.

01:39:23.510 --> 01:39:27.360
But it's really about MIT.

01:39:27.360 --> 01:39:30.206
This is this new education
that's so different from all

01:39:30.206 --> 01:39:35.290
the old classical curricula
that's around.

01:39:35.290 --> 01:39:37.200
DAVID MINDELL: That's
30 years.

01:39:37.200 --> 01:39:38.360
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

01:39:38.360 --> 01:39:40.090
DAVID MINDELL: Which is also
what about the amount of time

01:39:40.090 --> 01:39:43.730
it takes graduates from the
first classes to rise up

01:39:43.730 --> 01:39:47.360
through the ranks of whatever
field they're in and become

01:39:47.360 --> 01:39:49.360
senior people.

01:39:49.360 --> 01:39:52.650
And either start giving money
back, or become prominent

01:39:52.650 --> 01:39:56.870
scientists in their fields, or
whatever kinds of career

01:39:56.870 --> 01:39:58.000
success they have.

01:39:58.000 --> 01:40:00.150
PROFESSOR: Yeah, that's
an interesting point.

01:40:00.150 --> 01:40:02.180
DAVID MINDELL: It's a
generation, basically.

01:40:02.180 --> 01:40:04.470
PROFESSOR: The person to put
up the money to build this

01:40:04.470 --> 01:40:07.060
campus, do you know
who it was?

01:40:07.060 --> 01:40:09.090
Well, you'll encounter
it in the reading.

01:40:09.090 --> 01:40:11.530
George Eastman from Rochester,
New York.

01:40:11.530 --> 01:40:14.050
Eastman Kodak was the guy who
put up most of the money for

01:40:14.050 --> 01:40:16.100
the building of this campus.

01:40:16.100 --> 01:40:19.110
But he didn't buy the
land over here.

01:40:19.110 --> 01:40:20.550
Or he didn't give the
money for the land.

01:40:20.550 --> 01:40:22.930
The land had already
been purchased.

01:40:22.930 --> 01:40:26.620
That money came from the du
Ponts, who were graduates,

01:40:26.620 --> 01:40:27.750
former graduates.

01:40:27.750 --> 01:40:30.800
And they were all products
of the 1890s.

01:40:30.800 --> 01:40:35.110
They would have been here when
Walker was president.

01:40:35.110 --> 01:40:39.960
By the time of the World War
I, they had emerged as

01:40:39.960 --> 01:40:44.950
business leaders, very wealthy
people, and were capable of

01:40:44.950 --> 01:40:47.020
endowing the Institute
with land over here.

01:40:47.020 --> 01:40:50.100
So it's not just all George
Eastman though.

01:40:50.100 --> 01:40:50.956
Most of it was.

01:40:50.956 --> 01:40:56.490
He was amazingly generous with
President Maclaurin about

01:40:56.490 --> 01:40:58.410
giving money to the Institute.

01:40:58.410 --> 01:41:00.395
And I think I may have mentioned
this last time that

01:41:00.395 --> 01:41:02.410
there were moments
when he'd write--

01:41:02.410 --> 01:41:05.140
I don't know, huge, huge amount
of money for the time.

01:41:05.140 --> 01:41:09.100
But MIT would discover that it
wasn't quite enough and they'd

01:41:09.100 --> 01:41:12.340
go back to Mr. Eastman
for more support.

01:41:12.340 --> 01:41:13.920
And he would write
another check.

01:41:13.920 --> 01:41:14.960
And he ponied up.

01:41:14.960 --> 01:41:19.060
I don't know, at least three
times, I think, in which

01:41:19.060 --> 01:41:21.320
President Maclaurin went back
and said, we don't quite have

01:41:21.320 --> 01:41:22.390
enough Mr. Eastman.

01:41:22.390 --> 01:41:24.010
And he would--

01:41:24.010 --> 01:41:27.030
and the reason why according to
the records that exist that

01:41:27.030 --> 01:41:29.890
he did that was that he was
not a graduate of MIT.

01:41:29.890 --> 01:41:33.720
He had no personal connection
with the place, but a lot of

01:41:33.720 --> 01:41:37.050
his employees were
MIT graduates.

01:41:37.050 --> 01:41:40.110
And he was so impressed by their
abilities that he felt

01:41:40.110 --> 01:41:43.790
that this was a good
place to endow.

01:41:43.790 --> 01:41:45.400
So it's a very interesting--

01:41:45.400 --> 01:41:48.330
DAVID MINDELL: A company like
Kodak is a second Industrial

01:41:48.330 --> 01:41:51.300
Revolution company in a way
where you can't even have a

01:41:51.300 --> 01:41:53.130
company like that
without trained

01:41:53.130 --> 01:41:55.620
chemists and some PhDs.

01:41:55.620 --> 01:42:01.250
And the electrical industry
is the same way.

01:42:01.250 --> 01:42:03.180
Even the steel industry
to some degree.

01:42:03.180 --> 01:42:06.670
It was quite different from the
early railroads and the

01:42:06.670 --> 01:42:10.470
Lowell mills where a lot of
good tinkerers getting

01:42:10.470 --> 01:42:12.950
together could really
make the thing work.

01:42:12.950 --> 01:42:15.170
These sort of second wave
companies are what you would

01:42:15.170 --> 01:42:18.080
today call high-tech companies,
where it's not

01:42:18.080 --> 01:42:20.490
something you're going to come
up with in your garage is the

01:42:20.490 --> 01:42:23.750
way to make film.

01:42:23.750 --> 01:42:25.290
Rubber is that way.

01:42:25.290 --> 01:42:26.076
PROFESSOR: Yeah, [INAUDIBLE].

01:42:26.076 --> 01:42:27.068
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

01:42:27.068 --> 01:42:31.036
that started that Harvard
tried to buy MIT?

01:42:31.036 --> 01:42:33.020
[INAUDIBLE].

01:42:33.020 --> 01:42:35.100
PROFESSOR: Well, it wasn't
so much buying, it was

01:42:35.100 --> 01:42:38.310
amalgamating with it.

01:42:38.310 --> 01:42:41.390
The first attempt happened
during the 1870s, I think.

01:42:41.390 --> 01:42:45.220
Not long after Charles Eliot
became president.

01:42:45.220 --> 01:42:46.550
See, he was hired here.

01:42:46.550 --> 01:42:49.470
Eliot was hired here as a
professor of chemistry around

01:42:49.470 --> 01:42:52.570
1867 if memory serves.

01:42:52.570 --> 01:42:55.820
He was here for roughly two
years, and then he was called

01:42:55.820 --> 01:42:57.700
to Harvard as president there.

01:42:57.700 --> 01:42:59.790
And he had written this article
called "The New

01:42:59.790 --> 01:43:03.540
Education," which he was,
in effect, sounding

01:43:03.540 --> 01:43:04.740
the glories of MIT.

01:43:04.740 --> 01:43:06.300
Saying, this is the
way, folks.

01:43:06.300 --> 01:43:07.810
This is the New Education.

01:43:07.810 --> 01:43:12.730
So when he went to Harvard, he
wanted to try to reconfigure

01:43:12.730 --> 01:43:15.640
Harvard's system along the lines
of MIT. and what better

01:43:15.640 --> 01:43:19.760
way to do it than to absorb MIT
into the Harvard system.

01:43:19.760 --> 01:43:22.400
So the first attempt was made
fairly early in his

01:43:22.400 --> 01:43:22.920
presidency.

01:43:22.920 --> 01:43:27.130
I would say as early
as 1873 or '74.

01:43:27.130 --> 01:43:30.250
There will be an essay in the
book that we're reading about

01:43:30.250 --> 01:43:31.630
that subject.

01:43:31.630 --> 01:43:33.440
It goes through all
the different--

01:43:33.440 --> 01:43:35.870
DAVID MINDELL: Even in 1861,
I think as the governor is

01:43:35.870 --> 01:43:38.810
signing the charter, he looks up
and he says to Rogers, why

01:43:38.810 --> 01:43:40.380
aren't you guys getting together
with Harvard and

01:43:40.380 --> 01:43:40.860
doing this?

01:43:40.860 --> 01:43:42.580
PROFESSOR: Right,
Governor Andrew.

01:43:42.580 --> 01:43:44.990
There were efforts even-- yeah,
even during the charter

01:43:44.990 --> 01:43:47.790
phase that the governor of
Massachusetts who was a

01:43:47.790 --> 01:43:51.810
Harvard graduate said,
wait a minute.

01:43:51.810 --> 01:43:53.920
Why do you want to do this
separately from Harvard?

01:43:53.920 --> 01:43:56.150
Why don't you do it in
concert with Harvard?

01:43:56.150 --> 01:44:01.520
And so Rogers was constantly
being sort of put upon about

01:44:01.520 --> 01:44:04.110
trying to nudge up
against Harvard.

01:44:04.110 --> 01:44:07.170
And, of course, his resistance
was he was fearful that his

01:44:07.170 --> 01:44:09.040
vision would not be enacted
at Harvard.

01:44:09.040 --> 01:44:12.330
Plus, he had some intellectual
enemies there.

01:44:12.330 --> 01:44:14.170
Agassiz was one of them.

01:44:14.170 --> 01:44:18.320
His primary intellectual
opponent, and continued to be

01:44:18.320 --> 01:44:23.540
one well into the 1870s.

01:44:23.540 --> 01:44:25.180
It's an ongoing process.

01:44:25.180 --> 01:44:28.830
As I said earlier, it happens
at least five or six times.

01:44:28.830 --> 01:44:31.050
Harvard did not give up
after one attempt.

01:44:31.050 --> 01:44:33.370
They kept doing it.

01:44:33.370 --> 01:44:38.350
And Eliot was the most avid of
all about trying to absorb MIT

01:44:38.350 --> 01:44:40.300
into Harvard because
he had been here.

01:44:40.300 --> 01:44:44.600
He had seen what was good about
the place, and wanted it

01:44:44.600 --> 01:44:46.350
moved into Harvard.

01:44:46.350 --> 01:44:48.400
DAVID MINDELL: How many of you
today would vote in favor of a

01:44:48.400 --> 01:44:49.650
merger with Harvard?

01:44:54.590 --> 01:44:56.730
That's about how it came out
in the 19th century also.

01:44:56.730 --> 01:45:00.530
PROFESSOR: That was
just about right.

01:45:00.530 --> 01:45:03.140
Now, how many of you would
vote for a merger, say if

01:45:03.140 --> 01:45:07.270
somebody gave you $50,000?

01:45:07.270 --> 01:45:08.340
Wouldn't do it anyway.

01:45:08.340 --> 01:45:11.990
See, this is true believer
territory here.

01:45:11.990 --> 01:45:14.302
Good.

01:45:14.302 --> 01:45:18.604
AUDIENCE: The time was
it that obvious, too?

01:45:18.604 --> 01:45:22.880
Or was there more debate?

01:45:22.880 --> 01:45:24.830
PROFESSOR: As I recollect in the
first time around, it was

01:45:24.830 --> 01:45:25.780
pretty cut and dry.

01:45:25.780 --> 01:45:28.620
People here were saying, no,
we don't need to do that.

01:45:28.620 --> 01:45:30.840
But later on, it came
very close.

01:45:30.840 --> 01:45:34.300
During the early 1900s, there
was a moment when Harvard and

01:45:34.300 --> 01:45:36.100
MIT became very close.

01:45:36.100 --> 01:45:38.810
I think it was President
Pritchard who actually

01:45:38.810 --> 01:45:40.900
approved a merger.

01:45:40.900 --> 01:45:44.630
And then, that kind of got
opposition and backed off.

01:45:44.630 --> 01:45:46.280
And this will be discussed
later.

01:45:46.280 --> 01:45:50.440
But there was a moment when MIT
and Harvard were actually

01:45:50.440 --> 01:45:52.770
granting joint degrees if
I'm not mistaken for

01:45:52.770 --> 01:45:53.520
a very brief time.

01:45:53.520 --> 01:45:53.990
DAVID MINDELL: Yeah, it only
failed because the

01:45:53.990 --> 01:45:56.780
Massachusetts Supreme Court
ruled, however, that they're

01:45:56.780 --> 01:45:58.570
not allowed to spend the money
they were using for it for

01:45:58.570 --> 01:45:59.860
that purpose.

01:45:59.860 --> 01:46:01.450
PROFESSOR: It came close
to happening in

01:46:01.450 --> 01:46:03.140
the early 20th century.

01:46:03.140 --> 01:46:06.050
William Rogers must have rolled
over on his grave.

01:46:06.050 --> 01:46:09.260
DAVID MINDELL: I think there
were moments where it came

01:46:09.260 --> 01:46:12.660
down to MIT might close if it
didn't find itself financially

01:46:12.660 --> 01:46:13.420
more support.

01:46:13.420 --> 01:46:16.390
And so it was under those
kind of stresses.

01:46:16.390 --> 01:46:20.400
But I think once there's a
community of alums, they felt

01:46:20.400 --> 01:46:22.920
pretty strongly that it
should stay as it is.

01:46:22.920 --> 01:46:24.890
That's in the reading
for next week.

01:46:24.890 --> 01:46:28.480
PROFESSOR: Yeah, it's
interesting, too, that that

01:46:28.480 --> 01:46:34.290
discussion of mergers really
fades after Maclaurin has this

01:46:34.290 --> 01:46:37.740
campus built over here, gets
the Eastman money.

01:46:37.740 --> 01:46:42.400
MIT then is pretty well
defining its own life.

01:46:42.400 --> 01:46:45.900
And that sort of fades
off the screen.

01:46:45.900 --> 01:46:51.431
AUDIENCE: Why is the merger
discussion so one-sided?

01:46:51.431 --> 01:46:54.691
Why does Harvard want to merge
with MIT, but MIT not want to

01:46:54.691 --> 01:46:56.290
merge with Harvard?

01:46:56.290 --> 01:46:59.330
PROFESSOR: Well, I know the
Rogers side of the story is

01:46:59.330 --> 01:47:03.120
that he was fearful that if
that merger were to take

01:47:03.120 --> 01:47:08.170
place, that the core programs
that he wanted to see

01:47:08.170 --> 01:47:13.240
introduced, like laboratories
for students, an emphasis on

01:47:13.240 --> 01:47:17.560
science interacting with
practical applications, would

01:47:17.560 --> 01:47:19.200
eventually fall by
the wayside.

01:47:19.200 --> 01:47:22.480
Because they were fearful of
Harvard's emphasis on the

01:47:22.480 --> 01:47:24.860
traditional liberal arts.

01:47:24.860 --> 01:47:29.140
Harvard is, to this day in
many ways, controlled by

01:47:29.140 --> 01:47:33.370
humanities faculty, or social
science humanities faculties,

01:47:33.370 --> 01:47:35.620
rather than science faculty.

01:47:35.620 --> 01:47:37.636
AUDIENCE: So then why would
Harvard so badly want

01:47:37.636 --> 01:47:39.660
to merge with MIT?

01:47:39.660 --> 01:47:40.090
PROFESSOR: Why?

01:47:40.090 --> 01:47:40.520
AUDIENCE: Yeah.

01:47:40.520 --> 01:47:43.750
PROFESSOR: Because it was MIT
It was the cutting edge.

01:47:43.750 --> 01:47:45.670
It was the New Education.

01:47:45.670 --> 01:47:48.490
It was the new way of doing
science and engineering, which

01:47:48.490 --> 01:47:50.720
they felt they wanted
to incorporate in

01:47:50.720 --> 01:47:51.630
to the Harvard system.

01:47:51.630 --> 01:47:53.590
DAVID MINDELL: Well, sort of the
opposite problem they had,

01:47:53.590 --> 01:47:55.840
which was that they
couldn't manage to

01:47:55.840 --> 01:47:56.940
start it on their own.

01:47:56.940 --> 01:47:58.570
They tried in a number
of different ways.

01:47:58.570 --> 01:47:59.250
PROFESSOR: It never worked.

01:47:59.250 --> 01:48:01.380
DAVID MINDELL: And their
attempts to do technical

01:48:01.380 --> 01:48:04.950
education were always co-opted
by the more old school

01:48:04.950 --> 01:48:07.500
scientists who saw
it as natural

01:48:07.500 --> 01:48:10.010
philosophy and not so much--

01:48:10.010 --> 01:48:13.390
you also got to remember, MIT's
celebrating its 150th

01:48:13.390 --> 01:48:14.900
anniversary this year.

01:48:14.900 --> 01:48:17.500
What was the last anniversary
Harvard celebrated?

01:48:17.500 --> 01:48:18.230
Anybody remember?

01:48:18.230 --> 01:48:20.300
You probably weren't
here for it.

01:48:20.300 --> 01:48:23.450
Because it was already almost
10 years ago, I think.

01:48:23.450 --> 01:48:25.750
350.

01:48:25.750 --> 01:48:29.620
So they have 200 years on MIT.

01:48:29.620 --> 01:48:30.850
Big difference.

01:48:30.850 --> 01:48:35.970
How many MIT graduates have
been in the White House?

01:48:35.970 --> 01:48:37.040
Zero.

01:48:37.040 --> 01:48:39.770
How many Harvard graduates have
been in the White House?

01:48:39.770 --> 01:48:40.830
Quite a number of them.

01:48:40.830 --> 01:48:43.200
How many Harvard graduates
are in Congress?

01:48:43.200 --> 01:48:43.940
Lots of them.

01:48:43.940 --> 01:48:44.470
Senators?

01:48:44.470 --> 01:48:46.150
All over the place.

01:48:46.150 --> 01:48:48.490
Very, very different
sort of social

01:48:48.490 --> 01:48:52.040
structure to that school.

01:48:52.040 --> 01:48:53.920
PROFESSOR: It is a different
breed of cat.

01:48:53.920 --> 01:48:54.890
DAVID MINDELL: Harvard played
a big role in the American

01:48:54.890 --> 01:48:55.840
Revolution.

01:48:55.840 --> 01:48:57.710
Harvard graduates played a
big role in the American

01:48:57.710 --> 01:48:59.190
Revolution, which
we can't claim.

01:49:01.940 --> 01:49:03.720
PROFESSOR: But there were
MIT graduates who fought

01:49:03.720 --> 01:49:06.426
in the Civil War.

01:49:06.426 --> 01:49:07.080
DAVID MINDELL: There were?

01:49:07.080 --> 01:49:08.050
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

01:49:08.050 --> 01:49:10.900
They came back after the war
and went to school here.

01:49:10.900 --> 01:49:12.830
But they fought in
the Civil War.

01:49:12.830 --> 01:49:13.570
They survived.

01:49:13.570 --> 01:49:16.340
They were survivors.

01:49:16.340 --> 01:49:17.954
Yes?

01:49:17.954 --> 01:49:20.906
AUDIENCE: I know this is much
later, but when did MIT become

01:49:20.906 --> 01:49:22.382
a great economic--

01:49:22.382 --> 01:49:25.340
[INAUDIBLE], economics--

01:49:25.340 --> 01:49:27.240
PROFESSOR: I think that probably
dates from the

01:49:27.240 --> 01:49:31.080
arrival of Paul Samuelson as a
professor of economics here.

01:49:31.080 --> 01:49:33.310
And that would have been
after World War II.

01:49:33.310 --> 01:49:34.440
DAVID MINDELL: Yeah, he came
during World War II.

01:49:34.440 --> 01:49:36.810
PROFESSOR: You're familiar
with Paul Samuelson?

01:49:36.810 --> 01:49:38.130
He just died, what?

01:49:38.130 --> 01:49:39.590
About a year ago.

01:49:39.590 --> 01:49:41.310
Very famous economist.

01:49:41.310 --> 01:49:43.540
Arguably the most--

01:49:43.540 --> 01:49:46.600
he wrote a textbook in economics
that I used as a

01:49:46.600 --> 01:49:49.880
college student.

01:49:49.880 --> 01:49:52.550
And it was like in its seventh
edition when I used it.

01:49:52.550 --> 01:49:55.130
And it's been used
over the years in

01:49:55.130 --> 01:49:57.280
general economics classes.

01:49:57.280 --> 01:49:59.640
So he became very famous
for his textbook.

01:49:59.640 --> 01:50:03.290
That was the leading textbook
in economics for many years.

01:50:03.290 --> 01:50:06.500
And then, he won
a Nobel Prize.

01:50:06.500 --> 01:50:09.900
And that department has won
a lot of Nobel Prizes.

01:50:09.900 --> 01:50:14.280
And so under his leadership
and others-- he wasn't the

01:50:14.280 --> 01:50:18.400
only one there-- but Robert
Solow is another very famous

01:50:18.400 --> 01:50:21.390
economist who is now retired,
but is very

01:50:21.390 --> 01:50:23.830
active around here.

01:50:23.830 --> 01:50:27.480
They really brokered that
department into one of the

01:50:27.480 --> 01:50:29.320
best in the world.

01:50:29.320 --> 01:50:30.550
And ti still is.

01:50:30.550 --> 01:50:33.440
I think it's still considered
to be one of the top

01:50:33.440 --> 01:50:34.810
departments in the
United States.

01:50:34.810 --> 01:50:35.950
DAVID MINDELL: But that's
post-World War II.

01:50:35.950 --> 01:50:37.360
PROFESSOR: It's post-World
War II.

01:50:37.360 --> 01:50:38.620
Yeah, definitely.

01:50:38.620 --> 01:50:41.000
DAVID MINDELL: I mean, directly
post-World War II.

01:50:41.000 --> 01:50:42.400
Samuelson came here and
he worked in the

01:50:42.400 --> 01:50:43.660
radiation lab on radar.

01:50:43.660 --> 01:50:44.920
PROFESSOR: Did he?

01:50:44.920 --> 01:50:47.570
I didn't know that.

01:50:47.570 --> 01:50:50.190
Interesting.

01:50:50.190 --> 01:50:52.090
Well, good.

01:50:52.090 --> 01:50:55.710
Now, we'll stop at this point.

01:50:55.710 --> 01:50:59.180
We'll continue talking
about this era.

01:50:59.180 --> 01:51:02.670
I want to really focus
on Rogers next week.

01:51:02.670 --> 01:51:05.560
We focused a lot on him today,
I don't know there's a whole

01:51:05.560 --> 01:51:06.390
lot more to say.

01:51:06.390 --> 01:51:06.980
But there will be.

01:51:06.980 --> 01:51:09.800
I want you to read the essay
about him and read some of

01:51:09.800 --> 01:51:13.370
those primary documents, just to
get a sense of what they're

01:51:13.370 --> 01:51:14.440
talking about there.

01:51:14.440 --> 01:51:18.080
That article about the New
Education is worthwhile

01:51:18.080 --> 01:51:21.630
because it's really making a
proclamation to the rest of

01:51:21.630 --> 01:51:23.820
the country about there's
something new and different

01:51:23.820 --> 01:51:26.860
going on here in Boston,
and it's MIT.

01:51:26.860 --> 01:51:30.860
It's that sort of argument
that's being made there.

01:51:30.860 --> 01:51:33.480
These are not the most
scintillating papers to read

01:51:33.480 --> 01:51:33.940
in the world.

01:51:33.940 --> 01:51:35.710
So work through them.

01:51:35.710 --> 01:51:36.270
Read them.

01:51:36.270 --> 01:51:37.820
You don't have to study
them closely.

01:51:37.820 --> 01:51:43.390
We're just trying to give
you a taste of what that

01:51:43.390 --> 01:51:46.950
formalistic literature looked
like in those days.

01:51:46.950 --> 01:51:50.135
But you got to look at to get
a sense of, what was it?

01:51:50.135 --> 01:51:51.900
Yo don't need to memorize
it, just get a

01:51:51.900 --> 01:51:53.150
sense of what it was.