2 of 2 Parts: “Thomas Philip (Tip) O’Neill, Jr. (1912-94), Congressman; Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives (1977-86).” By Franklin and Betty J. Parker, bfparker@frontiernet.net

References
[Main sources for this paper are O’Neill and Novak’s 1987 Man of the House, Farrell, J.A.’s (2001) Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century, plus other references listed in the text and in References below].

“Around the Corner, A Vanished Friend…” (February 1994). Boston Irish Reporter, Vol. 5, No. 2, p. l.

Asci, Sue. (February 1994). “Remembering Tip,” Boston Irish Reporter, Vol. 5, No. 2, p. 2.

Barnicle, Mike. (January 6, 1994). “Compassion Was His Way of Life,” Boston Globe, pp. 1, 18.

Barnicle, Mike. (January 9, 1994). “The Best: That Was Mr. O’Neill,” Boston Sunday Globe, p. 25.

Borger, Gloria. (January 17, 1994). “Epitaphs: A Politician Who Was the Genuine Article,” U.S. News and World Report, Vol. 116, No. 2 , p. 18.

Brownstone, David, and Irene Franck. (1995). “O’Neill, Thomas Philip (Tip), Jr., 1912-94,” People in the News. New York: Macmillan Library Reference U.S.A., pp. 272-273.

Buckley, Steve. (June 1994). “Barry’s Corner Forever,” Yankee, Vol. 58, No. 6, pp. 82-86, 108-111.

“Bush Honored O’Neill in 91,” (January 6, 1994). Boston Globe, p. 19.

Carroll, James. (January 11, 1994). “Tip’s Exalted Place in History Turns on a Decision he Made on September 14, 1967,” Boston Globe, p. 15.

Clancy, Paul, and Shirley Elder. (1980). A Biography of Thomas P. Tip O’Neill, Speaker of the House. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. Has useful Chapter Notes and Sources.

Clift, Eleanor. (January 17, 1994). “The Last Hurrah for Tip O’Neill, 1912-1994,” Newsweek, Vol. 123, No. 3, p. 22.

Congressional Record. (October 17, 1986). “A Tribute to the Honorable Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., Speaker of the House,”
Congressional Record-House, pp. H 11573-H 11575.

Congressional Record. (October 17, 1986). “Farewell Address of the Honorable Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr., Speaker of the House.” Congressional Record-House, pp. H 11575-H 11576.

Davis, Thomas Osborne, as recited by Rosemary O’Neill at her father’s funeral. (January 11, 1994). “Lament for the Death of Owen Rowe O’Neill,” Boston Globe, p. 18.

Editorial. (January 7, 1994). “Tip: All Politics Was Local,” Boston Herald, p. 28.

Edwards. Mickey. (January 11, 1994). “Let’s Hope Tip Wasn’t the Last of His Kind,” Boston Herald, p. 25.

Farrell, John Aloysius. (2001). Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century. Boston: Little, Brown.

Farrell, John Aloysius. (January 7, 1994). “Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. 1912-1994: A Man of History Whom Caricature Cannot Define: O’Neill Recalled as Insider and Rebel,” Boston Globe, p. 21.

Farrell, John Aloysius, and Michael Grunwald. (January 6, 1994). “Colleagues Recall a Man Whose Politics Was Heart,” Boston Globe, p. 19.

Fitzgerald, Joe. (January 7, 1994). “Good Tip: O’Neill Was Just Grand,” Boston Herald, pp. back page, 78.

Frank, Barney. (January 7, 1994). “Tip Upheld Good Values in Tough Times,” Boston Globe, p. 15.

Gelzinis, Peter. (January 11, 1994). “So Long, Mr. Speaker: Despite the Pomp, He was a Family Man,” Boston Herald, p. 6.
Gelzinis, Peter. (January 9, 1994). “What We’ll Miss Most is His Politics of Caring,” Boston Sunday Herald, pp. 1, 4.

“He Cared…About Everyone,” (January 11, 1994). Boston Herald, p. l.

Hess, John L. (January 31, 1994). “Tip O’ the Iceberg,” Nation, Vol. 258, pp. 112-113.

“In His Own Words: O’Neill the Speaker,” (January 7, 1994). Boston Globe, p. 20.

“In Losing Tip, Boston’s Irish Have Lost a Great One,” (February 1994). Boston Irish Reporter, Vol. 5, No. 2, p. 6.

“Ireland Makes Him a Citizen,” (January 7, 1994). Boston Globe, p. 20.

Kahn, Joseph P. (January 7, 1994). “Tip: A Brick,” Boston Globe, p. 68.

Katz, Frances. (January 11, 1994). “Funeral Coverage Earns Tip of the Hat,” Boston Herald, p. 6.

Kranish, Michael. (January 7, 1994). “A Neighborhood Tips Its Cap to O’Neill,” Boston Globe, pp. 1, 20.

“Leaders Mourn o”Neill,” (January 11, 1994). Boston Globe, p. 1.

Matthews, Chris. (January 7, 1994). “Why the Speaker of the House Will Go Down as the Speaker of the Century,” Boston Globe, p. 15.

McGrory, Brian. (January 9, 1994). “Farewell to an Old Friend: O’Neill Honored by All: Celebrities, Constituents Line Up to Pay Their Final Respects,” Boston Sunday Globe, pp. 1, 10.

McGrory, Brian. (January 11, 1994). “Final Words for the Speaker. The Mighty and the Meek Gather at Rites for O’Neill,” Boston Globe, pp. 17-18.

McLaughlin, Jeff. (January 9, 1994). “Cape Cod: Tip’s Generosity: His Cape Legacy: Former Speaker Left Tradition of Giving to Help Area’s Needy,” Boston Sunday Globe, pp. 30, 32.

McNamara, Eileen. (January 7, 1994). “A Reporter’s Reunion with a Local Hero,” Boston Globe, p. 10.

“Memorials for O’Neill,” (January 7, 1994), Boston Globe, p. 21.
Miga, Andrew. (January 6, 1994). “So Long, Mister Speaker. Legendary Pol ‘Tip’ O’Neill Dead at 81,” Boston Herald, pp. 1-3.

Miga, Andrew. (January 9, 1994). “Off-the-Record: Pols Recall Moments of Vintage O’Neill,” Boston Sunday Herald, pp. 18-21.

Miga, Andrew, Ed Cafasso, and Joe Battenfeld. (January 6, 1994). “So Long, Mister Speaker. He Never Forgot Where He Came From. Pols Mourn Loss of a ‘Giant’,” Boston Herald, p. 5.

Nolan, Martin F. (January 6, 1994). “Ex-Speaker O’Neill Dies: Took Local View to National Stage,” Boston Globe, pp. 1, 18.

Nyhan, David. (January 9, 1994). “Focus on Politics: Who’ll Sit at the Head of the Table?” Boston Sunday Globe, p. 73.

O’Connor, Edwin.(1956). The Last Hurrah. Boston: Atlantic Monthly.

Oliphant, Thomas. (January 9, 1994). “O’Neill Was Much More Than a Great Politician; He Was a Great Leader,” Boston Sunday Globe, p. 75.

“O’Neill, Thomas P(hilip), Jr.” (1974). Current Biography. New York: H.W. Wilson Co., pp. 293-295.

“O’Neill, Thomas P(hilip), Jr.” (March 1994) [Obituary]. Current Biography. New York: H.W. Wilson Co.

O’Neill, Thomas P., Jr., with Gary Hymel. (1994). All Politics is Local and Other Rules of the Game. New York: Times Books.

O’Neill, Thomas P., Jr., with William Novak. (1987). Man of the House: The Life and Political Memoirs of Speaker Tip O’Neill. New York: Random House.

O’Neill, Thomas, 3rd. (February 1994). “A Son Remembers His Father; Excerpts from the Eulogy,” Boston Irish Reporter, Vol. 5, No. 2, p. 30.

“R.I.P., Tip.” (January 7, 1994), Boston Globe, p. 14.

Roberts, Steven V. (January 17, 1994). “Outlook: A Parting Cheer for the Wisdom of Elders,” U.S. News and World Report, Vol. 116, No. 2, p. 6.

Sennott, Charles M., and David Arnold. (January 11, 1994). “Mourning a Friend’s Warmth, Hundreds Brave Cold,” Boston Globe, p. 18.

Shribman, David. (January 7, 1994). “Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. 1912-1994: National Perspective: Amid Upstarts a Steady Old Oak,” Boston Globe, p. 20.

“So Long, Mister Speaker. Massachusetts Loses a Beloved Institution–’Tip’ O’Neill Dies,” (January 6, 1994). Boston Herald, p. l.

Sullivan, Paul. (January 7, 1994). “So Long, Mister Speaker: Cambridge Boy Never Forgot His Hometown Roots,” Boston Herald, p. 6.

“Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., R I P.” (February 7, 1994) National Review, Vol. 46, pp. 22-23.

Tolchin, Martin. (January 6, 1994). “Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. Dies at 81; A Power in the House for Decades.” New York Times, pp. Al, D18.

Woodlief, Wayne. (January 6, 1994). “O’Neill Not Shy About Speaking His Mind.” Boston Herald, p. 4.

Woodlief, Wayne. (January 7, 1994). “Speaker Tipped Many Scales: During 50-Year Career, He Changed History,” Boston Herald, p. 5.

Woodlief, Wayne. (January 11, 1994). “So Long, Mr. Speaker. Family and Friends Say Final Farewells to Tip,” Boston Herald, pp. 4-5.

Woodlief, Wayne, and Joe Battenfeld. (January 7, 1994). “Friends and Foes of ‘Tip’ Mourn the Loss of a Legend,” Boston Herald, pp. 1, 4.

Woodlief, Wayne, and Joe Heany. (January 9, 1994). “Mass. Says So Long to Beloved Tip,” Boston Sunday Herald, pp. 1,4.

Woodlief, Wayne, and Jules Crittenden. (January 11, 1994). “Admiration for the Speaker Broke Party Lines,” Boston Herald, p. 6.

End.

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“Peabody Education Fund In Tennessee, 1867-1914.”

By Franklin and Betty J. Parker, bfparker@frontiernet.net(Added to from Franklin and Betty J. Parker, “Peabody Education Fund in Tennessee,” in The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History & Culture. Ed. by Carrroll Van West. Nashville, TN: Tennessee Historical Society, 1998, pp. 725-726, URL: http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/imagegallery.php?EntryID=P013Shocked by reports and letters he received about the South’s Civil War devastation, George Peabody (1795-1869) founded the $2 million Peabody Education Fund (PEF, 1867-69) to aid public education in eleven former Confederate states plus West Virginia added because of its poverty. Born in Massachusetts, left at age 17 to become a merchant in the South, Peabody became an international banker in London (during 1837-69) and the best known philanthropist of his time. The war-devastated South lacked the means or will to establish public schools. First PEF general agent Barnas Sears, distinguished New England educator, used the fund’s limited resources as a lever to help achieve tax-supported public schools. PEF aided schools had to meet ten months a year and have at least one teacher per fifty pupils. PEF grants required that local citizens more than match PEF funds and that state laws for tax-supported public schools be enacted. Sears urged a state normal school (for teacher training) in Nashville as a model for the South. But state normal school legislation continually failed in the Tennessee legislature over the next six years. Rather than lose Nashville as a normal school site, Sears said that if the University of Nashville trustees gave land and buildings for a normal school, the PEF would contribute $6,000 annually. The Tennessee legislature amended the University of Nashville’s charter, and the new State Normal School, financed by PEF’s annual grant of $6,000, opened December 1, 1875, and was renamed Peabody Normal College (1889-1909). Disappointed when the legislature refused to subsidize Peabody Normal College in 1877 and 1879, Sears considered moving Peabody Normal College to Georgia. This threat prompted Nashville citizens in April 1880 to guarantee $6,000 annually. From 1881 to 1905 the general assembly’s appropriations for Peabody Normal College totaled $429,000. In contrast, the Peabody Education Fund trustees gave $555,730 from 1875 to 1909. In its first thirty years (1868 through 1897) the PEF gave the eleven former Confederate states and West Virginia a total of $2,478,000 to advance public schools, teacher institutes, and normal schools. Tennessee received about 9 percent of this total, second highest after Virginia. Additionally, the PEF enriched Tennessee with Peabody Normal College (and its successor institutions to the present Peabody College of Vanderbilt University). Besides its regular tuition-paying students, Peabody Normal College enrolled 3,645 higher qualified teacher candidates through PEF-financed Peabody Scholarships (1877-1904), which brought the college and Tennessee an additional $398,690.88. Educators trained at Peabody Normal College became educational leaders throughout the South and gave Peabody Normal College in Tennessee a national reputation. Allowed to disband after thirty years, the PEF gave $1.5 million to transform Peabody Normal College into George Peabody College for Teachers. Former Governor James D. Porter (1828-1912), who had been Peabody Normal College’s third president (1901-9), helped raise PEF-required matching funds from Nashville, Davidson County, and other Tennessee sources. The new George Peabody College for Teachers was built opposite Vanderbilt University. In 1979 it became Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. Amid post-Civil War chaos, the PEF financially encouraged state efforts in advancing public schools. By creating in Nashville a model professional teachers college, it helped produce educational leaders who became college and university presidents, deans, scholars, educational writers, and master teachers for Tennessee, the South, and the nation. End. For google.com blogs of above article under—bfparker, Peabody Education Fund in Tennessee—try accessing: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=bfparker%2C+Peabody+Education+Fund+in+Tennessee&btnG=Google+Search

“May Cravath Wharton, M.D. (1873-1959), Founder of Uplands Retirement Village, Pleasant Hill, Tennessee, USA.”

By Franklin Parker & Betty J. Parker, bfparker@frontiernetnet

Adapted from Franklin & Betty J. Parker, “Wharton, May Cravath (1873-1959), Tennessee Encyclopedia & Culture.  Ed. By Carroll Van West, et al. Nashville: Tennessee Historical Society, 1998, pp. 1050-1051.

She was Dr. May to friends, doctor woman of the Cumberland’s to others. Babies she delivered were called Dr. May babies. By foot, horseback, tin lizzie, on poor roads, in all weather, she made calls to remote cabins on the Cumberland Plateau, middle Tennessee. Her dream of a hospital in Pleasant Hill became Cumberland Medical Center, Crossville. The May Cravath Wharton Nursing Home and Uplands Retirement Community, both in Pleasant Hill, are her dreams come true.

She was born on a Minnesota farm, a sickly child. Family friend and physician Aunt Addie’s nursing and gift of Home Doctor Book may have inspired May to become a doctor.

She finished high school at Carleton Academy (1889-90), Rochester, Minn., attended Carleton College (1890-93), and the University of North Dakota (1894-95, B.A.), studied in Europe (1897), taught at the University of North Dakota (1898-99), and earned a University of Michigan medical degree (1905).

She applied to the mission board, which then wanted only married missionaries. Disappointed, she practiced medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. There she met and married Edwin R. Wharton (1867-1920). They accepted a call to a Cleveland, Ohio, settlement house, he as director, she as physician (1907-09). Hard work took its toll. She needed rest. They bought a New Hampshire farm. He served small churches. She practiced medicine (1909-17).

In 1917 he became principal of Pleasant Hill Academy, 11 miles west of Crossville, Cumberland County. Its uniqueness went back to 1883 when resident Mrs. Amos Wightman asked the American Missionary Association (AMA, Boston) to send a trained teacher. Mary Santly, who taught a three-month school (spring 1884), said a minister was needed. The AMA sent Maine-born Benjamin F. Dodge (1818-97). He largely built Pleasant Hill Academy (1884-1947), by necessity a boarding school for widely spread community children. He also built and was pastor of First Congregational Church (since 1885).

Tall and shy, May Cravath Wharton taught health courses and was physician to students, faculty, and scattered communities. She worked tirelessly through the 1918 influenza epidemic. She won respect and distinction as the Doctor Woman of the Cumberland’s.

In November 1920 Edwin R. Wharton died suddenly. Dr. May faced a dilemma. Five neighbors came with a letter from 50 families. “The people here want you to stay. We will pay you monthly and help build the hospital. We cannot do without you.”

Dr. May stayed. She was helped in her dream to build a hospital by Massachusetts-born Pleasant Hill Academy art teacher Elizabeth Fletcher (1870-1951), who raised funds, and English-born, Canadian-trained Registered Nurse Alice Adshead (1888-1979). A two-bed Sanatorium Annex (July 2, 1922) was followed by a general hospital (1935) and Van Dyck Annex (1938). Federal, state, and local aid came with the 1947 U.S. Hill-Burton Act that required such aided hospitals to be sited in county seats. Cumberland Medical Center opened in Crossville, 1950. The May Cravath Wharton Nursing Home opened June 21, 1957, Pleasant Hill.

She realized another dream: Uplands Retirement Community. On an early fund-raising trip, visiting her cousin Paul Cravath, a New York City attorney, she was inspired by a poem on his office wall: “•From the lowlands and the mire, •From the mists of earth’s desire, •From the vain pursuit of pelf, •From the attitude of self, Come up higher, Come up higher.”

“Uplands,” she wrote in her autobiography, “That was our name–Uplands!”

Honors came late: Carleton College Alumni Award for “outstanding service…in medicine and…medical care,” June 1953; Tennessee Tuberculosis Association Kranz Memorial Award for “outstanding service in…tuberculosis control,” 1954; Tennessee Medical Association’s “Outstanding General Practitioner of the Year,” 1956; University of Chattanooga honorary Doctor of Laws degree for “many services to the citizens of Tennessee,” 1957; and a Tennessee Bicentennial named marker on the state capitol walkway, 1995.

She ended her autobiography with: “As the shadows of evening fell,…in my dreams I saw the…Uplands of tomorrow.”

She built better than she knew.

May Cravath Wharton, Doctor Woman of the Cumberlands (Pleasant Hill, Tenn. 38578: PO Box 168, 1972 revision, 214 pp., $6.20).

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“Max Rafferty (1917-82), Conservative Educator and California State School Superintendent During 1962-70.”

By Franklin and Betty J. Parker, bfparker@frontiernet.net

Rafferty, Maxwell Lewis, Jr. (born May 17, 1917; died  June 13, 1982), educator, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of Maxwell Lewis Rafferty, an Irish Roman Catholic store owner and auto plant worker, and DeEtta Cox (mother).  In 1921 the family moved to Sioux City, Iowa, and then, in 1931, to Los Angeles, California.  Young Max skipped several grades and graduated at age sixteen from Beverly Hills High School, California, where he was remembered for being studious, quick witted, and much younger than his classmates.

Entering the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), he majored in history, managed the football and rugby teams, was president of Sigma Pi fraternity, joined the UCLA Americans (an anti-communist athletic group opposed to leftist students), and received a B.A. in 1938.  He then enrolled in the UCLA School of Education to become a teacher and later claimed to have reluctantly studied John Dewey’s educational philosophy in order to become certified. 

He taught English and history and coached football at Trona High School, in Trona, California, from 1940 to 1948, having been classified physically unfit for the World War II draft because of flat feet.  He married a schoolmate in 1940, was divorced in 1943, and married Frances Louella Longman in 1944.  They had three children.  He earned an M.A. degree from UCLA in 1949 and an Ed.D. degree from the University of Southern California in 1955.

Asked later why he chose to be a teacher and school administrator for twenty-one years in isolated southern California desert towns, Rafferty replied that “they paid better salaries, and advancement was more rapid.”  From Trona, California, where he had risen to be vice principal, he became principal of the high school in Big Bear, California, a resort town in the San Bernardino Mountains, from 1948 to 1951.  He was then school superintend at Saticoy, (1951-1955), Needles (1955-1961), and La Canada, a prosperous northeast Los Angeles suburb (1961-1962), all in California.

Max Rafferty’s speeches to education groups and civic clubs as well as his articles (particularly in Phi Delta Kappan, the journal of the education honor society) and books written during these years expressed his contempt for progressive education and school approaches that stressed “life adjustment.” 

He described leftist students of the 1950s and 1960s as “booted, side-burned, ducktailed, unwashed, leather-jacketed slobs.”  His impassioned speeches and writings soon won him admiration from the John Birch Society and other right-wing groups, many of which had growing memberships in California during these years. 

His 1961 “Passing of the Patriot” speech to the La Canada school board excoriated educators for having been “so busy educating for ‘life adjustment’ that we forgot that the first duty of a nation’s schools is to preserve that nation.”  That speech marked a turning point in his career.  Wide press coverage made Rafferty a hero of not only political right wingers but also of those who yearned more generally for a return to simple and manly virtues.

In 1962, backed by a coalition of conservative forces, Rafferty won election as state superintendent of public instruction; he was reelected in 1966.  He feuded with the liberal state board of education, especially over books that he wanted removed from school libraries and as textbooks in school subjects. 

But his conservative philosophy of education had little real impact because of the checks and balances and local control built into the California school system.  His critics claimed that California’s schools were never as progressive as Rafferty claimed.

Encouraged by conservative Republicans, he ran for the U.S. Senate in 1968, won the nomination over liberal-Republican California Senator Thomas H. Kushell, but lost to Democrat Alan M. Cranston in the general election. He also lost his third reelection bid in 1970 as California’s superintendent of public instruction to Wilson Riles, a black educator whom he had appointed his deputy.  Having been rejected in California, he left in 1971 to become dean of education at Troy State University, in Troy, Alabama.  He died following an automobile accident.

Rafferty presaged the New Right’s ascendancy to political power through the Republican presidencies of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and particularly Ronald Reagan.  Many observers believed that Rafferty preached a conservative gospel as a means of self-promotion, rather than out of personal conviction.  Despite his talent for invective, opponents as well as allies found him likable and articulate.

 

References

Rafferty’s best-known books:

 Suffer, Little Children, 1962.

What They Are Doing To Your Children, 1964.

Max Rafferty on Education, 1968.

Classroom Countdown: Education at the Crossroads, 1970. 

 

Rafferty Biographies:

Paul F. Cummins, Max Rafferty: A Study in Simplicity (1968) and

Franklin Parker, “School Critic Max Rafferty (1917-1982) and the New Right,” Review Journal of Philosophy & Social Science, 10, 2 (1985): 129-40. 

 

Rafferty Obituaries:

New York Times, June 15, 1982.

San Diego Union (Calif.), June 14,  1982.

Oakland Tribune (Calif.), June 14 1982.

Los Angeles Times (Calif.), June 14 1982.

San Francisco Examiner (Calif.), June 15, 1982.

Birmingham News (Ala.) , June 16, 1982.

End.

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End.

“Educational Philanthropist George Peabody (1795-1869) and first U. S. Paleontology Prof. Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-99) at Yale University.”

 

By Franklin and Betty J. Parker, bfparker@frontiernet.net
Introduction

 

This article describes the interlocking careers of the following four historical figures:

 

1-how O.C. Marsh became the first U.S. paleontology professor at Yale University through the financial support of his uncle, Massachusetts-born George Peabody;

 

2-George Peabody’s transition from world wide importer of drygoods (and other salable goods), to his founding in 1838 in London of George Peabody & Co., a U.S. securities broker-banking firm,

 

3-to his taking as partner in 1854 New Englander Junius S. Morgan, whose son

4-John Pierpont Morgan began as New York City agent for George Peabody & Co. and later succeeded to head J. S. Morgan & Co. under the name of J.P. Morgan and Co.

 

George Peabody & Co. was thus the root of the international J.P. Morgan banking firm.

 

This article’s main focus, however, is to show how Othniel Charles Marsh, influenced his uncle George Peabody’s gifts to science and science education, particularly his founding of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, on Oct. 8, 1866; the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University, Oct. 22, 1866; and to a lesser extent the Peabody Academy of Science, founded Feb. 26, 1867, now the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.

 

George Peabody’s Career

 

George Peabody’s parents, Thomas Peabody (1761-1811) and Judith née Dodge Peabody (1770-1830), lived in Danvers (renamed Peabody, 1868), Mass. George Peabody was the third born and second son of their eight children. His father, a farmer and leather worker, was not successful.

After four years of schooling and four years’ apprenticeship in a Danvers store, George Peabody, age 16, was assistant in his older brother David’s drapery shop in Newburyport, Mass. His father’s death (May 13, 1811) with a mortgaged home and other debts, was followed by a Newburyport fire (May 31, 1811).

Business prospects being ruined, young Peabody left Newburyport with his maternal uncle John Peabody, also bankrupted by the Newburyport fire, to open a drygoods store in Georgetown, D.C. The management of the store, opened May 15, 1812, fell mainly on George Peabody.

Serving in the War of 1812, young Peabody met fellow soldier Elisha Riggs (1779-1853), an older and more experienced merchant. The 35-year-old Riggs took the 19-year-old Peabody as junior partner in Riggs & Peabody (1814-29), a drygoods importing firm.

In 1815 Riggs & Peabody moved from Georgetown to Baltimore, Md. George Peabody became his family’s supporter. He soon restored the Danvers homestead for his mother and siblings living at home, and paid for the schooling of his younger relations.

The firm continued as Peabody, Riggs & Co. (1829-45), with George Peabody as senior European purchasing agent. He lived in London from 1837 to his death in 1869, except for three U.S. visits.

In London, trading on his own in U.S. state and federal bonds, he formed George Peabody & Co. (1838-64), a securities-banking firm. He took as partner in 1854 Boston merchant Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-90), whose 19-year-old son John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), began as New York City agent for George Peabody & Co. George Peabody was thus the root of the international banking firm of J.P. Morgan.

O.C. Marsh’s Life and Career

Mary Gaines Peabody (1807-34) was Peabody’s younger sister whose schooling he paid for at Bradford Academy, Bradford, Mass., during 1822-23. In 1826 at age 19 she fell in love with 26-year-old Caleb Marsh (1800-?), who taught school near Bradford, Mass.

The Peabody and Marsh families had been neighbors in Danvers, Mass. The Marshes were more affluent than the Peabodys. Caleb Marsh, about to marry Mary Gaines Peabody, expected financial help from or work with his future brother-in-law George Peabody.

Caleb Marsh wrote to Peabody, busy traveling for Riggs, Peabody & Co., asking help in getting started in the drygoods business. Peabody, aware of pitfalls for beginners, discouraged Caleb Marsh. Caleb Marsh then wrote Peabody asking for a dowry and the conditions for giving it.

Peabody provided a monetary settlement, with safeguards. Inept in several enterprises and considered later by the Peabodys “not to be the best of husbands,” Caleb Marsh turned to farming in Lockport, N. Y.

Mary Gaines (née Peabody) Marsh died of cholera before her 27th birthday after giving birth to her third child, George Marsh (1834-35), who soon also died. She left Caleb Marsh (he later remarried) with two children: a daughter Mary, age five, and a son, Othniel Charles, approaching age three.

O. C. Marsh, called “Othy” as a boy, lived sometimes with aunts and uncles, and with his father and stepmother in Lockport, N.Y., near the recently excavated and fossil-rich Erie Canal.

By one account, in 1841 Othy wondered why fossil fish bones were in shale he found so far from water. A local engineer and fossil hunter named Colonel Ezekiel Jewett befriended the boy and explained about fossils, which they unearthed together.

Although his father thought he was wasting time, this fossil hunting experience with Jewett sparked Marsh’s later passion for paleontology. Otherwise, O. C. Marsh had an erratic schooling and drifted aimlessly until about age 20. Ref. 1.
O. C. Marsh at Phillips Academy and at Yale

The death of his sister Mary Marsh when she was 22 shocked O. C. Marsh into buckling down to hard private study. At age 21, inheriting property from his mother (part of the dowry George Peabody gave to Caleb Marsh), O. C. Marsh enrolled at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass.

His fellow students, in their teens, called Marsh, in his early 20s, “Daddy,” and “Captain” (he captained the football team), more in respect than ridicule. He soon became an academic achiever and did some summer fossil hunting. A classmate later recalled that O.C. Marsh made “a clean sweep of all” Phillips Academy honors.

Peabody, in London, pleased by good reports of his nephew O. C. Marsh’s academic progress from his sister Judith Dodge (née Peabody) Russell Daniels (1799-1879), helped pay his expenses at Phillips Academy. Learning that young Marsh wanted to attend Yale College, Peabody agreed to pay for his schooling there.

Marsh studied geology under Yale Prof. James Dwight Dana (1813-95) and chemistry under Benjamin Silliman, Jr. (1816-85). Marsh was eighth in his graduating class of 109 students at Yale in 1860 (B.A. degree).

With Peabody’s approval and support, O. C. Marsh attended Yale’s newly opened (1861) graduate Sheffield Scientific School. In two years he earned the M.A. degree in science (1862), at a cost to Peabody, according to science historian Bernard Jaffe, of $2,200. Ref. 2.

George Peabody as Philanthropist

George Peabody early told intimates, and said publicly in 1850, that he would found an educational institution in each town and city where he had lived and worked.

By the early 1860s when nephew O. C. Marsh began to influence him toward science, George Peabody had founded Peabody Institute libraries (with lecture halls and lecture funds) in both parts of Danvers, Mass.

Danvers was divided north and south in 1852, with the name of South Danvers, his birthplace, changed to Peabody, Mass., April 13, 1868. He had also founded a five-part Peabody Institute of Baltimore, Md. (reference library, lecture hall and lecture fund, conservatory of music, art gallery, and prizes for best Baltimore students).

He founded in London in March 1862, just before becoming more involved with nephew O. C. Marsh, the Peabody Donation Fund to build model apartments for London’s working poor. His other important philanthropies lay ahead.

O. C. Marsh as Budding Scholar

In 1861 Marsh wrote a scientific paper read at a Geological Society of London meeting, published in its Transactions, and reprinted in U.S. and European journals. Ref. 3.

His summer vacation field work on fossils in Nova Scotia, Canada, brought praise from Harvard zoology Prof. Louis Agassiz (1807-73), world authority on fossil fishes. Agassiz wrote to Yale Prof. Benjamin Silliman, Jr.: “A student from your Scientific School, Mr. Marsh, has shown me today two vertebrae…which has excited my interest in the highest degree.” Ref. 4.

Marsh wrote proudly from Georgetown, Mass., to his uncle George Peabody, London, June 9, 1862: “I was so fortunate during one of my vacations as to make a discovery which has already attracted considerable attention among scientific men.”

Poor eyesight kept Marsh from serving in the Civil War. In that same June 9, 1862, letter to Peabody he added: “If the plan for completing my studies in Germany, which you once so kindly approved, still meets with your approbation, I should like to go in September next [1862].” Peabody approved and sent Marsh £200 ($1,000). Ref. 5.

Always anxious to please his uncle, Marsh was upset by an article his father sent him from the Lockport Journal and Courier, reprinted from a Danvers, Mass., newspaper. He wrote his father that he was “sorry that someone had no more discretion than to preface the notice with some statements which are calculated to do me more injury than…good. The published statement that I am expecting a Professorship at Yale would do not a little towards preventing my getting it. So also that my expenses at College were paid by Uncle George and that he intended to make me his heir, were certainly very injudicious remarks.” Ref. 6.

Marsh sailed for Europe in Oct. 1862. Peabody talked to his nephew in London about his [Peabody’s] intended gift to Harvard University. Ref. 7.

Marsh described these talks in a letter to his mentor, Yale Prof. Benjamin Silliman, Jr. “I had a long talk with Mr. P. in regard to his future plans and donations…. I will tell you confidentially that Harvard will have her usual good fortune. So many of our family have been educated at Harvard that he naturally felt a greater interest in that institution than in Yale, of which I am the only representative. I can assure you, however, that I did [not] allow the claims of my Alma Mater to be forgotten…and I have strong hopes that she may yet be favored although nothing is as yet definitely arranged.

“The donation to H. [Harvard],” Marsh continued, “is a large one and for a School of Design…. I did not recommend an endowment for a similar object at Yale, partly because I did not feel so much interest in Art as in Science and partly because Mr. P. manifested so much interest in my scientific studies that I thought it not unlikely that he would be more inclined to that department.
“I did not propose any definite plan…,” Marsh concluded, “as I had then none to propose, but shall hope to do so before long as I do not intend to let the matter rest until something definite is decided upon….” Ref. 8.

Peabody’s first gift idea for Harvard in 1861 was an astronomical observatory. He discussed this idea in letters to Francis Peabody of Salem and William Henry Appleton (1814-84) of Boston. Ref. 9.

The Harvard gift idea was also discussed with former Harvard Pres. Edward Everett (1794-1865). Everett thought Harvard needed a “School of Design” [i.e., art] more than an observatory. Peabody’s Harvard gift idea had thus changed from observatory to a School of Design (art) when he spoke to his nephew O. C. Marsh in London in mid-Oct. 1862.

Marsh’s enthusiasm about science influenced Peabody, changing again his Harvard gift idea from observatory to art to science, resulting finally in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, founded Oct. 8, 1866. Ref. 10.

Science at Yale.

O. C. Marsh’s letters from Germany evoked special interest among Yale’s small band of scientists. By one account Prof. Silliman, Sr., had years before sounded out George Peabody about aiding science at Yale, but nothing came of it. Now, with O. C. Marsh as a budding Yale scholar, his Yale teachers had renewed hope of Peabody aiding science at Yale.

Learning that Prof. Silliman, Jr., had worked out with Prof. James Dwight Dana a plan for a possible Peabody Museum at Yale, Marsh wrote on Feb. 16, 1863: “I shall see Mr. P. in the spring or early in the summer, and shall then try to bring the subject before him in a way best suited to ensure its success.”

At the University of Berlin, on advice from his Yale mentors, Marsh specialized in vertebrate paleontology. When he met his uncle Peabody in mid-May 1863 in Hamburg, Germany, Marsh was better able to explain to his uncle the need for an endowed museum which would send out expeditions to find ancient animal and human remains and so reconstruct the antecedents and cultural history of man.

Marsh told his uncle that Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School (founded 1861) had made such a beginning. Ref. 11. He laid out Prof. Benjamin Silliman, Jr.’s, plan for a scientific Peabody museum at Yale. Satisfied that it was a sound idea, Peabody named five trustees: O. C. Marsh, Benjamin Silliman, Sr. and Jr., James Dixon, and James Dwight Dana.

Peabody told Marsh that he would soon add a codicil to his will endowing the Yale museum. Marsh wrote jubilantly from Hamburg to Prof. Silliman, Sr., May 25, 1863: “I take great pleasure in announcing to you that Mr. George Peabody has decided to extend his generosity to Yale College, and will leave a legacy of one hundred thousand dollars to promote the interests of Natural Science in that Institution.”

Marsh added: “Mr. Peabody suggests that the Trustees…decide upon a plan…best adapted to promote the object proposed, and to embody the main features of this plan in a clause to be inserted in his will.” Ref. 12.

Peabody also told Marsh in their May 1863 meeting in Hamburg that although he set the amount to Yale at $100,000, he might raise it and that Yale would receive the gift on his death. As it turned out, Peabody gave the museum gifts to Harvard on Oct. 8, 1866, and to Yale on Oct. 22,1866, during his May 1, 1866, to May 1, 1867, U.S. visit, raising the amounts to $150,000 each.

Prof. Benjamin Silliman, Jr., urged Marsh to collect fossils, books, and scientific papers on paleontology. He explained that doing so would prepare Marsh for a Yale professorship in paleontology and would also make the need for a museum more evident to all. Prof. James Dwight Dana echoed Prof. Silliman, Jr.’s suggestion for Marsh to study further in Germany. Ref. 13.

Unlike the strong U.S. liberal arts tradition, teaching science was new and suspect after Christian fundamentalists denounced the theory of evolution in Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859). Fundamentalists feared that belief in evolution might supplant belief in divine biblical revelation.

Amidst this conflict between science and religion, Yale’s small band of scientists saw hope for their scientific disciplines in Peabody’s intended museum gifts to Harvard and Yale, and particularly in the Morrill Act of 1862, which provided federal land grants to the states for science and mechanic arts (engineering) in higher education.

The Connecticut legislature in 1863 voted to allocate Morrill Act funds to Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School. Prof. Dana remarked, “The fact is Yale is going to be largely rebuilt, and all at once! The time of her renaissance has come!!” Ref. 14.
In July 1863 Marsh, studying at Heidelberg University, wrote to Peabody: “One…result of your [projected] donation to Yale has been to…realize my highest hopes of a position [there]…. The faculty propose to create a new Professorship of Geology and Paleontology…. This Professorship…corresponds to that held by the great Agassiz at Harvard.”

Marsh explained to his uncle that he needed a library and fossil collection: “Such a library and cabinet…can only be obtained in Europe…. The amount necessary…would be 3 or 4 thousand dollars…. I have felt some hesitation in asking you for this assistance in view of all you have already done for me, but I have thought it much the best way to state the whole case frankly and leave the matter with you.” Ref. 15.

Peabody wrote Marsh from Scotland in Aug. 1863 that he would give him $3,500 to buy a library and fossil specimens. Ref. 16.

O. C. Marsh’s Books and Fossils
Often ill and wanting to retire, Peabody cut his ties with George Peabody & Co. on Oct. 1, 1864. Without children of his own and knowing he could not control the company business after his death, he asked that his name be withdrawn from the firm. Partner Junius Spencer Morgan (1813-90) urged Peabody to postpone retirement.

Peabody wrote J.S. Morgan politely but firmly: “…I can now make no change, for although the continuance of the firm for three or six months, which you suggest, may appear short to you, to me–feeling as I deeply do, the uncertainty of life at the age of seventy–months would appear as years, for I am most anxious before I die to place my worldly affairs in a much more satisfactory state than they are at present.” Ref. 17.

Thus was George Peabody & Co., begun informally as early as 1838 and more formally from 1851, succeeded by J. S. Morgan & Co. (1864-1909), by Morgan Grenfell & Co. (1910-1918), Morgan Grenfell & Co. Ltd., since 1918, and has continued since 1989, owned by Deutsche Bank, Germany. Ref. 18.

O. C. Marsh wrote Peabody from the University of Breslau Oct. 21, 1864: “I saw in the papers the announcement of your retirement…. Before I retire I should like to do for Science as much as you have done for your fellowmen; and if my health continues I shall try hard to do so.” Ref. 19.

Marsh expected his Yale professorship in June 1864, but was disappointed when it was postponed until June 1865. Being already in Germany, he wrote his uncle that he felt he should also study at the University of Breslau (he was the first U.S. student to attend there). Peabody approved and paid his expenses. Ref. 20.

Marsh selected his library of books on geology and paleontology, for which his uncle paid $5,000. Peabody arranged with his agent-friend, Horatio Gates Somerby (1805-72), born in Newburyport, Mass., and a London-based genealogist, to ship Marsh’s effects to the U.S. The books and fossils went through customs two years later weighing 2.5 tons.

Marsh’s fossils were the basis of the collection of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale. His books formed the basis of its library collection in geology and paleontology.

In Berlin Marsh met and spoke with Sir Charles Lyell (1795-1875). In Paris he met and spoke with French geologist Phillippe-Edouard Poulletier De Verneuill. In London, when he was not with his uncle, he spent time at the British Museum with the Keeper of Geology, Henry Woodward. Marsh also talked with such famous British scientists as Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95) and Charles Darwin (1809-82). Ref. 21.

Back at Yale in March 1866, teaching Prof. Dana’s classes in geology, Marsh wrote to his cousin Charles W. Chandler, a lawyer in Zanesville, Ohio, that their uncle George Peabody was about to visit the U.S. (May 1, 1866 to May 1, 1867).

Peabody’s Philanthropic Advisor R. C. Winthrop

George Peabody arrived in N. Y. C. on the Scotia, May 3, 1866, for his year’s U.S. visit (May 1, 1866-May 1, 1867). He conferred on May 9 and frequently thereafter with his philanthropic advisor, Robert Charles Winthrop (1809-94).

Winthrop had been highly recommended to Peabody in 1862 in London by Thurlow Weed (1797-1882), the politically powerful N. Y. State editor. Weed was in London in 1862 as Pres. Lincoln’s emissary to keep Britain from siding with the Confederacy in the Civil War. Weed pointed out that Winthrop was uniquely qualified to advise and guide Peabody’s philanthropy. Ref. 22.

Winthrop was the distinguished descendant of first Mass. Bay Colony Gov. John Winthrop (1588-1649), a Harvard graduate (1828), trained in Daniel Webster’s law office, a member of the Mass. legislature (1834-39, and its Speaker), member of the U.S. House of Representative (1840-50, its Speaker during 1847-49), was appointed to fill Daniel Webster’s U.S. Senate seat (1851), and had given the main addresses at the Washington Monument cornerstone laying (1848) and at its completion (1885).

Known and respected by the U.S. political and academic power structure, Winthrop agreed to help plan Peabody’s philanthropy after 1866. In 1867 Winthrop helped name the Peabody Education Fund (PEF) trustees, was president of that board, and guided the PEF to his death in 1894.

When Peabody first laid before Winthrop his philanthropic plans (probably on May 9, 1866), Winthrop expressed amazement at its size and scope. Winthrop remembered Peabody’s reply and quoted it in his Feb. 8, 1870, eulogy at Peabody’s burial. Peabody’s words were later cut into the stone marker placed at the temporary grave site in Westminster Abbey, where Peabody’s remains lay in state 30 days (Nov. 11-Dec. 12, 1869). Peabody had replied:

“Why, Mr. Winthrop, this is no new idea to me. From the earliest of my manhood I have contemplated some such disposition of my property; and I have prayed my Heavenly Father, day be day, that I might be enabled before I died, to show my gratitude for the blessings which He has bestowed upon me, by doing some great good for my fellow-men.” Ref. 23.

R. C. Winthrop’s Help on the Peabody Museum of Harvard

Winthrop had a series of meetings on the Peabody Museum of Harvard: with George Peabody on June 1, 1866, at the Tremont House, Boston; on June 4 with Peabody’s nephews, Yale Prof. O. C. Marsh and George Peabody Russell (1834-?, Harvard graduate class of 1856 and a lawyer) at the Massachusetts Historical Society; and on June 17 again with George Peabody, who gave Winthrop permission to consult confidentially with Harvard friends. Winthrop especially sought the advice and approval of Louis Agassiz (1807-73), the leading U. S. scientist and Harvard zoologist.

Winthrop also talked to Harvard’s former Pres. James Walker (1794-1874, Harvard president during 1853-60). Agassiz, Winthrop, and Walker knew that Harvard officials preferred new gifts of money to go to its library and to its Museum of Comparative Zoology rather than for Peabody’s proposed museum.

Pres. Walker said to Winthrop: “…When a generous man like Mr. Peabody proposes a great gift, we…had better take what he offers and take it on his terms, and for the object which he evidently has at heart…. There…will be, as you say, disappointments in some quarters. But the branch of Science, to which this endowment is devoted, is one to which many minds in Europe are now eagerly turning…. This Museum…will be the first of its kind in our country.”

Winthrop communicated his conversation with Pres. Walker to Peabody on July 6, 1866. On Sept. 24, 1866, Winthrop again met with George Peabody and his nephews, Prof. O. C. Marsh and G. P. Russell. On Sept. 28, 1866, Winthrop called the first meeting of the trustees of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard. The trustees accepted Peabody’s gift of $150,000.

Peabody’s founding letter of Oct. 8, 1866, ended with these suggestions: “…In view of the gradual obliteration or destruction of the works and remains of the ancient races of this continent, the labor of exploration and collection be commenced at as early…as practicable; and also, that, in the event of the discovery in America of human remains or implements of an earlier geological period than the present, especial attention be given to their study, and their comparison with those found in other countries.” Ref. 24.

Anthropology at Harvard University

Thus, O.C. Marsh, a Yale man, influenced the founding of the first U. S. museum of anthropology in the U. S. at Harvard University. It was endowed by Peabody nine years after the discovery in 1857 in Prussia of the Neanderthal skull, which renewed interest in man’s origins. Ethnological items, long collected but unexamined, were soon donated to the new Peabody Museum at Harvard by New England societies, including the Massachusetts Historical Society.

When the Massachusetts Historical Society’s ethnological items were transferred to the Peabody Museum at Harvard, former Harvard Pres. James Walker said, “For a long time Harvard has exhausted her resources on the traditional liberal arts. The time has come for her to advance scientific knowledge. Mr. Peabody shows great wisdom in facilitating cooperation between the Massachusetts Historical Society and his Museum at Harvard through trustees of the latter who are prominent members of the former.” Ref. 25.

Science historians Charles Franklin Thwing (1853-1937) and Ernest Ingersoll (1852-1946) each wrote that the Peabody Museum at Harvard University began the systematic study of anthropology in U. S. higher education. Pre-Columbian life in North America was largely unexplored; existing collections were slight and fragmentary. Ref. 26.

Many early prominent scientists were officers of the Peabody Museum of Harvard, including Frederic Ward Putnam (1839-1915). He was its curator during 1874-1909 and enhanced its reputation as well as his own. He was called by his peers the “Father of American Anthropology.” While at the Peabody Museum of Harvard, he also found time 1-to help found the Anthropology Department of the American Museum of Natural History, N.Y.C., during 1894-1903; and 2-the Department and Museum of Anthropology, University of California, during 1903-09; and 3-to be secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, during 1873-98.

Famed anthropologist Prof. Franz Boas (1858-1942) wrote that F. W. Putnam pursued the subject of early man in North America with “unconquerable tenacity.” Putnam wrote over 400 anthropological reports, many of them on the culture of the “mound builders,” ancient ancestors of the American Indians. Ref. 27. At its centennial in 1967, Peabody Museum of Harvard Director John O. Brew (1906-88) stated that its personnel had pioneered in studying the unique Mayan culture in Central America and had led a total of 688 expeditions worldwide to study early human life. Ref. 28.

O. C. Marsh’s influence at Yale

O.C. Marsh was a convinced evolutionist when in the early 1860s he visited Charles Darwin at his country home in England. Twenty years later Charles Darwin wrote to Marsh, crediting him with finding fossils that provided the best evidence to prove the theory of evolution.

Marsh also published fossil proof of the North American origin of the horse. Previously scientists believed that the horse originated in Europe and was brought to America with Christopher Columbus and the conquistadors. Darwin’s strongest defender, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95), visiting Marsh at Yale in 1876, was so convinced by Marsh’s horse fossil findings that he changed the content of his U. S. lectures, citing Marsh’s proof of the pre-Columbian origin of the horse in North America. Ref. 29.

As Yale Prof. of Paleontology and Director of Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History, Marsh did not teach or receive a salary until his last years, when his private income (left to him by Peabody) was almost gone. He was an astute organizer of Yale assistants, directing their field work by telegraph and letter, overseeing their collecting and shipping railroad carloads of fossils. At Yale he assembled entire dinosaurs, toothed birds, and other extinct mammals. His enormous collection at Yale was still being catalogued in the 1990s.

Marsh made his major dinosaur fossil finds in the mid 1870s-80s in the Rocky Mountain region; at Comma Bluff in eastern Wyoming; Canyon City, Colorado; and elsewhere in the rugged U. S. West. He used Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History resources, student assistants, and federal funds in his capacity as U.S. Geological Survey paleontologist (1882-92) and honorary curator of vertebrate paleontology at the U.S. National Museum (1887) to find over 1,000 new fossil vertebrates, many of which he classified and described. Ref. 30.

Marsh lived like a Victorian gentleman in his 18-room New Haven, Conn., brownstone, courting and entertaining lavishly U.S. and foreign scientists and politicians. For 12 years he was president of the National Academy of Sciences, the most prestigious U.S. scientific body. He was prominent in national science affairs and wielded influence in government and academic science circles.

Some peers and at least one assistant, Samuel Wendell Williston (1852-1918), who achieved scientific renown after leaving O. C. Marsh’s employ, criticized him for publishing fossil findings of his assistants as his own. Marsh’s last years were marred by lack of money and loss of U.S. government support. Ref. 31.

O. C. Marsh-E. D. Cope Rivalry

Marsh’s chief scientific rival was Philadelphia-born and independently wealthy paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope (1840-97). Cope was the son of a wealthy Quaker ship owner and philanthropist. Like Marsh, Cope’s mother died when he was three-years-old. Unlike Marsh, Cope grew up in a well-ordered household, did well in a Quaker school, and published his first scientific paper at age 18.

Marsh did little until age 20 and published his first paper at age 30. Both studied science in Europe. Cope, with his wife and daughter, lived in Haddonfield, N.J. When his father died (1875), Cope at age 35 inherited a fortune which he used to finance his fossil finds. Cope lived simply. In contrast, Marsh, a bachelor, lived the life of a Victorian gentleman. On frequent trips to N. Y .C. Marsh was often seen in fashionable clubs.

Marsh and Cope met in Berlin in 1862. They met again for a friendly week in the U. S. in 1868. From then on, they competed in a quarter-century race in the rugged West to find and identify new mammal fossils in scientific publications. Cope, of brilliant mind and wider natural history interests than Marsh, had no institutional connections until, financially depleted in his last years, he became a University of Pennsylvania professor. Marsh had the knack of management and made the most of academic and federal government connections.

From this rivalry came a treasure trove of dinosaur fossil findings, 80 new kinds of dinosaurs found and described in publications by Marsh and 56 found and described in publications by Cope. From this rivalry came much of what is now known about dinosaurs. Dinosaur displays attracted visitors, particularly young visitors, made science museums popular, and furthered science education. Ref. 32.

Marsh’s biographers estimate that Peabody gave Yale directly and indirectly through bequests to Marsh close to half a million dollars. The Peabody Museums at Harvard and Yale, their collections, field exploration, exhibits, famous murals (particularly at the Yale Museum), and education programs are eminently the achievements of their directors and staffs. Yet Peabody’s gifts to science education, influenced by nephew O. C. March, made these achievements possible.

George Peabody’s Philanthropy

George Peabody founded 7 Peabody Institute Libraries, each with free circulating library (except the reference library in Baltimore) and lecture halls and lecture funds. Their location, year founded, and total funds are:

1-Peabody Library in (now named) Peabody, Mass., 1852, total $217,600.

 

2-Peabody Institute of Baltimore, 1857, total $1.4 million (noncirculating special reference library for researchers, lecture hall and fund, music conservatory, art gallery, and annual prizes for best Baltimore students).

3-Peabody Library in Danvers, Mass., 1856, $100,000.

4-Peabody Library in Georgetown, Mass., 1868, $30,000.

5-Peabody Library in Newburyport, Mass., 1866, $15,000.

6-Peabody Library in Thetford, Vt., 1866, $10,000.

7-Peabody Library gift in Georgetown, D.C., 1867, $15,000, now part of Washington, D.C., public library.

(Peabody’s earlier library gift was to the Baltimore Athenaeum and Library, 1845, $500). Peabody’s library gifts totaled $1,788,100.

George Peabody’s gifts to science and science education totaled $551,000:

1-Chemistry laboratory and chemistry school, Maryland Institute, Baltimore, 1851, $1,000.

2-Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 1866, $150,000.

3-Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, 1866, $150,000.

4-Mathematics and natural science professorship, Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., 1866, $25,000.

5-Mathematics and civil engineering professorship, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, 1866, $25,000.

6-(now named) Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass., 1867, $140,000 (maritime museum and Essex County historical documents).

7-Mathematics professorship, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Va. ( Robert E. Lee was then president of Washington College, Va.), 1869, $60,000.

Peabody’s Publication fund gifts to historical societies totaled $40,020:

1-Historical Society of Philadelphia, 1857, $20.

2-Maryland Historical Society, 1866, $20,000.

3-Massachusetts Historical Society, 1866, $20,000.

4-For abstracting Maryland colonial records from English depositories for the Maryland Historical Society, about 1850, amount not known.

 

 

Model housing for London’s working poor, 1862-69, $2.5 million (27,000 Londoners still live in 14,000 Peabody homes in 83 housing areas). London housing gift totaled $2,500,000.

First U.S. Arctic expedition, $10,000 for scientific equipment, Second U.S. Grinnell Expedition, 1852-54, in search for missing British explorer Sir John Franklin (1786-1847), led by U.S. Naval Commander Elisha Kent Kane (1820-57). U.S. Arctic expedition gift totaled $10,000.

Peabody’s gifts to Patriotic causes totaled $71,850:

 

1-Battle of Lexington Monument, [now named] Peabody, Mass., 1835, $300.

 

2-Revolutionary War Monument for General Gideon Foster, 1845, $50.

 

3-Bunker Hill Memorial Monument, 1845, $500.

 

4-State of Maryland (Peabody declined $60,000 commission due him for selling Chesapeake and Ohio Canal part of Md.’s $8 million bonds for
internal improvements, 1837-48).

 

5-Washington Monument, Washington, D.C., 1854, $1,000.

 

6-U.S. Sanitary Commission (Civil War medical care and relief for Union soldiers, sailors, and families), 1864, $10,000.

 

Peabody’s Hospital gifts totaled $19,565:

 

1-City of London Hospital for Diseases of the Chest, 1850-55, $165.

 

2-Mental Hospital, London, 1864, $100.

 

3-Vatican’s San Spirito Charity Hospital, Rome, Italy, 1867, $19,300.

Churches and charity gifts totaled $70,930:

 

1-South Congregational Church [now named] Peabody, Mass., 1843 or ‘44, $250.

 

2-London Refuge for the Destitute, 1858-60, $115.

 

3-Church, Barnstead, N.H., 1866, $450.

 

4-Memorial Church (in his mother’s hometown), Georgetown, Mass., 1866, $70,000.

 

5-Robert E. Lee’s Episcopal Church, Lexington, Va., Aug. 1869, $100. English Charity, $15.

 

Education gifts totaled, $2,004,700:

 

1-Best scholars’ medals, Peabody High School [now Peabody], Mass., 1854-67, $2,600.

 

2-Best scholars’ medals, Holton High School, Danvers, Mass., 1867, $2,000.

 

3-London school, 1864, $100.

 

4-Peabody Education Fund (PEF), 11 former Confederate states plus W. Va., 1867-69, $2 million (GP actually gave the PEF trustees $3,484,000 in securities, but Miss. did not honor its $1.1 million bonds or Fla. its $384,00 bonds; so that PEF funds are usually given as $2 million.

 

George Peabody’s known philanthropic gifts totaled $7,056,165.

Peabody’s Last Will

George Peabody’s last will, Sept. 9, 1869, left to former clerks at George Peabody & Co., London, $11,000 to Henry West, and $5,000 to Thomas Perman. $25,000 each to his two British estate executors, Sir Curtis Miranda Lampson (1806-85) and Sir Charles Reed (1819-81). $5,000 each to his three U. S. estate executors, nephews George Peabody Russell (1834-?) and Robert Singleton Peabody (1837-1904) and nephew-in-law Charles W. Chandler. To the Family Trust Fund (one brother, one sister, and fourteen nieces and nephews), he left (variously estimated) $1.5 million to $4 million.

Peabody’s Philanthropic Influence

George Peabody’s philanthropy directly influenced:

 

1-Johns Hopkins’ (1795-1873) $8 million bequest for the Johns Hopkins University, Hospital, and Medical School, Baltimore. He indirectly influenced

 

2-Enoch Pratt (1808-96), who served as Peabody Institute of Baltimore trustee and treasurer, to found the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore’s public library.

 

Peabody indirectly influenced the gifts of these PEF trustees:

 

3-Anthony Joseph Drexel (1826-93) to found Drexel University, Philadelphia, 1891; and

 

4-Paul Tulane (1801-87) to found Tulane University, New Orleans, 1884.

 

5-Peabody’s example indirectly influenced Alexander Turney Stewart (1803-76) to build his planned Garden City, N.Y., community on the plan of the Peabody Homes of London.

Peabody’s Honors in Life

George Peabody was the

 

1-first American to receive the Freedom of the City of London, July 10, 1862 (also given to General Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1945). He was granted honorary memberships in the ancient guilds of the

 

2-Clothworkers’ Company of London, July 2, 1862; and the

 

3-Fishmongers’ Company of London, April 19, 1866.

 

4-Queen Victoria sent him a letter of thanks and her miniature portrait (estimated cost, $70,000), delivered by the British ambassador to Peabody, then in the U.S., March 1867.

 

5-He had private audiences with Pope Pius IX and with French Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie, in 1868.

 

6-Sculptor William Wetmore Story’s seated GP statue was erected near the Royal Exchange, Threadneedle Street, London, paid for by popular subscription, and unveiled by the Prince of Wales, July 23, 1869 (a replica was erected in front of the Peabody Institute of Baltimore, 1890. (London has monuments to only four Americans: George Peabody, 1869; Abraham Lincoln, 1920; George Washington,1821; and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1948).

 

7-U.S. Congress unanimously passed a resolution of praise and awarded a gold medal to George Peabody, March 1867, in national appreciation for the 1867 Peabody Education Fund.

 

8-His birthplace, South Danvers, Mass., was renamed Peabody, Mass., April 13, 1868.

 

9-He was granted an honorary Doctor of Law degree, Harvard University, July 17, 1867 (for the Peabody Museum of Harvard University); and an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree, Oxford University, June 26, 1867, for the Peabody Homes of London.

 

10-George Peabody was considered but declined appointment as U.S. Treasury Secretary in President Andrew Johnson’s Cabinet, Feb. 1867.

Peabody’s Honors after Death

11-A funeral service (Nov. 5) was held in Westminster Abbey, London. A floor marker, refurbished in 1995, designates his temporary burial there for 30 days, Nov. 5-Dec. 11, 1869.

 

12-Prime Minister W. E. Gladstone’s cabinet decided on Nov. 10, 1869, to return Peabody’s remains to the U.S. aboard HMS Monarch, then Britain’s newest, largest warship.

 

13-Pres. U.S. Grant ordered the USS Plymouth from Marseilles, France, to accompany the Monarch to the U. S.

 

14-Pres. Grant ordered Admiral David Farragut to command a U. S. naval reception in Portland harbor, Maine.

 

15-Lying-in-state honors were held in Portland, Maine, and in Peabody, Mass.

 

16-Final burial was in Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, Mass., Feb. 8, 1870, attended by Queen Victoria’s third son, Prince Arthur, then on a Canadian tour.

 

17-GP was elected to the New York University Hall of Fame, 1900, with a bust by sculptor Hans Schuler unveiled, May 12, 1926.

 

18-Virginia and South Carolina legislators proposed (unsuccessfully) a George Peabody statue in Statuary Hall, U. S. Capitol, 1896.

 

19-Artist Louis Amateis designed (1904-08) two bronze doors for the west entrance, U. S. Capitol Building, with transom panel tableau called “Apotheosis of America,” symbolizing U. S. intellectual development, featuring images of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Peabody, Johns Hopkins, and Horace Mann.

 

20-Tennesseans in 1941 proposed, unsuccessfully, a commemorative George Peabody U. S. postage stamp (a similar unsuccessful proposal was made in 1993 by Massachusetts citizens for a commemorative George Peabody U. S. postage stamp for the bicentennial of his birth in 1995).

 

21-An international George Peabody traveling exhibit was organized for the bicentennial of his birth by the Peabody Institute of Baltimore, shown at the Peabody Trust in London, Feb. 18, 1995, and shown at U. S. Peabody institutions through 1995-96. Ref. 33.

References

1. The O. C. Marsh family documents are in the George Peabody Papers and the O. C. Marsh Papers at Yale University Library Archives, used in Charles Schuchert and Clara Mae LeVene, O. C. Marsh, Pioneer in Paleontology (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940), hereafter referred to as Schuchert and LeVene.

2. (Marsh’s cost at Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School, 1861-62): Bernard Jaffe, “Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-1899),” Men of Science in America: The Role of Science in the Growth of Our Country (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1944), pp. 279-306, 565.

3. (Marsh’s 1861 scientific paper): O. C. Marsh to George Peabody, June 9, 1862, in George Peabody Papers, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass., and in Schuchert and LeVene, p. 45.

4. (Louis Agassiz on Marsh’s 1861 paper): Louis Agassiz to Benjamin Silliman, Dec. 23, 1861, quoted in American Journal of Science , Vol. 33 (May 1862), p. 138.

5. (Marsh’s study in Germany): O. C. Marsh to Peabody, June 9, 1862, in Peabody Papers, Peabody Essex Museum., quoted in Schuchert and LeVene, p. 48.
6. (O. C. Marsh to his father, Caleb Marsh, Aug. 1862): Schuchert and LeVene, p. 47.

7. (Marsh’s Oct. 1862 talk with Peabody): O. C. Marsh, Liverpool, to George Peabody, London, Oct. 10, 1862, in Peabody Papers, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.

8. (O. C. Marsh to Silliman, Jr. about talks with George Peabody): Schuchert and LeVene, pp. 75-76.

9. (George Peabody’s early thoughts on Harvard observatory and school of design): Francis Peabody, Salem, to George Peabody, Oct. 8, 1861, Peabody Papers, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.

10. (O. C. Marsh influenced George Peabody toward Harvard science museum gift): Schuchert and LeVene, p. 74, note 4.

11. (Marsh presented Silliman, Jr.’s Yale museum plan to Peabody): O. C. Marsh, Berlin, to Silliman, Jr., Feb. 16, 1863, Marsh Papers, Yale, quoted in Schuchert and LeVene, pp. 77-78.

12 (Peabody decides on Yale museum): O. C. Marsh, Hamburg, to Silliman, Sr., May 25, 1863, Marsh Papers, Yale, quoted in Schuchert and LeVene, p. 78.

13. (Silliman, Jr., and Dana urge Marsh to study further in Germany): Schuchert and LeVene, pp. 52, 80-81.

14. (Dana on Yale to be rebuilt): Schuchert and LeVene, pp. 82-83.

15. (O. C. Marsh asked Peabody for library and fossil rock specimens): O.C. Marsh, Heidelberg, to George Peabody, July 12, 1863, Marsh Papers, Yale, quoted in Schuchert and LeVene, p. 54.

16. (Peabody paid for Marsh’s books and specimens): George Peabody, Scotland, to O. C. Marsh, Aug 22, 1863, Marsh Papers, Yale, quoted in Schuchert and LeVene, p. 55.

17. (Peabody to retire): George Peabody, Scotland, to J. S. Morgan, Aug. 13, 1864, Peabody Papers, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.

18. (History of George Peabody & Co.): [Morgan Grenfell & Co. Ltd.]. Kathleen Burk, Morgan Grenfell 1838-1988: The Biography of a Merchant Bank (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). Vincent P. Carosso, The Morgans, Private International Bankers, 1854-1913. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987). Steven Prokesch,
 “Germans to Buy Morgan Grenfell,” New York Times, Nov. 28, 1989, p. 29, continued under title, “Deutsche Bank to Acquire Morgan Grenfell, ” p. 42.

19. (O. C. Marsh on George Peabody’s retirement): O. C. Marsh, University of Breslau, German, to George Peabody, Oct. 21, 1864, in Peabody Papers, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.

20. (O. C. Marsh at the University Breslau): O. C. Marsh, Berlin, to George Peabody, June 13, 1864, Marsh Papers,. Yale, quoted in Schuchert and LeVene, pp. 59-60.

21. (Marsh’s books and fossils arrived from Europe weighing 2.5 tons): Schuchert and LeVene, p. 67.

22. (On Thurlow Weed): Weed Collection, University of Rochester Library Archives. Thurlow Weed Barnes. Memoir of Thurlow Weed by his Grandson (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1884). Thurlow Weed. Autobiography of Thurlow Weed, ed. by Harriet A. Weed. 2 Vols. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1884).

23. (On Robert C. Winthrop): Robert Charles Winthrop. Eulogy, Pronounced at the Funeral of George Peabody, at Peabody, Massachusetts, 8 February, 1870 (Boston: John Wilson & Son, 1870), pp. 3-11. Robert Charles Winthrop. Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1879), II, pp. 312-315. Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry. A Brief Sketch of George Peabody and a History of the Peabody Education Fund Through Thirty Years (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1898. Reprinted New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969), p. 18.

24. (Oct. 8, 1866, founding letter): Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Archives, Harvard University. Harvard University. Endowment Funds of Harvard University, June 30, 1947 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948), pp. 363-365. Boston Daily Advertiser, Oct. 19, 1866, p. 2, c. 3-4. Theodore Hall. “A Harvard Garner, the Peabody Museum,” Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, Vol. 40, No. 149 (March 1932), pp. 276-297. Roland B. Dixon. “Anthropology, 1866-1929,” The Development of Harvard University Since the Inauguration of President Eliot 1869-1929. Ed. by Samuel Eliot Morrison (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1930), Chap. X, pp. 202-215. (R.C. Winthrop on Peabody Museum of Harvard): “R. C. Winthrop Papers,” Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. (R.C. Winthrop consults Harvard scientist Louis Agassiz): Robert Charles Winthrop. Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1879), II, pp. 312-315.

25. (James Walker on value of Peabody Museum of Harvard): Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings. Vol. 9 (1866-1867), pp. 359-367.

26. (Thwing, Ingersoll, and Willoughby on the historical importance of the Peabody Museum of Harvard): Charles Franklin Thwing. “Peabody Museum of Archaeology, Cambridge, Massachusetts,” Harpers New Weekly Magazine, Vol. 63 (Oct. 1881), pp. 670-677. Ernest Ingersoll. “The Peabody Museum of American Archaeology,” Lippincott’s Magazine, Vol. 10 (Nov. 1885), pp. 474-487. Charles G. Willoughby. “The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University,” Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 124 (June 1923), pp. 495-503.

27. (On F. W. Putnam’s historical importance): Frederic Ward Putnam. The Archaeological Reports of Frederic Ward Putnam: Selected from the Annual Reports of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University 1875-1903 (New York: AMS Press, 1973, reprint), IX-XIII.

28. (Brew on the historical importance of anthropology at the Peabody Museum of Harvard): John O. Brew, ed. One Hundred Years of Anthropology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968).

29. (O. C. Marsh’s proof of pre-Columbian American origin of the horse): Cyril Bibby. Scientist Extraordinary: The Life and Scientific Work of Thomas Henry Huxley, 1825-1895 (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1972). Martin J.S. Rudwick. The Meaning of Fossils: Episodes in the History of Paleontology. 2nd ed. (New York: Neale Watson Academic Publications, 1976), pp. 252-255. Bruce J. MacFadden. Fossil Horses: Systematics, Paleobiology, and Evolution of the Family Equidae (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 29-33.

30. (O. C. Marsh’s contributions at Yale): O.C. Marsh Papers, Yale University Archives. Schuchert and LeVene. Ernest Willoughby. “The Peabody Museum at New Haven,” Science, Vol. 5, No. 103 (Jan. 23, 1885), pp. 67-72. Mark J. McCarren. The Scientific Contributions of Othniel Charles Marsh: Birds, Bones, and Brontotheres (New Haven: Peabody Museum of Natural History, 1993). Robert M. Schoch. “The Paleontological Collections of the Peabody Museum of Natural History,” Fossils Quarterly (Fall/Winter 1984-1985), pp. 4-14. Carl O. Dunbar. “Recollections on the Renaissance of Peabody Museum Exhibits, 1939-1959,” Discovery, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Fall 1976), pp. 17-35. Hugh S. McIntosh “Marsh and the Dinosaurs,” Discovery, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1965), pp. 31-37. Robert Plate. The Dinosaur Hunters (New York: David McKay Co., 1964). “Dedication of the Peabody Museum: Simple Exercises Mark the Laying of the Cornerstone of New Home for Notable Collections,” Yale Alumni Weekly (July 6, 1923), pp. 1249-1250. Ellen T. Drake, “Some Notes on the Beginnings of Peabody Museum,” Discovery, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Fall 1966), pp. 33-35. “Carl O. Dunbar 1891-1979: An Appreciation,” Discovery, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1979), p. 44.

31. (S.W. Williston critical of O. C. Marsh): Elizabeth Noble Shor. Fossils and Flies: The Life of a Compleat Scientist Samuel Wendell Williston (1851-1918) (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1977), pp. 3-7, 22-23, 64-71, 96-98, 117-123.

32. (Marsh-Cope rivalry): Robert T. Bakker. The Dinosaur Heresies: New Theories Unlocking the Mystery of the Dinosaurs and Their Extinction (New York: William Morrow, 1986), pp. 37-41, 164-165, 206-213, 298-305, 365-369. Peter J. Bowler. Fossils and Press: Paleontology and the Idea of Progressive Evolution in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Science History Publications, 1976), pp. 130-141. Edwin Harris Colbert. Dinosaurs: Their Discovery and Their World (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1961), pp. 28-37, 70-71, 86-87, 118-119, 146-149, 277. Edwin Harris Colbert. Men and Dinosaurs: The Search in Field and Laboratory (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1968), pp. 55, 66-97, 144-145. Edwin Harris Colbert. The Great Dinosaur Hunters and Their Discoveries (New York: Dover Publications, 1984). Edwin Harris Colbert. Dinosaurs: An Illustrated History (Maplewood, N.J.: Hammond, 1985), pp. 24-27. Adrian J. Desmond. The Hot-Blooded Dinosaurs: A Revolution in Paleontology (New York: Dial Press, 1976), pp. 30-37, 106-117, 138-139, 174-177. Diagram Group, A Field Guide to Dinosaurs (New York: Avon, 1983), pp. 52-53, 146-147, 210-211, 218-223, 246-249. Thomas F. Glick, ed. Comparative Reception of Darwinism (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1972), pp. 192-213. Stephen Jay Gould. Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991), pp. 86-93, 139, 160-163, 170-177, 416-433. Robert West Howard. The Dawnseekers: The First History of American Paleontology (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975). Bernard Jaffe. “Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-1899),” Men of Science in America: The Role of Science in the Growth of Our Country (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1944), pp. 279-306, 565 , pp. 279-306, 565. Url Lanham. The Bone Hunters (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973), pp. ix-xi, 79-164, 182-183, 218-267. Bruce J. MacFadden. Fossil Horses: Systematics, Paleobiology, and Evolution of the Family Equidae (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 29-33. John H. Ostrom, and John S. McIntosh. Marsh’s Dinosaurs: The Collections from Como Bluff (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), pp. v-vi, 6-11, 28-43. Nathan Reingold, ed. Science in Nineteenth-Century America: A Documentary History (New York: Hill and Wang, 1964), pp. 236-241. Martin J.S. Rudwick. The Meaning of Fossils: Episodes in the History of Paleontology. 2nd ed. (New York: Neale Watson Academic Publications, 1976), pp. 252-255. Elizabeth Noble Shor. Fossils and Flies: The Life of a Compleat Scientist Samuel Wendell Williston (1851-1918) (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1977), pp. 3-7, 22-23, 64-71, 96-98, 117-123. George Gaylord Simpson. George Gaylord Simpson: Concession to the Improbable, An Unconventional Autobiography (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), pp. 16-17, 40-41, 130-131, 270-271. Time-Life Books. Emergence of Man: Life Before Man (New York: Time-Life Books, 1972), pp. 75-83.

33. (Research on George Peabody since 1953): Franklin Parker. “George Peabody, Founder of Modern Philanthropy” (Ed.D., George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, 1956), 3 vols. Franklin Parker. George Peabody, a Biography (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1995 rev. and update of 1971 ed.). Franklin Parker, issue author. “The Legacy of George Peabody: Special Bicentenary Issue,” Peabody Journal of Education, Vol. 70, No. 1 (Fall 1994), 210 pp. (Reprint of author’s 22 articles on George Peabody, with annotations in Current Index to Journals in Education, Vol. 70, No. 1 [July 1995], pp. 149-151).

END.

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 “Max Rafferty (1917-82), Conservative Educator and California State School Superintendent During 1962-70By Franklin and Betty J. Parker, bfparker@frontiernet.net

Rafferty, Maxwell Lewis, Jr. (born May 17, 1917; died  June 13, 1982), educator, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of Maxwell Lewis Rafferty, an Irish Roman Catholic store owner and auto plant worker, and DeEtta Cox (mother). 

In 1921 the family moved to Sioux City, Iowa, and then, in 1931, to Los Angeles, California.  Young Max skipped several grades and graduated at age sixteen from Beverly Hills High School, California, where he was remembered for being studious, quick witted, and much younger than his classmates.

Entering the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), he majored in history, managed the football and rugby teams, was president of Sigma Pi fraternity, joined the UCLA Americans (an anti-communist athletic group opposed to leftist students), and received a B.A. in 1938.  He then enrolled in the UCLA School of Education to become a teacher and later claimed to have reluctantly studied John Dewey’s educational philosophy in order to become certified. 

He taught English and history and coached football at Trona High School, in Trona, California, from 1940 to 1948, having been classified physically unfit for the World War II draft because of flat feet.  He married a schoolmate in 1940, was divorced in 1943, and married Frances Louella Longman in 1944.  They had three children.  He earned an M.A. degree from UCLA in 1949 and an Ed.D. degree from the University of Southern California in 1955.

Asked later why he chose to be a teacher and school administrator for twenty-one years in isolated southern California desert towns, Rafferty replied that “they paid better salaries, and advancement was more rapid.”  From Trona, California, where he had risen to be vice principal, he became principal of the high school in Big Bear, California, a resort town in the San Bernardino Mountains, from 1948 to 1951.  He was then school superintend at Saticoy, (1951-1955), Needles (1955-1961), and La Canada, a prosperous northeast Los Angeles suburb (1961-1962), all in California.

Max Rafferty’s speeches to education groups and civic clubs as well as his articles (particularly in Phi Delta Kappan, the journal of the education honor society) and books written during these years expressed his contempt for progressive education and school approaches that stressed “life adjustment.” 

He described leftist students of the 1950s and 1960s as “booted, side-burned, ducktailed, unwashed, leather-jacketed slobs.”  His impassioned speeches and writings soon won him admiration from the John Birch Society and other right-wing groups, many of which had growing memberships in California during these years. 

His 1961 “Passing of the Patriot” speech to the La Canada school board excoriated educators for having been “so busy educating for ‘life adjustment’ that we forgot that the first duty of a nation’s schools is to preserve that nation.”  That speech marked a turning point in his career.  Wide press coverage made Rafferty a hero of not only political right wingers but also of those who yearned more generally for a return to simple and manly virtues.

In 1962, backed by a coalition of conservative forces, Rafferty won election as state superintendent of public instruction; he was reelected in 1966.  He feuded with the liberal state board of education, especially over books that he wanted removed from school libraries and as textbooks in school subjects. 

But his conservative philosophy of education had little real impact because of the checks and balances and local control built into the California school system.  His critics claimed that California’s schools were never as progressive as Rafferty claimed.

Encouraged by conservative Republicans, he ran for the U.S. Senate in 1968, won the nomination over liberal-Republican California Senator Thomas H. Kushell, but lost to Democrat Alan M. Cranston in the general election.