Stanford Historical Society

Alexander Kerensky was the charismatic leader of the Provisional Government that held a tenuous grip on power in Russia between the fall of the Romanovs in February 1917 and the storming to power of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution. Kerensky first visited Stanford in 1955 and spent much of the next ten years on campus, conducting research in the Hoover Library & Archives, teaching seminars, giving guest lectures, and appearing on panel discussions devoted to the latest developments in the USSR. He left lasting impressions on Stanford students and faculty—and is even alleged to have carved his initials into a table at the Oasis. Dr. Patenaude, a Stanford History PhD, discussed Kerensky's sojourn on the Farm and attempted to separate fact from fiction.

Through some simple archival detective work, the staff of Stanford University Press (SUP) unearthed the long and lesser-told history of the Press, from its humble origins in 1892 to its myriad transformations over the course of the 20th century. This history, studded with the stories of plucky pressmen, master craftspeople, and intellectual luminaries reveals a deep tradition of the Press’s pioneering spirit, its indelibly Californian character, and an unremitting commitment to plumbing even the most obscure corners of human inquiry. SUP Director Alan Harvey provided an update on this ongoing historical survey and presented some of the more intriguing, amusing, and even alarming events SUP staff have uncovered.

Laura Jones, Joseph Stagner and James Sweeney talked about the history, the transformation, and the current state of the energy system at Stanford.

Elena Danielson, Hoover Institution Archivist, Emerita, gave a talk on Herbert Hoover, a geology graduate at Stanford, and how he was the original Stanford techie.

With the re-opening of Roble Gym in the fall of 2016, the Department of Theater & Performance Studies reflected on the rich history of theater, dance, and performance at Stanford. In a conversation with TAPS Chair Branislav Jakovljevic, Professor Janice Ross and Professor Emeritus Bill Eddelman traced the evolution of the performing arts in the heart of Silicon Valley.

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

Between 1865 and 1869, thousands of Chinese migrants toiled at a grueling pace and in perilous working conditions to help construct the railroad. The railroad, which could not have been completed without these Chinese workers, was the main source of the fortune with which Leland Stanford founded Stanford University. The history of these Chinese workers is a transnational story, told from both U.S. and Chinese perspectives, that the Chinese Railroad Workers Project tries to document and share. As co-directors of the project, Prof. Chang and Prof. Fishkin will talk about how the project gives a voice to these Chinese migrants.

"As America entered World War I in 1917, Stanford University leased three-fourths of its Palo Alto land to allow the creation of an Army training camp, Camp Fremont, headquartered in present-day Menlo Park. The camp brought the war and its controversies home. Stanford adapted to the proximity of 28,000 soldiers, and the foothills acquired a trench ground and artillery range where dugouts and unexploded ordnance occasionally still emerge decades later. Peace broke out before most Camp Fremont troops saw battle, but the skills they acquired helped transform the West. Barbara Wilcox, MLA ’15 and the author of World War I Army Training by San Francisco Bay: The Story of Camp Fremont (History Press, 2016), gave a presentation on Camp Fremont and its legacy."

On January 13, 2016, Elizabeth Jerison (Harvard) delivered a talk on Stanford campus for the Center for Computational, Evolutionary and Human Genomics (CEHG). She discussed her study of trade-offs after adaptation to different environmental conditions, for which she evolved 260 populations of budding yeast to 13 different environmental conditions.

A presentation and celebration of the history of the Faculty Club. Founded in 1908, the original Faculty Club was burned to the ground in the 1960s. A new building was dedicated in 1965 in a ceremony presided by President Wallace Sterling.

Join Canopy and the Stanford Historical Society as we explore the rich mosaic of Stanford trees on a journey through the past, present and future.

Philippe Cohen, Executive Director of Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve and Stephen Palumbi, Jane and Marshall Steel Jr. Professor in Marine Sciences and Director of the Hopkins Marine Station were the featured speakers. They talked about the rich history and recent activities of the Stanford field stations.

"Three large nave windows were painstakingly restored in recent years by Clerkin Higgins Stained Glass of New York City. Mary Clerkin Higgins will address problems encountered in the conservation treatment and highlight the skills of the artist and artisans who created the windows. Ms. Higgins is an award-winning artist and conservator who has worked in stained glass for 39 years. She has written about and restored glass from the 12th century to the present for numerous museums and institutions."

University Architect David Lenox described the historic evolution of the campus and its architecture from its earliest incarnations to its current state, and provided a glimpse into the future development of the campus. Chris Wasney (B.A 1980) presented some of his firm's work on buildings from virtually all of the eras of Stanford's development. http://historicalsociety.stanford.edu/programs.shtml

Stanford Pioneering Women Video Series captures the memories and reflections of distinguished faculty members about their early experiences as women in predominantly male-dominated fields at Stanford. The purpose of this series is to illuminate the experiences of women who arrived at Stanford in different periods in the University’s history. http://historicalsociety.stanford.edu/ohistoryinterviews.shtml

The panel explored the role that VIA played at Stanford during the turbulent 1960s and early 1970s at a time of student activism, and the ways that VIA complemented Stanford’s engagement with Asia. The panelists also discussed how Stanford participants engaged with the dramatic changes in Asia in the past 50 years and how the VIA experience affected their lives. http://histsoc.stanford.edu/programspast.shtml

President Hennessy discussed the history of the relationship between Stanford and the Silicon Valley in the last thirty years.

Stanford University’s unofficial motto, “Die Luft der Freiheit weht” (translated as “The wind of freedom blows”), was the theme of Gerhard Casper’s 1992 inaugural address as Stanford president. In his speech, he talked about the nine aspects of a university’s freedom. Twenty years later, as president emeritus, Gerhard Casper reflected on the freedoms of and at the university in his new book, The Winds of Freedom: Addressing Challenges to the University. The freedoms of and at the university in a historical, philosophical, ethical and experiential context was the subject of this talk. Casper explored the complexities faced by the leadership of research-intensive universities, especially, but not only, those of the United States; issues regarding campus speech and campus diversity, government regulation and politics, affirmative action; and the role of the research-intensive university, its faculty and students, in the pursuit of knowledge.

The teaching of human sexuality at Stanford is usually associated with Herant Katchadourian’s course Human Sexuality (Human Biology 10) which was initiated in 1968 and enrolled over 20,000 students over the next several decades. While that course was the first to explicitly focus on sex, there have been earlier courses about topics that most probably touched on the subject in one way or another. Some of these courses go back all the way to the founding of Stanford. Between 1891 and the post-World War II period, they were typically listed under physical education and hygiene, as part of the more general concern with infectious illnesses, including venereal diseases. In the 1950s, there was a shift to courses on marriage and the family with references to physical intimacy and sex. In his talk, Katchadourian reviewed this historical background, then focused on how his course was established and what it entailed, as well as how the topic of sex is currently addressed in the context of various courses.

In recognition of the 50th anniversary of the founding of Stanford in Government (SIG) during the seismic social change of the mid-1960s, a panel moderated by Larry Diamond ’73, MA ’78, PhD ’80, SIG faculty advisor, Hoover Institution Senior Fellow and faculty co-director of the Haas Center for Public Service, explored Stanford’s emergence after World War II as a national and international institution with complex ties to government. Drawing on their personal experiences, panelists discussed how a private university fulfils its public purpose—what creates and sustains Stanford faculty, student and alumni connections with government service. Co-sponsored by Haas Center for Public Service and Stanford in Government

Professor Kennedy talked about "The Modern American Military," which is also the title of his most recent book (Oxford Press, June 2013) and Stanford's tangled history with ROTC.

With its establishment in 1947, the Department of Music began a steady expansion of academic courses that had initially been offered as part of the curriculum in Education. In keeping with Stanford's tradition of combining theory and practice, knowledge and invention, community service and individual discovery, the Department has always sought to connect its programs to a broad range of scholarly and creative activities, which today embrace performance, composition, electroacoustic music, musicology and ethnomusicology. The patent established after Professor John Chowning’s discovery of FM synthesis in 1967 became the principal source for endowing the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), whose groundbreaking research has contributed significantly to the Department's international profile. In 2013, with the opening of the state-of-the-art Bing Concert Hall, the Department is positioned to take all of its programs to new levels of excellence.

Since the mid-1960s, one of the most distinctive aspects of student life at Stanford and most visible features of the university’s on-campus culture has been The Incomparable Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band. This panel presentation will address the genesis and development of the Band as we know it today, beginning with the “Band Strike” in 1963. The discussion will be moderated by John Mannion, ’89, and will feature Dr. Arthur P. Barnes, emeritus professor of music and the Band’s director when it created its unique performance style. Other panelists are scheduled to include Frank Robertson, ’65; Dr. David Ruiz, ’73; Jacki Williams-Jones, ’76, A.M. ’77; and Patrick Neschleba, ’96, M.S. ’98.

Malcolm Beasley, Sidney Drell, and Alexander Fetter discuss The Physics program at Stanford and how it has grown over the years.

(January 10, 2013) This talk explores, through Arnautoff's fascinating story, a little known aspect of Stanford's history, and how the University handled the volatile situation.

An all-star panel discusses the impact of Title IX on women's sports in general -- and Stanford sports in particular -- since the passage of this groundbreaking legislation 40 years ago.

Malcolm Beasley, Sidney Drell and Alexander Fetter discuss the origin of SLAC and the applied physics department at Stanford. (November 15, 2011)

Malcolm Beasley, Sidney Drell and Alexander Fetter discuss the origin of SLAC and the applied physics department at Stanford. (November 14, 2011)

Nancy Greenfield moderates a program with fellow Catholic Community leaders Nathan Castle, Barbara Gelpi, Teresa Pleins, and Peter Salazar, each highlighting a different aspect of the common history of Catholicism at Stanford University. (April 17, 2012)

A panel of past Stanford Daily editors discuss the life and times of the publication, its place in university and journalistic annals, their experience at the paper and how it helped shape their careers in the industry. (February 15, 2012)

John Pearson gives an overview of the presence of international students on campus. He discusses how they have helped shape the culture and learning experience of Stanford since the founding class. (November 15, 2011)

Five extraordinary women share poignant and often humorous stories of how they helped rewrite the rules about gender roles on campus during WWII, a period of profound change. (May 17, 2011)

Professor Al Hastorf describes how he first became involved in psychology in the army and the history of the department's enormous growth from its founding in 1892 under Frank Angell to what it is today. (April 21, 2011)

Diana Strazdes discusses Leland Stanford in the late 1800s and how the mansions he constructed lent themselves to a useful purpose as well as sent a message to the public. (March 10, 2011)

The prominent Jewish figures on the Stanford University campus discuss how the Jewish community has evolved over the years and what direction in might be heading towards in the future. (January 13, 2011)

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Stanford American Indian Organization, three members of the Stanford community discuss the experiences of Native Americans at the university. (November 10, 2010)

David Freyberg explores the past and the future of Stanford University's complex water source, distribution, and management system that typifies the challenges of managing water resources in a densely-populated, semi-arid environment. (October 13, 2010)

A panel of Stanford and UCSF professors discuss the newly implemented health care plan and the effect it has on citizens now and in the future. (April 14, 2010)

Robert Byer discusses his involvement in the development of laser technology while at Stanford University. (May 25, 2010)

The movement at Stanford University against the Vietnam War emerged as a significant force in 1965 and continued through the end of the war in 1975. (April 1, 2010)

Charles Junkerman followed the fluid biography of Stanford's sandstone: scoured out of the Sierras by great rivers, sedimented along the ancient ocean shore, upthrust by colliding tectonic plates, and blasted out of Greystone Quarry.(February 17, 2010)

The presence of persons of Asian ancestry has been at Stanford since  its earliest days. As students, staff, and faculty, Asian Americans have played an important role in the life of the University. (March 10, 2010)