Cathedrals in the Wheatfields: Parables from Stanford’s Founding

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: 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.

Sponsor	Stanford Historical Society
Speaker	Kennedy, David
Speaker	Campbell, James

Subject	Stanford University
Genre	Lectures

Finding Aid	Title Stanford Historical Society Program Recordings (SC0683)
Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/qr397dh7153
Location	SC0683
Repository	Stanford University. Libraries. Department of Special Collections and University Archives

Use and reproduction: The materials are open for research use and may be used freely for non-commercial purposes with an attribution. For commercial permission requests, please contact the Stanford University Archives (universityarchives@stanford.edu).

Stanford Historical Society program recordings, 1997-2022

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