Silence, Farmers, Yellow Pages, and more: The Men behind the Buildings of Dartmouth, part I

Those coming to Dartmouth soon pick up the lingo of campus— “FoCo,” “The River,” “FFB” (First Floor Baker), “4FB” (Fourth Floor Berry). Students are too busy during the hectic ten-week quarters to say the full names of most places on campus. Given that they’re too busy to even say the full names of most places on campus, it should come as no great shock to anyone that students do not know the history behind the great many buildings at Dartmouth and the people they are named after. Dartmouth’s illustrious history is still omnipresent in the life of campus, living through the names of its buildings. Today, I ask for just a few minutes of your time so that I can share a brief introduction to some of prominent people behind the names embossed on the beautiful buildings around campus. It seems proper to start with the heart of Dartmouth’s Campus (no, not frat row)—The Library, Baker-Berry. Even within the Library there are more names than one can count with their fingers—Novack, Carson, Jones, Evans, etc. In order to preserve our sanities, let us begin with the three the names and people behind the large library buildings that all-together make up Dartmouth’s main library—Baker, Berry, and Sanborn.

BAKER LIBRARY

In 1928, Baker Memorial Library was opened to Dartmouth. The construction was funded by George Fisher Baker, as a gift to Dartmouth in honor of his uncle, Fisher Ames Baker, Class of 1859.

Though not much is recorded about Fisher Ames, George Baker was world famous, known as the “Dean of American Banking.” Time Magazine called him “the richest, most powerful and most taciturn commercial banker in U.S. history.” Baker was famously silent in public and never commented on events nor gave interviews until 1922 when, at the age of 82, he gave his first newspaper interview.

George Fisher Baker made his fortune in railroads and banking following the Civil War and, at the time of his death, was estimated to be the third richest man in the United States after Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller—”twice as rich as J. P. Morgan”.

Baker was born in Troy, New York, to a shore-store owner and eventual Whig State Assemblyman. At 14, he enrolled in the S. S. Seward Institute where he studied geography, bookkeeping, history, and algebra. By age 16, he was hired as a junior clerk in the state’s banking department.

Though his name is inextricably tied to academics at Dartmouth, Baker never actually went to college. Instead, he enlisted in the 18th Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteers at the outbreak of the Civil War, rising to the rank of first lieutenant and adjutant.

When the national banking system was created in 1863, Baker joined several New York stockbrokers to establish the First National Bank of New York. Though he began as a teller and small-stockholder, by the age of 25 he would become the active head of the bank. When he became the chairman of the board in 1909, he ranked with J. P. Morgan as a dominant force in American finance, while serving as a director of many corporations.

Baker’s legacy lives on in his philanthropy. The $2 million he provided to Dartmouth (equivalent to almost $28.5 million today) was nothing particularly special for the banker. He also donated $5 million to Harvard in 1924, providing much of the initial funding for its now renowned business school (where the library is also named after him); $1 million to an endowment fund for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1922, where he had been a board member since 1909; $2 million to Cornell for the construction of the Baker Laboratory of Chemistry and Baker dormitories, as well as endowing the Baker Lecture Series, now the oldest continuous lectureship in chemistry in the country. He also funded the construction of Columbia’s Baker Field and made other large donations to various charitable causes throughout New York City.

BERRY LIBRARY

As the beginning of the second millennium reared its head, Dartmouth received its largest individual donation in history. John W. Berry, class of ’44, gave a $25 million gift to Dartmouth in 1992, with him and his family foundation paying for most of the colleges $35 million Berry Library. He also endowed the Loren Berry Professorship in Economics at Dartmouth in 1978 and funded the Berry Sports Center in 1987.

Berry’s family wealth came from an idea his father, Loren Murphy Berry, had in 1909 when he sold $700 of advertising to help an uncle in Illinois print a list of subscribers to his telephone company. The partnership took off and L. M. Berry & Company would grow into a $1-billion-a-year goliath by the time John Berry sold it in 1986. Loren Berry became known as “Mr. Yellow Pages” with the motto “It CAN be done!” As an interesting tidbit, Yellow was chosen, according to company lore, because Loren thought it was the best background for the black type. Berry Established the Loren M. Berry Foundation to oversee charitable gifts to arts, education, and medical research. These have included gifts to establish the Berry Center for Economic Education and Ohio Stock Market Simulation at the University of Rio Grande and endowments for speakers and public programs within the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. He also served as a Republican Presidential Elector for Ohio in 1956 and 1972.

Whereas Loren brought the Yellow Pages to middle America, John took them to the world, bringing the company to ubiquitous prominence. John Berry earned a degree in business administration from Dartmouth in 1944, but had begun his career in 1940 as a salesman in his father’s company. After serving in the Army in World War II, he returned to his father’s company and rose to managing director in 1960, president in 1963, and chairman in 1973. He also sat on the executive board committee of the Ohio Republican Finance Committee and served as a trustee of the University of Dayton and Ohio State University. John W. Berry died in 1998, the year he pledged $7.5 million in scholarships at the University of Dayton.

SANBORN HOUSE

Edwin Webster Sanborn, Class of 1878, died and left his entire estate to Dartmouth College, directing that Sanborn House (now Sanborn House Library) be built to memorialize his father, Edwin David Sanborn, Class of 1832, who had been a longtime teacher at Dartmouth and the first to hold a chair and appointment specifically in English Literature. Edwin David Sanborn was born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, in 1808 and would die in Hanover in 1885. Like most young men at Dartmouth in 1828, Edwin David was the son of a New Hampshire farmer. He graduated from the college in 1832 and taught for a year at Gilmanton, studied law and divinity, and became a professor of Latin at Dartmouth in 1835. In 1859, he became president of Washington University at St. Louis, but returned to Dartmouth in 1863 as a professor of oratory and belles-lettres. In 1880, he assumed the new chair of Anglo-Saxon and the English Language and literature. He had also received a LL.D. law degree from the University of Vermont in 1859, and was a leader in public affairs in his town and state, being elected to the legislature several times. He married Mary Ann in December 1837, a niece of Daniel Webster.

Edwin David Sanborn played an integral role in shaping the face of the college, with one writer claiming that “the life of Professor Sanborn at Dartmouth is what caused not only Wilson Hall, but Rollins Chapel, to be built.” The same writer would continue praising Sanborn’s impact writing:

“I have said that Sanborn was the College librarian for a few years. Truth be told, he was almost everything for a few years, or longer, over the course of his forty-four years at Dartmouth. In modern terms, he was a one-man university, acting informally as dean, counsellor, chaplain, and registrar. For a time he was the official inspector of buildings; he served the faculty for many years as its secretary. Furthermore, he was licensed to preach by the Congregational Conference of New Hampshire, and frequently supplied area pulpits; he was an examiner in schools all over northern New England; and he was a figure in state politics and served several times in the legislature. It is no wonder that ‘bully Sanborn’ had such a mighty reputation as a teacher of influence, and as a representative of the spirit of ‘Old Dartmouth.’”