Kenyon College - Reveille Yearbook (Gambier, OH)

Page 19 text:

: The presidency of Gordon Keith Chalmers, who succeeded President Peirce in 1937, is remembered as something of an academic golden age. In the truest sense a gentleman and a scholar, his sudden death in May of 1956 was deeply mourned by everyone connected with the College. It was in 1937 that poet John Crowe Hansom, still resident in Gambier, came from Vander- bilt University to accept the position of Carne- gie Professor of Poetry; and largely as a result of his work here the College, and in particular the Department of English, rose to national prominence. Among the graduates of this pe- riod were |x et Hobert Lowell and novelist, short-story writer, and playwright Peter Tay- lor. who has since had several plays performed in the Hill Theater, most recently Three Ghost Plays on commencement weekend of 1972. Hobert Lowell ’40 Gordon Keith Chalmers John Crowe Hansom

Page 18 text:

William Foster Peirce, c. 1896 The Kenyon College Trustees held a meeting at Co- lumbus March 26. for the purpose of electing a new president for this institution. After a complete survey of the field they unanimously elected Professor Wm. F. Peirce, at present occupying the chair of Philosophy and History . . . Professor Peirce was to arrive at 2:40 the next morning. The whole student body stayed up to greet him. A surrey was provided with a long ro|K attached in front along which 60 to 70 students ar- ranged themselves. When at last the train came in. it was greeted with the prolonged blasts of tin horns and the sharp reports of cannon crackers. Hardly had the astonished Professor stepped from the train when he was hurried into the carriage awaiting him. At that moment a rocket streamed up from the observatory on the tower of Ascension Hall, shooting far over the val- ley, leaving a vanishing arch of fire and bursting high in the air. The procession starter! at a run. the road being illuminated by volleys of Roman candles on all sides. In a remarkably short time the mile of roadway to the College was covered and by the light of a bonfire seventy-two feet in circumference. President Peirce descended u|w n the steps of Old Kenyon . . .” — from the April 1896 Collegian William Foster Peirce, affectionately known to stu- dents as “Fat” because of his slim build, served as President of the College for forty-one years. An avid flier well into his seventies, he died in 1967 at the age of 99. Peirce Hall was begun in 1928 and opened in the fall of 1929. The terrace was located where the present TV 16 lounge is and was moved east when Dempsey Hall was added in 1963. c. 1950

Page 20 text:

The stall of the Kenyon Review, 1939. Norman .Johnson. John Crowe Hansom. Philip Blair Rice. KENYON R E V I EW ARTS LETTERS ■' The Sorrow» of Thom»» Wolfe by V V 1 JOHN P E A L E BISHOP A Piri» Letter by FORD MADOX FORD The Two Audent by DELMORE SCHWARTZ Quarterly at Gambier, O. Price 50 Cent WINTER urn Kenyons name was placed indelibly upon the literary map by two important projects carried out under the aegis of John Crowe Ransom: the Kenyon Review and the Graduate Summer School of English. The Review, an outgrowth of Ransom's interest in literary criticism, was founded in 1939. Its headquarters was the house on Chase Avenue which now houses the Public Relations office, and it was among the country’s outstanding critical publications un- til financial difficulties forced it to suspend publication in 1970. The School of English, during the summers of 19-18. 1949, and 1950, brought to the Kenyon campus a mind-boggling assemblage of literary notables, for a series of intensive courses and public seminars. In addition to the group ap- pearing on this page, the roll included such names as Cleantn Brooks, F. O. Matthiessen, Allen Tate, and Robert Penn Warren. In 1951 the school became the School of Letters of the University of Indiana. KHIows of the School of English. 1950. Front row: Philip Blair Kice. WtUtam Empson. John Crowe Ransom. L. C. Knight. Charles Monroe Coffin (also of the Kenvon English Department); back row. Arthur Mi .ener, Robert Lowell '40. Kenneth Burke. Delmore Schwartz.