Stanley King
Encyclopedia
Stanley King was the eleventh president of Amherst College
. He held that position from 1932 to 1946.
, New York on May 11, 1883, the son of Judge Henry Amasa King (Amherst College, 1873 and Columbia Law School
, 1877) a justice of Superior Court of Massachusetts and Maria Lyon Flynt. He died on April 28, 1951 at his summer home on Chilmark, Martha's Vinyard, Dukes County, Massachusetts
and is buried in Amherst, Massachusetts. He was the grandson of Dwight King and Martha Vinton and William N. Flynt and Eudocia Carter Converse. He had two siblings. A sister, Carrie, born on March 15, 1885, was a graduate of Miss Porter's School
in 1901. She died on December 25, 1921. Ames King, Stanley's brother, was born on June 10, 1892 and lived for only a few days.
, Hampden County
, Massachusetts. He entered Amherst College in 1900 graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1903. He was a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon
fraternity (Sigma chapter) at Amherst. He graduated from Harvard Law School
(completing the course in the abnormally short space of two years), he was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1906.
and died on April 10, 1923 at Boston, Massachusetts. She was a 1903 graduate of Vassar College
in Poughkeepsie
, New York and received her Master of Arts
Degree from Radcliffe College
in 1910. Her father, Lyman Waterman Besse, owned an extensive chain of clothing stores in the Northeast known as "The Besse System."
Stanley and Gertrude were the parents of three children: Richard King (1913–1994), Amherst College Class of 1935; Harvard Law School 1935-1936. He married as his first wife, Elinor Stewart Gates, the granddaughter of Frederick Taylor Gates
; Gertrude King (1916–1969), Vassar College class of 1938, and Margaret King (1917–1923).
After his wife's death, he married in 1927 Mrs. Margaret Pinckney Jackson-Allen, who married as her first husband, Arthur Moulton Allen of Providence, Rhode Island. She died in 1967.
Gertrude's sister, Florence Foster Besse, a 1907 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wellesley College married Kingman Brewster Sr., a 1906 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Amherst College
and a 1911 graduate of the Harvard Law School
. He was a direct lineal descendant of Elder William Brewster (pilgrim)
, (c. 1567 - April 10, 1644), the Pilgrim colonist leader and spiritual elder of the Plymouth Colony
and a passenger on the Mayflower
. They were the parents of Kingman Brewster, Jr.
, (June 17, 1919 – November 8, 1988) an educator, president of Yale University
, and American
diplomat.
He was a member of the Committee on Supplies on the Council of National Defense in 1917. He was a special assistant to Secretary of War, Newton Diehl Baker, Jr. in 1917. He was elected Director of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, serving for 2 years. in 1919 he became secretary of President Woodrow Wilson
's Industrial Conference Board working directly with Herbert Hoover
and Owen D. Young. He was elected a trustee of Amherst College in 1922.
From 1922 to 1927 he was Eastern Manager and Director of the International Shoe Company, Boston. In 1927 he retired from business. In 1932, after traveling extensively for several years, King was appointed the 11th President of Amherst College - the first in the institution's history to have been neither a minister nor educator.
Said President Ernest Martin Hopkins
of Amherst's rival, Dartmouth College
: "My respect has continued and grown for the scope of his intellectual interest and for the quality of his thinking in regard to political and social problems.
As President of Amherst, King was instrumental in developing the Folger Shakespeare Library
in Washington, D.C., into one of the most important libraries of its kind. He was also took a great interest in the buildings and grounds of the Amherst campus: the College recovered from the destruction caused by a major hurricane in 1938 by the introduction of new landscaping and the unprecedented construction of new buildings.
Under King's administration the campus saw the addition of such buildings as Alumni Gymnasium, Valentine Hall, Memorial Field, Kirby Theatre, James and Stearns dormitories, and the Mead Art Building. These new buildings reflected King's vision of the dimensions of education and college life. In fact his vision encompassed the establishment of a school to address the educational needs of the children of the Faculty; he solicited a benefaction from his friend and Amherst graduate, James Turner (Class of 1880), for the construction of the The Little Red Schoolhouse
. In the 1930s, President King led the College through the crisis of the Great Depression by achieving financial solutions that enabled Amherst to avoid annual deficits or reductions in salary. The disruptions of World War II, 1941–1945, were handled with similar effectiveness with a long-range focus on developing a "New Curriculum" for the College to meet modern post-war needs.
After retiring as President in 1946, he was President Emeritus until his death in 1951. The Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College holds his papers.
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
. He held that position from 1932 to 1946.
Early life
Stanley N. King was born at Troy, Rensselaer CountyRensselaer County, New York
Rensselaer County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 159,429. Its name is in honor of the family of Kiliaen van Rensselaer, the original Dutch owner of the land in the area. Its county seat is Troy...
, New York on May 11, 1883, the son of Judge Henry Amasa King (Amherst College, 1873 and Columbia Law School
Columbia Law School
Columbia Law School, founded in 1858, is one of the oldest and most prestigious law schools in the United States. A member of the Ivy League, Columbia Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Columbia University in New York City. It offers the J.D., LL.M., and J.S.D. degrees in...
, 1877) a justice of Superior Court of Massachusetts and Maria Lyon Flynt. He died on April 28, 1951 at his summer home on Chilmark, Martha's Vinyard, Dukes County, Massachusetts
Dukes County, Massachusetts
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 14,987 people, 6,421 households, and 3,788 families residing in the county. The population density was 144 people per square mile . There were 14,836 housing units at an average density of 143 per square mile...
and is buried in Amherst, Massachusetts. He was the grandson of Dwight King and Martha Vinton and William N. Flynt and Eudocia Carter Converse. He had two siblings. A sister, Carrie, born on March 15, 1885, was a graduate of Miss Porter's School
Miss Porter's School
Miss Porter's School, sometimes simply referred to as Porter's or Farmington, is a private college preparatory school for girls located in Farmington, Connecticut.- History :...
in 1901. She died on December 25, 1921. Ames King, Stanley's brother, was born on June 10, 1892 and lived for only a few days.
Education
He graduated from Springfield High School (Massachusetts), SpringfieldSpringfield, Massachusetts
Springfield is the most populous city in Western New England, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers; the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern...
, Hampden County
Hampden County, Massachusetts
-Demographics:As of the census of 2004, there were 461,228 people, 175,288 households, and 115,690 families residing in the county. The population density was 738 people per square mile . There were 185,876 housing units at an average density of 301 per square mile...
, Massachusetts. He entered Amherst College in 1900 graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1903. He was a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon
Delta Kappa Epsilon
Delta Kappa Epsilon is a fraternity founded at Yale College in 1844 by 15 men of the sophomore class who had not been invited to join the two existing societies...
fraternity (Sigma chapter) at Amherst. He graduated from Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
(completing the course in the abnormally short space of two years), he was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1906.
Marriage and family
He married on December 12, 1906 at Springfield, Massachusetts, Gertrude Louisa Besse, the daughter of Lyman Waterman Besse and Henrietta Louisa Segee. She was born on 22 Apr 1881 at Bridgeport, ConnecticutBridgeport, Connecticut
Bridgeport is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Located in Fairfield County, the city had an estimated population of 144,229 at the 2010 United States Census and is the core of the Greater Bridgeport area...
and died on April 10, 1923 at Boston, Massachusetts. She was a 1903 graduate of Vassar College
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...
in Poughkeepsie
Poughkeepsie (town), New York
Poughkeepsie is a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The population was 42,777 at the 2000 census. The name is derived from the native term, "Uppu-qui-ipis-in," which means "reed-covered hut by the water."...
, New York and received her Master of Arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
Degree from Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the coordinate college for Harvard University. It was also one of the Seven Sisters colleges. Radcliffe College conferred joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas beginning in 1963 and a formal merger agreement with...
in 1910. Her father, Lyman Waterman Besse, owned an extensive chain of clothing stores in the Northeast known as "The Besse System."
Stanley and Gertrude were the parents of three children: Richard King (1913–1994), Amherst College Class of 1935; Harvard Law School 1935-1936. He married as his first wife, Elinor Stewart Gates, the granddaughter of Frederick Taylor Gates
Frederick Taylor Gates
Frederick Taylor Gates was an American Baptist clergyman, educator, and the principal business and philanthropic advisor to the major oil industrialist and philanthropist John D...
; Gertrude King (1916–1969), Vassar College class of 1938, and Margaret King (1917–1923).
After his wife's death, he married in 1927 Mrs. Margaret Pinckney Jackson-Allen, who married as her first husband, Arthur Moulton Allen of Providence, Rhode Island. She died in 1967.
Gertrude's sister, Florence Foster Besse, a 1907 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wellesley College married Kingman Brewster Sr., a 1906 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
and a 1911 graduate of the Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
. He was a direct lineal descendant of Elder William Brewster (pilgrim)
William Brewster (Pilgrim)
Elder William Brewster was a Mayflower passenger and a Pilgrim colonist leader and preacher.-Origins:Brewster was probably born at Doncaster, Yorkshire, England, circa 1566/1567, although no birth records have been found, and died at Plymouth, Massachusetts on April 10, 1644 around 9- or 10pm...
, (c. 1567 - April 10, 1644), the Pilgrim colonist leader and spiritual elder of the Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony was an English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. The first settlement of the Plymouth Colony was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement, which served as the capital of the colony, is today the modern town...
and a passenger on the Mayflower
Mayflower
The Mayflower was the ship that transported the English Separatists, better known as the Pilgrims, from a site near the Mayflower Steps in Plymouth, England, to Plymouth, Massachusetts, , in 1620...
. They were the parents of Kingman Brewster, Jr.
Kingman Brewster, Jr.
Kingman Brewster, Jr., was an educator, president of Yale University, and American diplomat.-Early life:...
, (June 17, 1919 – November 8, 1988) an educator, president of Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, and American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
diplomat.
Career
After graduating from Harvard Law School, he was employed as secretary and a director of the W. H. McElwain Co., a shoe manufacturer in Boston, Massachusetts; he was made vice-president of the company in 1919.He was a member of the Committee on Supplies on the Council of National Defense in 1917. He was a special assistant to Secretary of War, Newton Diehl Baker, Jr. in 1917. He was elected Director of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, serving for 2 years. in 1919 he became secretary of President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
's Industrial Conference Board working directly with Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
and Owen D. Young. He was elected a trustee of Amherst College in 1922.
From 1922 to 1927 he was Eastern Manager and Director of the International Shoe Company, Boston. In 1927 he retired from business. In 1932, after traveling extensively for several years, King was appointed the 11th President of Amherst College - the first in the institution's history to have been neither a minister nor educator.
Amherst Years
The following said about Stanley King after being appointed president: Said Newton D. Baker: "Stanley King's love of life, his knowledge of youth, his happiness and integrity are all qualities which will make him a great example as a college president. . . . The highest qualification for a college presidency is that the students should desire to be like the president. I can imagine few people whom it would be more wholesome to be like than him."Said President Ernest Martin Hopkins
Ernest Martin Hopkins
Ernest Martin Hopkins served as the 11th President of Dartmouth College from 1916 to 1945.- Dartmouth Presidency :...
of Amherst's rival, Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
: "My respect has continued and grown for the scope of his intellectual interest and for the quality of his thinking in regard to political and social problems.
As President of Amherst, King was instrumental in developing the Folger Shakespeare Library
Folger Shakespeare Library
The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It has the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, and is a primary repository for rare materials from the early modern period...
in Washington, D.C., into one of the most important libraries of its kind. He was also took a great interest in the buildings and grounds of the Amherst campus: the College recovered from the destruction caused by a major hurricane in 1938 by the introduction of new landscaping and the unprecedented construction of new buildings.
Under King's administration the campus saw the addition of such buildings as Alumni Gymnasium, Valentine Hall, Memorial Field, Kirby Theatre, James and Stearns dormitories, and the Mead Art Building. These new buildings reflected King's vision of the dimensions of education and college life. In fact his vision encompassed the establishment of a school to address the educational needs of the children of the Faculty; he solicited a benefaction from his friend and Amherst graduate, James Turner (Class of 1880), for the construction of the The Little Red Schoolhouse
. In the 1930s, President King led the College through the crisis of the Great Depression by achieving financial solutions that enabled Amherst to avoid annual deficits or reductions in salary. The disruptions of World War II, 1941–1945, were handled with similar effectiveness with a long-range focus on developing a "New Curriculum" for the College to meet modern post-war needs.
After retiring as President in 1946, he was President Emeritus until his death in 1951. The Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College holds his papers.
Selected Works
- Recollections of the Folger Shakespeare Library (1950);
- A History of the Endowment of Amherst College (1950);
- The Consecrated Eminence: The Story of the Campus and Buildings of Amherst College (1952).