Collecting brains, exploring Brazil @ A&S


Burt Wilder in class.

 

For months, faculty and staff throughout the College of Arts and Sciences have been sifting through storage boxes and scouring fading manila folders, searching for historical highlights as they prepare for the university’s sesquicentennial. Many of those fascinating tidbits can be found on the college’s sesquicentennial website. Here’s a peek at a few of those gems:

1870: Charles Frederick Hartt of the geology department took 11 Cornell students to Brazil on what was probably one of the university’s first archaeological expeditions.

1880: Burt Wilder of the then-Department of Zoology began collecting human brains for comparative study as part of his research on primates. The remains of the Wilder brain collection are on display in Uris Hall.

1894: Margaret Floy Washburn became the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in psychology.

1918: Cornell Professor of English William Strunk wrote the first edition of “The Elements of Style.”