 Alfred du Pont Chandler Jr., Isidor Strauss Professor Emeritus of Business History at Harvard University, received an honorary doctor of laws degree from the University on Friday, April 19, at Wilmington’s Hagley Museum.
Considered the world’s most foremost business historian, Chandler received the Thomas Newcomen Award in 1964 for “Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of Industrial Enterprise” and again in 1980 for “The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business,” which also was awarded Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes.
In presenting the award, University President David P. Roselle welcomed the Delaware native into the ranks of UD alumni.
“The University’s first honorary degree was presented in 1841 to another Delaware son, Louis McLane, an Academy of Newark student who later served as both secretary of the U.S. Treasury and then as U.S. secretary of state under President Andrew Jackson,” Roselle said. “Today, we are very proud to include Dr. Chandler as one of our own.”
Roselle also noted the longstanding relationship between UD and Hagley, a joint program that will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2004. A graduate program for the study of business, technology and society, the UD-Hagley Program offers students unique opportunities for primary research, scholarly exchange and internships.
Located on the 230-acre site of the DuPont Co.’s original black powder manufacturing complex along the Brandywine, Hagley Museum and Library is a nonprofit educational institution dedicated to the preservation and understanding of America’s economic and technological heritage.
Howard Cosgrove, a member of Hagley’s board and chairman of the UD Board of Trustees, conferred the honorary degree on Chandler.
Chandler said receiving an honorary doctor of laws degree from UD in the presence of historians and administrators from UD and Hagley symbolized the nearly 50-year relationship between the business scholar and the world-renowned research institution.
Chandler, who received bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from Harvard University, as well as a master’s from the University of North Carolina, also has served on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In 1971, he was appointed the Isidor Strauss Professor of Business History at Harvard Business School and upon retirement became professor emeritus.
His long and distinguished writing career has included assistant editorship of the four-volume “Letters of Theodore Roosevelt” (1952-54) and serving as co-editor of volume 5 of “The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower: The War Years” (1970), and consulting editor for volumes 7-9 (1970) of “Pierre S. DuPont and the Making of the Modern Corporation” (1970),
Chandler’s most recent works include “Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism” (1990) and “Inventing the Electric Century: The Epic Story of the Consumer Electronic and Computer Industries” (2001), for which he is at work on a companion volume looking at high technology, chemical and pharmaceutical industries.
April 25, 2002
|
