Reunion Weekend and Conference
"Educated at Winterthur: A Half Century of Achievement"
September 21-22, 2001

The Winterthur Programs, '51 to '01: Are We There Yet?
by Charles F. Hummel (WPEAC '55)
(as presented on September 21, 2001)

(page 5) III. Ph.D. Program in the History of American Civilization In the fall of 1979, the University's History Department in association with Winterthur announced "an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization with special emphasis on American material life, of any period from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries." This program's goals are two-fold: 1. To prepare students for careers in academic, museum, and cultural agency positions. 2. To explicate the cultural meaning of artifacts as viewed from various disciplinary perspectives and to integrate culture into the general understanding of American social history. The question of changing the status of the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture to a Ph.D. program was raised as early as September 1958, only six years after the first class of Fellows reported to Winterthur. At a meeting of the Academic Committee of Winterthur's Board of Trustees, Wilmarth Lewis of Yale University, Edgar P. Richardson, then Director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, and Louis Wright, Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library posed this question to John Perkins, President of the University of Delaware, and Charles Montgomery, Director of Winterthur. Dr. Perkins and Charles Montgomery convinced the Academic Committee that the University's and Winterthur's resources, personnel, and library were not sufficient for work at the Ph.D. level. Following that meeting, the Executive Committee of WPEAC discussed a proposed Ph.D. program in October and November 1958. Both Charles Montgomery and Dr. Fleming were not supportive. Their stance was somewhat ironic for, in fact, six years earlier neither Winterthur nor the University of Delaware was ready to start a program on the master's level. By the mid to late 1960s, when Winterthur was ready to press for elevating the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture to the level of a doctoral program, the University had established several doctoral programs in the humanities and had little interest in making a change. Henry McNeil's bequest to Winterthur supported selected students in this program at the University from 1991 to 1994. In 1995, with the support of University faculty and Winterthur's Academic Affairs Committee, two Lois F. McNeil Dissertation Fellowships became available to Ph.D. candidates at the University of Delaware and elsewhere in a national competition. Although Winterthur is supportive of the Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization Program, it is clear that strong impetus for the program, and preponderance of resources, stems from the University of Delaware. IV. Ph.D. Program in Art Conservation Research Winterthur is not a co-sponsor with the University for the Ph.D. Program in Art Conservation Research, but the impetus for this program grew out of the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation. Established in 1990, the first program of its kind in North America, it draws upon the resources and faculty expertise of the art conservation training program including Winterthur's Analytical Laboratory staff and equipment. The Art History, Chemistry, Geology, and Material Science departments at the University also provide this program with strong support. The program is designed to give practicing, experienced conservators training in research methodology, an opportunity to fully investigate problems in their field of study, and an in-depth grounding in the scientific and humanistic disciplines pertinent to this research.

Ted Richardson (left) and L. du Pont Copeland, ca. 1960             Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrum   Janice Carlson using the new FTR

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