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| Rockefeller Chapel Main Entrance (JWB Photo) |
“In a ceremony of
impressive dignity matching that of the edifice itself, the University of
Chicago chapel, the gift of John D. Rockefeller, was dedicated yesterday,”
reporter Kathleen McLaughlin wrote in a Chicago
Tribune article on October 29, 1928.
The dedication of the chapel
on this date came nearly two decades after the great oil baron donated the
money to the university for its construction.
Five days before
Christmas in 1910 The Tribune reported, “John D. Rockefeller starred for the
last time as Santa Claus at the University of Chicago yesterday.” [Chicago
Tribune, December 21, 1910] This
would be Rockefeller’s last gift to the university, a record of generosity that
went back two decades to the $600,000 he gave in 1880 to allow the American
Baptist Education Society to create the university. The ten million dollars that was given in
1910 brought the total amount that Rockefeller donated to the great Hyde Park
institution to $34,420,049.
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| JWB Photo |
The gift was made
known in the form of two letters addressed to the president of the university, Harry Pratt Judson. According to The Tribune, “The letter from the
founder sets forth that Mr. Rockefeller always has desired to have the school
as little as possible his institution and as much as possible the university of
the people of Chicago and of the west.”
The letter went on to state that it was Rockefeller’s opinion that the
school would be better of with “many persons aiding with gifts comparatively
small than one person making large donations.”
To underscore his intent he enclosed the resignations of John D.
Rockefeller Jr. and Fred T. Gates, his personal representatives on the school’s
board of trustees.
The President of
the Board of Trustees, Martin A. Ryerson, accepted the Rockefeller gift in a
convocation ceremony, saying, “It is the conjunction of the act and the sprit
of the act which has made it possible to create and maintain the university,
and the trustees hope that through the ages to come the University of Chicago,
by training youth in character and in exact learning, and by extending the
field of human knowledge, may justify all that has been done by its founder.”
On the following
day, December 22, 1928, The Tribune reported that although $8,500,000 of this
final gift could be used for any purpose aside from day-to-day operations, Mr.
Rockefeller did specifically request that $1,500,000 of the sum be set aside for a chapel “which will be the dominant feature of the campus.” [Chicago
Tribune, December 22, 1910]
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| JWB Photo |
“It is my desire,”
Mr. Rockefeller wrote, “that at least the sum of $1,500,000 be used for the
erection and furnishing of a university chapel.
As the spirit of religion should penetrate and control the university,
so that building which represents religion ought to be the central and dominant
feature of the university group.”
Mr. Ryerson made it
clear that it would be some time before the chapel’s construction began. Mr. Rockefeller’s last donation was to be
given in annual installments of a million dollars over a period of ten years. Before the university used any of the gift,
Mr. Ryerson made clear, it would allow the interest on at least the first three
installments to accrue.
In that same
December 22 issue The Tribune
editorialized, “Mr. Rockefeller has closed his accounts with the University of
Chicago. Not a cent more is it to get
from him. That is a wise resolve. He has done his part nobly. But for his intelligent generosity Chicago
would have had no university, or at least it would not have had one whose rapid
growth and whose swift advance to a commanding position among the great
educational institutions of the country made it the pride of Chicago.”
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| JWB Photo |
It took almost 20
years to accomplish, but all was in readiness as the chapel, which was designed
“to serve all sects” was dedicated “that religion pure and undefiled may
dominate all our lives, even as this structure rises above the halls of
learning and bestows on them its beauty and strength.”
Representing his
father at the ceremony, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. delivered the address that
opened the doors of the chapel for which his father had provided the vision and
the means to make that vision a reality.
“This building has
been made possible by one who is known to the world as a builder of industry, a
financier, a philanthropist. To his son
he is known as the most loving, understanding, inspiring father any son ever
had,” the younger Rockefeller stated.
The ceremony was an
impressive one as Professor Arthur Holly Compton, the 1927 winner of the Nobel
Prize, led a procession of 300 faculty members in full academic regalia into
the chapel. Last in line were university
president Frederic Woodward and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. A choir of 150 voices sang O God, Our Help
in Ages Past as the procession moved into the nave.
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| JWB Photo |
Seated among the
distinguished guests were Mrs. Edith Rockefeller McCormick, the daughter of
John D. Rockefeller, Sr.; Miss Muriel McCormick, his granddaughter; Mr. and
Mrs. George A. McKinlock, Harold F. McCormick, Mrs. William Rainey Harper, the
widow of the university’s first president, and Miss Jane Addams.
Reverend Charles W.
Gilkey was installed as dean of the chapel and conducted the service of
dedication, concluding his remarks with these words, “It [the chapel] must not
be a stone rolled from the ancient hillside, while the stream of life of this
university goes around it. It must be a
channel through which that stream may flow, giving it new life and force.” [Chicago
Tribune, October 29, 1928]
Life at this great
university does, indeed, flow around and through this impressive Gothic
building, a “central and dominant feature” of a university that boasts more
Nobel prize winners than any other institution in the world.
For more on the
design and sculptural work of the chapel, you can look here.
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