Andrew Dickson White

White was born on November 7, 1832, in Homer, New York, to Clara (née Dickson) and Horace White. Clara was the daughter of Andrew Dickson, a New York State Representative in 1832 and his wife. Horace was the son of Asa White, a farmer from Massachusetts, and his wife. Their once-successful farm was ruined by a fire when Horace was 13.

Despite little formal education and struggles with poverty after his family lost their farm, Horace White became a businessman and wealthy merchant. In 1839, he opened what became Syracuse Savings Bank in Syracuse. Horace and Clara White had two children: Andrew Dickson and his brother. Andrew was baptized in 1835 at the Calvary Episcopal Church on the town green in Homer.

One of Andrew's cousins, Edwin White, became an artist of the Luminism style and Hudson River School. His nephew was Horace White, governor of New York.

Beginning in the fall of 1849, White enrolled as an undergraduate at Geneva College, known today as Hobart and William Smith Colleges, at the insistence of his father. He was inducted as a member of Sigma Phi Society in 1850 and he served as editor of the fraternity's publication, The Flame. White remained active in the fraternity for the rest of his life, founding the Cornell chapter and serving as the national president from 1913 to 1915. In his autobiography, he recalled that he had felt that his time at Geneva was "wasted" by being at the small Episcopalian school instead of at "one of the larger New England universities". White dropped out in 1850.

After a period of estrangement, White persuaded his father to let him transfer to Yale College. At Yale, White was a classmate of Daniel Coit Gilman, who later served as the first president of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The two were members of the Skull and Bones secret society and would remain close friends. They traveled together in Europe after graduation and served together on the Venezuela Boundary Commission (1895–1896). His roommate was Thomas Frederick Davies Sr., who later became the third bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan, 1889–1905. Other members of White's graduating year included Edmund Clarence Stedman, the poet and essayist; Wayne MacVeagh, Attorney General of the United States and U.S. Ambassador to Italy; and Hiram Bingham II, the missionary, collectively comprising the so-called "famous class of '53." According to White, he was deeply influenced in his academic career and life by Professor Noah Porter (later, Yale's president), who personally instructed him in rhetoric and remained a close personal friend until Porter's death.

He also served as an editor of The Lit., known today as the Yale Literary Magazine. He belonged to Linonia, a literary and debating society. As a junior, White won the Yale literary prize for the best essay, writing on the topic "The Greater Distinctions in Statesmanship;" this was a surprise as traditionally a senior was chosen for the winning essay. Also as a junior, White joined the junior society Psi Upsilon. In his senior year, White won the Clark Prize for English disputation and the De Forest prize for public oratory, speaking on the topic "The Diplomatic History of Modern Times". Valued at $100, the De Forest prize was then the largest prize of its kind at any educational institution, American or otherwise. In addition to academic pursuits, White was on the Yale crew team, and competed in the first Harvard–Yale Regatta in 1852.

After graduation, White traveled and studied in Europe with his classmate Daniel Coit Gilman. Between 1853 and 1854, he studied at the Sorbonne, the Collège de France, and the University of Berlin. He also served as the translator for Thomas H. Seymour, the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, following Gilman's term as translator, although he had not studied French (the language of diplomacy and the Russian royal court) prior to his studies in Europe. After he returned the United States, White enrolled at Yale to earn a MA and be inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in 1856.

Academia

In October 1858, White accepted a position as a professor of History and English literature at the University of Michigan, where he remained on faculty until 1863. White made his lasting mark on the grounds of the university by enrolling students to plant elms along the walkways on The Diag. Between 1862 and 1863, he traveled to Europe to lobby France and Britain to assist the United States in the American Civil War or at least not to aid the Confederate States.

Conflict thesis

At the time of Cornell's founding, White announced that it would be "an asylum for Science—where truth shall be sought for truth's sake, not stretched or cut exactly to fit Revealed Religion." Until then, most of America's private universities had been founded as religious institutions and generally were focused on the liberal arts and religious training.

In 1869, White gave a lecture on "The Battle-Fields of Science" in which he argued that history showed the negative outcomes resulting from any attempt on the part of religion to interfere with the progress of science. Over the next 30 years, he refined his analysis, expanding his case studies to include nearly every field of science over the entire history of Christianity but also narrowing his target from "religion" through "ecclesiasticism" to "dogmatic theology."

The final result was the two-volume A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896) in which he asserted the conflict thesis of science being against dogmatic theology. Initially less popular than John William Draper's History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874), White's book became an influential text in the 19th century on the relationship between religion and science. White's conflict thesis has been widely rejected among contemporary historians of science. The warfare depiction remains a popular view among critics of religion.

White married twice. His first marriage, on September 27, 1857, was to Mary Amanda Outwater (February 10, 1836 – June 8, 1887), daughter of Peter Outwater and Lucia M. Phillips of Syracuse. Mary's maternal grandmother Amanda Danforth, daughter of Asa Danforth Jr. and wife of Elijah Phillips Jr., was the first white child born in what would become Onondaga County, New York. Her great-grandfathers included General Asa Danforth, an early pioneer of upstate New York and leader of the State Militia, as well as Elijah Philips Sr., who had responded to the alarm to Lexington, Massachusetts, in 1775 and later served as the High Sheriff of Onondaga County.

Andrew and Mary had three children together: Frederick Davies White, who committed suicide in his forties in 1901 after a prolonged series of illnesses; Clara (White) Newbury, who died before her father; and Ruth (White) Ferry. After his wife died in 1887, White went on a lecture tour and traveled in Europe with his close friend, Daniel Willard Fiske, librarian at Cornell.

After three years as a widower, in 1890, White married Helen Magill, the daughter of Edward Magill, Swarthmore College's second president. She was the first woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. Like her husband, Helen was a social scientist and educator; the two met at a conference where she was presenting a paper. Together, Helen and Andrew had three children.