The long and checkered history of the College of William and Mary has been marked by a number of memorable turning points. Its rebirth in and1888 was obviously one of these; another was the year 1919, which is probably as meaningful a date as any to mark the beginning of the emergence of the modern College. At the beginning of 1919, William and Mary was still a small institution with an uncertain future. But it stood at the threshold of rapid and significant change. With the admission of women in 1918, it had already ceased to be a male sanctuary. Within a few years, the composition and size of the student body would be drastically altered from what it had been during the tenure of President Lyon G. Tyler. Similarly, the content and scope of the College’s programs, as well as the size of the faculty, would be greatly expanded, and a new, enlarged campus would be constructed. This transformation would owe much to the leadership of its dynamic new president, Julian A. C. Chandler, who assumed office on July 1, 1919.

A Time for Change

To the faithful, the changes that began in 1919 may appear in retrospect to have been a natural, even an inevitable, development. In the early twentieth century, however, the College’s future was by no means assured. Merely recruiting a minimum number of students to keep it alive had proved to be a daunting task during the Tyler years. Enrollment had reached a peak of 244 in the 1905–1906 session, but it fell off to 184 in 1911–12, a smaller number than had been enrolled during Tyler’s second year as president. World War I had almost brought disaster. Because of the draft, the total enrollment dropped to only 149 for the 1917–18 session and to 131 during the next session; 24 of the students were women. Fortunately, the presence of the Student Army Training Corps (SATC), which Tyler had sought “as a matter of preservation,” added about 50 more students during the fall semester of 1918.^[1] As for the faculty, although their number had doubled between 1888 and 1919, they were still a pitifully small group in 1919, consisting of only the president, twelve other professors, and three assistants.

The changes in the physical plant during Tyler’s presidency had been somewhat more impressive. In 1888 William and Mary had only five buildings, including the practice school (Mattey School), which was situated on the site of the Governor’s Palace. By 1919 there were some thirteen buildings on the campus. In 1900 a gymnasium had been constructed on the south side of the Main (Wren) Building. This was balanced by a science hall, erected in 1905 on the north side of the Main Building. To the west of that stood the library, constructed in 1908, which Tyler regarded as “a source of more pleasure to myself and I dare say to the Faculty and the student body than any other single feature of the Institution.”^[2] Beyond the library were about twenty-five acres of College property, known as Cary Field Park. Within that area, which was used for athletic purposes, was a fenced-in section with a small grandstand of 600 seats.^[3] A few College buildings were situated on the south campus, the area between Jamestown Road and Boundary Street. The oldest structure, Ewell Hall, was a dormitory that had been purchased in 1889 and enlarged over the succeeding decade. The newest, Tyler Hall, erected in 1916, was also a dormitory. The south campus also had another dormitory (old Taliaferro), a steward’s house, a dining hall, an infirmary, and a power plant.^[4]

The war years had undoubtedly been difficult ones for Tyler, coming as they did after nearly thirty years of struggle to keep the College going. Although the SATC gave a needed boost at a time of sagging enrollments, it created problems. Relations between the faculty and the army officer in charge of the program were strained, and to make matters worse, some faculty believed that Tyler had “kowtowed” to the commanding officer.^[5] By 1918, the year that Tyler would turn sixty-five, a number of William and Mary alumni believed that it was time for a change. What we need, wrote one, is “a live, energetic and enthusiastic educator as president of the old institution and with such a man the school will forge to the front.”^[6] The opportunity soon arose. In February 1919 Tyler announced that he would retire as president of William and Mary effective July 1, 1919.^[7]

The responsibility for the selection of the president rested with the Board of Visitors, which at that time was composed of ten members appointed by the governor, plus the state superintendent of public instruction who was an ex officio member. Except for the latter, each was appointed to a four-year term, with half of them selected every other year. Thus, the terms of five members would expire on March 7, 1920, and the other five on March 7, 1922. Indefinite reappointment was possible, however, and some members were reappointed for several terms. The rector of the Board, James Hardy Dillard, was first appointed in 1918, and served in that position until his death in 1940. Born in Nansemond County, Virginia, in 1856, Dillard was a graduate of Washington and Lee University who had spent many years as a teacher at both the secondary and university level. From 1891 to 1907, he was a professor of Latin and then dean at Tulane University. Since 1907 he had been director of the Jeanes Negro Rural School Fund and was an officer of several educational funds, including the John F. Slater Fund, the Phelps-Stokes Fund, and the General Education Board.^[8]

The relationship between the faculty, the president, and the Board of Visitors was then, as later, a vital, but sensitive matter. By 1918 a few members of the Board were eager to see Tyler retire, but he had retained the support of a majority. Although the position of all the new members was not certain, Tyler wrote to Governor Westmoreland Davis to express his thanks and satisfaction with the new appointees.^[9] After Tyler announced his intention to retire, his supporters on the Board began to push for the appointment of his son-in-law, history and English professor James Southall Wilson, as his successor. A 1904 William and Mary graduate, Wilson was married to Tyler’s daughter, Julia. Wilson’s scholarly credentials were strong, but many people thought that William and Mary’s greatest need at that time was for an efficient administrator who could preside over the College’s growth and development.^[10] The conflict on the Board was soon resolved. On March 14, 1919, the Board adopted the recommendation of its selection committee in favor of Julian Alvin Carroll Chandler to become the next president of the College of William and Mary.^[11]

Then forty-six years of age, Chandler was a native of Caroline County, Virginia, who had spent his life in education as a scholar, teacher, and administrator. After enrolling at William and Mary during the early years of Tyler’s presidency, Chandler received a bachelor of arts degree in 1891 and a master of arts degree a year later. In 1896 he took a doctor of philosophy in history at Johns Hopkins University, where he worked under Herbert Baxter Adams. During the next few years, he published a number of monographs and textbooks in American and Virginia history. In the course of his career, he taught in both secondary school and college and for several years held a chair in both history and English at Richmond College. Appointed superintendent of schools of Richmond, Virginia, in 1909, Chandler oversaw a rapid expansion of the system and a revised curriculum, and soon earned a reputation as a tough but efficient administrator.^[12]

Although the offer from William and Mary undoubtedly pleased Chandler, it also created problems, not the least of which was that the $5,000 salary was $1,675 less than he earned as superintendent. Before accepting, therefore, he insisted on certain guarantees, including the right to live rent free in the President’s House and the right for him and his family to eat without charge in the college dining hall. He also insisted that extensive repairs be made to the President’s House, and, more importantly, “that the rules and regulations of administration shall be so revised as to give him proper latitude in the administration of the College, subject only to the control and direction of the Board of Visitors.” The Board readily agreed to all of these conditions, including, significantly, the one clarifying the power of the president.^[13] At its meeting in June 1919, the Board adopted a new set of “Rules and Regulations,” which spelled out the president’s authority in detail and left no doubt that he was to be in control of the institution.^[14] It was a document that well suited Chandler’s style and inclinations.

Chandler brought to William and Mary definite ideas about the direction of the College. In April 1919 he had summarized some of these in a short document he entitled “The Problem of William & Mary at Large.” Leading the list was the statement that “the college needs a responsible head, and a responsible head means a man with authority to act for the Board.” The bylaws, he complained, left authority divided and needed to be revised. Next, Chandler asserted that funds had to be set aside “for advertising and canvassing,” and a man employed “to secure students for the college.” Finally, he turned to the College’s educational aims. To the existing goals of a liberal arts education and teacher preparation, Chandler recommended the addition (“very quickly”) of a degree course for men who desired to enter business, with Norfolk and Richmond used as clinics. To implement these goals he asserted that more money had to be secured from the legislature and by private gifts.^[15]

In July 1919 Chandler expanded on his initial ideas in an article entitled “The Sphere of the Modern College.” In this his concern with vocational training and community education was even more pronounced. The modern college, he wrote, must “meet the needs of our civilization” and should “fit one for some definite vocation in life.” In his view liberal arts courses should comprise about half of one’s college career, but the rest should emphasize such subjects as applied science, business and accounting, education, and, for perhaps a majority of the women, home economics. The College should also reach out to the community by conducting “courses in all parts of the State for the benefit of the people.” Again he emphasized that more money would be needed to support such a program, but he argued that businessmen would be willing to give generously to institutions that increase business efficiency by producing people better prepared to work.^[16]

More than two years later, in his inaugural address delivered at formal ceremonies held on October 19, 1921, Chandler reiterated his commitment to similar educational objectives, those that combined the traditional concern for the liberal arts with a new interest in the technical and vocational and in service to the state. William and Mary should remain a college, he declared, and not attempt to be a technical school or a place of graduate study. “It should also maintain unequivocal standards of admissions” to insure that its students are capable of pursuing college-level work. At the same time, “it should endeavor primarily to serve the State of Virginia,” chiefly the Tidewater region. Although he insisted that all students should have a good grounding in the liberal arts, Chandler believed that William and Mary should continue to train teachers, offer work in business administration and economics, and provide preprofessional background work for students interested in entering technical and professional schools. He also favored a revival of the law school, and he again expressed his commitment to an extension program to provide opportunities for those who could not study full-time in Williamsburg.^[17]

Expansion and Fund-Raising

At the time of Chandler’s inauguration, implementation of his program was already in progress. From the beginning his aggressively optimistic approach towards realizing his objectives began to transform the atmosphere in Williamsburg. “I am working like a Trojan here trying to get students,” he noted on August 13, 1919. “Things are looking good in many ways. But I am simply going ahead spending money on beds and furniture and hot water and other things. … It is a rather dangerous procedure.”^[18] When the executive committee of the Board of Visitors met on August 13, Chandler reported that he had already hired six new professors and that the repairs needed on the President’s House were $14,000 in excess of appropriations. He also presented a plan to erect a building, which would include an auditorium, as a memorial to the founding chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.^[19] Early in October Chandler informed Dillard that 281 students had enrolled (the previous record high was 242), and he expected more. “We are terribly overcrowded. I have spent more money than we had in order to meet the needs of the student body.”^[20] The total enrollment for the session eventually reached 333.

To increase the number of students and to expand and modernize William and Mary’s physical plant were, for Chandler, inherently interconnected objectives. In his view the College should make its educational services available to far more people than had been the case during Tyler’s presidency. Moreover, he believed that the process had to begin immediately, even before all the physical resources were in place. The best way to convince the legislature or private donors to invest in William and Mary was to demonstrate that student demand exceeded available facilities. He did not hesitate to move ahead of his resources, assuming that funds would subsequently be appropriated or otherwise raised to meet his needs. An example had already been provided in the demand for dormitory space created by the admission of women to William and Mary in 1918. In response, the General Assembly appropriated $85,000 in March 1920 to build and equip a women’s dormitory. The result was Jefferson Hall, located on Jamestown Road, southwest of the Wren Building. Construction began in the spring of 1920, and the building opened in 1921.^[21] It was the beginning of an extensive building program that would soon transform the William and Mary campus.

If the College was to continue to grow, however, it would need both more land and more money. One of Chandler’s earliest objectives was to acquire the property immediately west of Cary Field Park, land that was absolutely essential to the College’s development. This area of 284 acres, known as the Bright Farm, belonged to an 1891 alumnus, Robert S. Bright, a lawyer who lived in Philadelphia, and to his sister, who lived in Williamsburg. As early as July 1919, Chandler approached Robert Bright with the hope that he could be induced to give or sell all or a portion of that land to the College. Although it took a few years before they were willing to give up their land, in 1923 the Brights agreed to sell 274 acres (reserving for the time being the house and 10 acres).^[22] This acquisition, which increased the College’s holdings to about 314 acres, provided the essential physical space for the westward expansion of the campus.

But Chandler did not stop there. On the contrary, he jumped at every opportunity to acquire property for future use. Some of the acquisitions were houses on small lots in the vicinity of the College, but he also added a considerable number of acres to the wooded area west of the campus between Jamestown and Richmond roads. These purchases included Lake Matoaka in 1925, the Mill Neck Farm of 270 acres in 1928, and the Strawberry Plains Road property of about 300 acres in 1929. In addition, in 1933 the College bought from the city of Williamsburg the municipal airport, consisting of some 241 acres a few miles northwest of the campus.^[23] These acquisitions were far more than economic assets. Properly managed they would give William and Mary a beautiful recreational area, a place to protect and study local flora and fauna, and, of course, the physical space for a future expansion that eventually went well beyond what even Chandler had envisioned.

Chandler’s goals were ambitious, however, and he was well aware that they would not be realized through state funding alone; private money would have to be found. Thus, fund-raising became a major and continuing concern. One of the president’s first acts was to meet with members of the Society of the Alumni to help them set up an “Improvement Fund,” the immediate objective of which was to raise $40,000 from William and Mary alumni. This would be used primarily to improve dormitories. Chandler promised that he would secure an equal amount from other sources. William T. Hodges, a 1902 graduate and at that time the state supervisor of rural education, became chairman of the alumni’s Improvement Fund campaign. The hope was that all alumni would pledge $5 a month for a two-year period. In practice the results fell short of this goal, but a systematic beginning had been made.^[24]

The Improvement Campaign was merely a prelude to bigger things. At a meeting of the Board of Visitors on January 12, 1920, Chandler proposed a major campaign to raise $1,000,000 or more for endowment and other purposes. This would be an enormous expansion for a college whose endowment totaled a mere $154,000 in bonds and securities and $50,000 in buildings at the end of the Tyler presidency. At that meeting Robert M. Hughes, an 1873 graduate, a prominent lawyer, and a former rector of the Board of Visitors, spoke on behalf of the proposed campaign. The Board was convinced and gave its immediate approval. It also appointed an executive committee composed of Hughes, who became chairman; C. M. Chichester (another alumnus); Dillard, the current rector; Jackson Davis from the Board; and Chandler. The committee was to formulate a plan for raising the money.^[25]

The initial objective was to raise about $600,000 for buildings and $400,000 for endowment, although after a short while these goals were enlarged. Chandler hoped to get $20,000 from the alumni association to finance the first stages of the campaign. One of the first actions of the executive committee was to set up a National Committee of Alumni and Cooperating Citizens to oversee the campaign. Rear Admiral Cary T. Grayson, an 1899 William and Mary graduate and President Wilson’s personal physician, agreed to accept the chairmanship of the national committee. In a letter to Grayson on March 2, Chandler explained that the College hoped to raise $1,440,000. A major portion of this would be used to build a new science hall as a memorial to William Barton Rogers, a new gymnasium and refectory, a Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Building with an auditorium, and two new dormitories. In addition, they planned to enlarge the library and restore the Main Building according to the plans attributed to Sir Christopher Wren. The remainder of the money would be kept as an endowment fund, with the income from it used to raise professors’ salaries, establish a chair of humanities, revive “the old school of government which will probably be developed into a school of law,” and support the library.^[26]

For the actual direction of the fund-raising Chandler hired Earl B. Thomas, who was a 1913 graduate and the publicity director of the Roosevelt Memorial Association in New York City.^[27] One of Thomas’s first tasks was to prepare a pamphlet, issued in May 1920, which described the purposes of the campaign. “William and Mary, the Alma Mater of three Presidents of the United States, requires immediate assistance,” it asserted. “This campaign is an opportunity to help preserve properly for posterity the nation’s greatest shrine of American idealism.” But the appeal was to the present and future as well as to the past. “With her recent establishment of co education, and the starting of extension courses in Newport News, Richmond and Norfolk, William and Mary is again blazing the way. She is prepared to take a place in Virginia which no other college can.” Although there were some changes in detail, the total goal remained as stated in Chandler’s letter to Grayson, with $780,000 sought for building and $660,000 for capital endowment.^[28]

By May the campaign, which attracted some national attention, was fully under way.^[29] Chandler’s objectives far exceeded what he could expect to obtain from alumni alone. By employing Thomas as a fund-raiser he hoped to enlist the support of wealthy benefactors in the Northeast. But the initial results were not very impressive. “The financial situation in New York has been strained but I have reasons to hope that it is recovering,” Thomas wrote to Chandler at the end of August.^[30] On February 10, 1921, Thomas could report a total in cash and pledges of only $20,105 in general endowment funds raised and $3,727 in the Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Fund. His work was complicated by the fact that the University of Virginia was conducting a fund drive at the same time, and in New York City “practically all of the prominent men of the Southern Colony are University men.”^[31] The one relatively large gift that the College obtained at that stage was a grant of $30,000 in December 1920 from the General Education Board (a foundation endowed by John D. Rockefeller) to be used to increase professors’ salaries during the period from January 1921 through June 1922. Of course, this did not increase the College’s capital endowment. Unfortunately, in June 1922 the General Education Board rejected Chandler’s request for $60,000 to be used to help construct a men’s dormitory.^[32]

During the second year of the campaign, more money came in, although the totals were still far short of the goals. On June 1, 1922, for example, the endowment fund stood at slightly more than $150,000. In the fall of 1922, Chandler informed Thomas that his position would end on November 7. Nevertheless, Thomas was not dismayed. “Starting with what seemed at first almost insurmountable obstacles and discouragements,” he replied to Chandler, “we have restored William and Mary to a position of prestige both in Virginia and the Nation.”^[33] This was an exaggeration, given the limited response to these early efforts. Still, Chandler remained confident that their work would be rewarded within a few years.

The next year the fund-raising efforts entered a new, more ambitious phase thanks to the involvement of the Reverend William A. R. Goodwin, a man destined to play a major role in both the revival of the College and the restoration of Williamsburg. Born in Richmond in 1869, Goodwin was a graduate of Roanoke College, and he had taken additional work at Richmond College. In 1893 he had earned a bachelor of divinity degree from the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria and then entered the Episcopal ministry. For a decade he was rector at St. John’s Church in Petersburg. Although he was not a William and Mary alumnus, he developed ties to Williamsburg and the College during his service as rector of Bruton Parish Church from 1901 to 1909. In 1909 he accepted a position as rector at St. Paul’s Church in Rochester, New York. While there he responded to Chandler’s money-raising efforts by becoming chairman of the special committee on the endowment fund. In 1923 Chandler invited him to come to William and Mary as professor of biblical literature and religion and director of the endowment campaign. Three years later he returned to Bruton Parish Church as rector, but he continued as a halftime professor at the College and as director of the endowment campaign.

One of his first tasks was to help prepare an attractive promotional booklet of forty-eight pages entitled The Romance and Renaissance of the College of William and Mary in Virginia. This detailed the specific needs of the College and set a monetary goal of $5,775,000, some four times the amount sought in the previous fund-raising campaign. The hope was to raise $2,519,000 for new buildings and equipment; the rest would go into the general endowment. The latter was to be divided into several distinct endowment funds, each for the support of a specific objective, such as the Marshall-Wythe School of Government and Citizenship, and schools of economics and business administration, biblical literature and religious education, home economics, library science, and music and art. Income from other endowment funds would help support, among other things, book purchases for the library, a faculty pension fund, and increased faculty salaries. The ambitious building program called for three new dormitories, two men’s and one women’s; a science hall; a new classroom building; a new dining hall; an addition to the library; a new auditorium building as a memorial to the founders of Phi Beta Kappa; the restoration of the Main (Wren) Building; athletic fields and a stadium; six faculty houses; and a building for the Marshall-Wythe School of Government and Citizenship and for each of the schools of economics and business administration, home economics, and music and art.^[34]

In light of William and Mary’s recent past, which was consumed with a struggle merely to exist, the scope of the 1924 campaign was nothing short of breathtaking, and it aptly symbolized the optimism that characterized Chandler’s leadership. To announce such objectives, however, was not the same as realizing them. Indeed, although Goodwin approached his task with skill and determination, he, like Thomas, soon discovered that getting money for William and Mary was a difficult, and at times a daunting, task. “This is a steep up-hill job,” he wrote to Chandler in the spring of 1924 from New York. “It is really quite a game trying to get even a hearing,” he continued, noting that he had to compete with major fund drives being conducted by Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Writing again the next day, he asserted that he had “never worked harder at anything or more constantly.”^[35] But his efforts began to bring meaningful, if not spectacular, results. By June of 1924 he had secured over $172,000 in cash or pledges.

As director of the endowment campaign Goodwin was paid a commission of 5 percent of all money raised up to $500,000. In 1926 this was increased to 6 percent.^[36] Despite this incentive, Goodwin frequently expressed his discouragement. “If you know of any body who wants my job telegraph me and it will be telegraphed to him,” he complained to Chandler in the spring of 1925. “It seems increasingly difficult to get money in the North for the South and it was always impossible to get it in the South. … The more I see of it, the more I see that this is a 5 or 10 year job. Whether it is my job for that long I am not at all sure. Just money alone could not pay me to do it.”^[37]

Nevertheless, during the next several years Goodwin did bring in money to William and Mary, although the total fell far short of the goal set in 1924. When he finally closed his books on the endowment campaign in October 1934, Goodwin reported that $1,089,375.76 had been raised, not including gifts from the General Education Board.^[38] Most of this money was designated for buildings, however, so only a small part went to the general endowment. Thus, although the endowment fund had a reported value of $839,275.29 in April 1932, nearly $700,000 of this represented real estate.^[39] Unfortunately, the College’s record-keeping practices in those years were such that it is not possible to ascertain with complete certainty the actual size of the endowment fund in the early 1930s. The largest single contribution to it, indeed the only one of significance that furthered the objectives of the endowment campaign, was a 1926 gift of securities worth approximately $100,000 from James G. Cutler, a Rochester, New York, banker. This money was designated for the establishment of a professorship in the Marshall-Wythe School of Government and Citizenship. It also was to finance an annual lecture on the Constitution by some distinguished speaker and to fund two prizes, one to a senior man and one to a senior woman, for an essay on some aspect of the Constitution.^[40] Although this was a significant contribution, it was still only one-third of the endowment funds sought for the Marshall-Wythe School alone. None of the other major endowment goals came close to being realized.

Building a New Campus

In the end, it proved much easier to put up buildings than to raise money for endowment. Indeed, Chandler’s building program became a remarkable achievement, despite the fact that the amount of private funds donated for such purposes would also fall short of meeting the objectives set forth in 1924. The proper development of the William and Mary campus was an interest that antedated the College’s fund-raising campaigns and Colonial Williamsburg. It was prompted not only by preservationists’ concern for the ancient buildings but also by disapproval of much of the campus construction that had occurred during the Tyler years. “The planning of buildings has been unfortunate and without vision,” complained Governor Davis to Rector Dillard in August 1918. “It would be well to secure a really good man to do this work once and for all. Things beautiful in their conception are no more costly than those that offend one’s artistic sense.” Davis urged the Board of Visitors to adopt a general plan of development for the College.^[41]

Although Chandler had to resort to some unattractive, temporary structures in order to meet the demands created by the rapid increase in student population in the early 1920s, he was sensitive to aesthetic considerations. “Our grounds and buildings are not well,” he informed the Board of Visitors in June 1923, and he recommended that they be overseen by a full-time superintendent.^[42]  Believing that the College’s physical expansion should be guided by a long-range plan, Chandler turned to the noted Richmond architect, Charles M. Robinson, for assistance. In the spring of 1923, Robinson prepared a plan for an expanded campus, in the area west of the Main (Wren) Building, which was inspired in part by studies he had made of the Chelsea Hospital and of other Sir Christopher Wren buildings in England. His plan envisaged the creation of a sunken garden west of the Main Building, which was to be flanked on each side by four academic buildings. Robinson’s expanded campus would have been absolutely symmetrical, with a new women’s dormitory complex and an athletic field to the southwest of the new academic buildings, and a similar men’s dormitory complex and a stadium on the northwest side.^[43]

In planning campus development the College also benefitted from the services of John Stewart Barney, a Virginia-born, New York architect and landscape painter, who in June 1923 told Goodwin that he was willing to be an adviser in architecture, without compensation. It was an offer the Board of Visitors gratefully accepted. Goodwin was delighted. With Robinson as an architect and Barney as advisor, he wrote, “for the first time, it seems possible to work out a harmonious and intelligent plan.” Barney visited the campus in October 1923. His advice was to go slowly and plan carefully. From then until his death in 1925, he advised the College on the plans for Blow Gymnasium, Rogers Hall, and the Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Building.^[44] Robinson, who served as College architect until his death in August 1932, continued to be a guiding hand behind the expansion. Although many aspects of his 1923 plan were subsequently changed, the main outlines of the new campus owed much to his vision.

By 1923 planning for one of the major additions to the campus, Blow Gymnasium, was under way. In the spring of 1923, Mrs. George Preston Blow offered the College $100,000 to construct a gymnasium in memory of her husband, Captain George Preston Blow. A native of Norfolk, Virginia, Captain Blow had been a naval officer until his retirement in 1899, and then a businessman in La Salle, Illinois, until his death in 1922. His father and grandfather were alumni of William and Mary. Work on the building, which was located just off Richmond Road to the west of the colonial campus, began in late 1923 and was completed about a year later. The Blow family eventually donated $130,200 for its construction, making it possible for William and Mary to proclaim that it had “one of the best equipped gymnasiums in the South.” A formal dedication of the building was held on June 9, 1925.^[45]

Two new men’s dormitories (Monroe and Old Dominion) and one women’s dormitory (Barrett) were added to the expanding campus by 1927. Opened in 1924, Monroe Hall was placed adjacent to Richmond Road between the library and Blow Gymnasium. Its proportions and location were designed to be symmetrical with Jefferson, the women’s dormitory located on the south side of the campus along Jamestown Road. Monroe was built with a combination of state and private money, with the state appropriating $80,000 (towards both a men’s dormitory and a new gymnasium) under the condition that the College raise an additional $120,000 needed from other sources.^[46]

Old Dominion, which was situated west of the newly constructed Blow Gymnasium, and Barrett, which was placed just beyond Jefferson, were both opened in 1927. This new women’s dormitory was named in memory of Kate Waller Barrett, the second woman to be a member of the Board of Visitors, who had died unexpectedly in February 1925. Construction of both of these buildings was made possible by the so-called Noel Act, a measure passed by the General Assembly in March 1926 authorizing state institutions of higher learning to issue bonds, with the approval of the State Board of Education, to raise funds for dormitory construction. The revenues from such dormitories were to be used to pay the interest on the bonds and eventually to retire the debt. Noel Act certificates provided $250,000 of the $407,000 needed for the two buildings. By 1930 Goodwin had secured only about $50,000 of the remainder through private gifts; to make up the difference the College borrowed from commercial banks with the expectation that such loans would be paid off by future donations.^[47]

In 1931 the College added Chandler Hall, another women’s dormitory funded by Noel Act certificates. Named after the president, it was located just beyond Barrett, adjacent to what was later named Landrum Drive. One other new dormitory for women, Brown Hall, was built in 1930. Unlike the four dormitories which enclosed the developing new campus, it was located on North Boundary Street and separate from the other College buildings. Brown was also different from the others in that it was not, at first, owned by the College. Rather, money for its construction came from funds left by Mrs. Edward Brown of Lynchburg, and it was owned and supervised by the Women’s Missionary Society of the Virginia Conference of the Methodist Church. Only later (1939) was it purchased by the College.^[48]

In addition to these new dormitories, Chandler oversaw the construction of all but one of the new academic buildings that eventually comprised the new campus. One of his earliest goals was for the erection of a building to honor the fifty founders of Phi Beta Kappa. In September 1919 he presented his ideas to the Thirteenth National Council of the organization, whose senate subsequently endorsed them in March 1920. When the Fourteenth National Council met in 1922, the delegates approved a drive to raise $100,000 for the project. In effect, Chandler had enlisted the national organization of Phi Beta Kappa in his William and Mary building campaign, with the expectation that the building would be ready for the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the founding of Phi Beta Kappa on December 5, 1926. They succeeded, even though the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa did not attain its broader objective of raising $1,000,000 for the society by that date.^[49] When the construction contract was signed in November 1924, however, less than half of the promised $100,000 was available. In typical fashion, Chandler insisted that the work should proceed, with the College temporarily underwriting it, pending the receipt of the rest of the $100,000. Ultimately, the cost was $129,000, with the additional $29,000 obtained from other donations and bank loans.^[50] Situated southwest of the Wren Building, immediately across from the library, Phi Beta Kappa Hall housed a much-needed, if imperfect, auditorium and other rooms. It was formally dedicated in ceremonies held on November 26, 1926.^[51]

Another of Chandler’s objectives was to enlarge the library. When he became president, the library was housed in a modest one-story structure (merely the front section of the building that was later renamed Tucker Hall), with a small stack area extending out in the rear or north side. Dating from 1908, its construction had been largely financed by a donation from Andrew Carnegie. In 1921 the Carnegie Foundation awarded William and Mary $25,000 to enlarge the building. As a result, a new wing holding three floors of stacks was added in 1922 just beyond the old stack area, giving the building a dumbbell shape. But more space was needed, primarily for reading rooms. Between 1928 and 1929, at a cost of about $100,000 from a state appropriation and private donations, the library was substantially enlarged. This addition consisted of a three-story center section (replacing the original stack area) between the original front wing of the library and the stacks added in 1922. With this change the building assumed an appearance familiar to William and Mary students since that time.^[52]

Also high on Chandler’s list of building objectives was a new science building, which was to be named William Barton Rogers Hall after the William and Mary professor who had founded the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1923 the General Education Board agreed to award William and Mary $100,000 towards this project. By the spring of 1926, the College had raised enough of the remaining funds from private donations to begin construction on a site just west of the library. Completed in 1927, Rogers Hall eventually cost about $300,000, including equipment, and housed the physics and chemistry departments.^[53]

The construction of Rogers Hall made it possible to remove an unsightly temporary structure that had housed the chemistry department, one located north of the hollow that adjoined Jefferson and Barrett. This, in turn, opened up space opposite Rogers, across the field that would later become the Sunken Garden, for the construction in 1928 of Washington Hall. This general academic building provided room for several departments, including biology. The building of Washington Hall was an immediate consequence of the early phases of the restoration of colonial Williamsburg. Before any work could be begun on the restoration of the Wren Building, which still provided many of the College’s classrooms, a new academic building had to be built. Consequently, in 1928 Governor Harry F. Byrd and the state legislature agreed to a special appropriation for William and Mary that included the $200,000 needed for Washington Hall, which opened in time for the beginning of the spring semester of 1929.^[54]

The buildings on the new campus beyond the Wren Building were not the only additions to William and Mary’s physical plant during the Chandler years. The south campus, the area between Jamestown Road and South Boundary Street, also underwent some important changes. To meet the needs of a rapidly increasing student population the College had purchased a number of cheap temporary buildings that were located at “Penniman,” a DuPont shell-loading plant along the York River during World War I. At the beginning of 1921, these were taken apart and moved in pieces to the campus. One of them became Tyler Annex, a women’s dormitory located just south of Tyler Hall. Another, known as the Penniman Building, was erected in back of the dining hall, a building constructed in 1914 and located west of Tyler. It provided additional dining space on the second floor and housed the laboratory equipment and lecture rooms of the biology department on the first. One wing was a dormitory.^[55]

Early in the morning of June 18, 1925, a fire broke out that destroyed the entire Penniman Building and did lesser damage to some of the adjacent structures. It was the proverbial blessing in disguise. After a visit to William and Mary to inspect the damage, Governor E. Lee Trinkle authorized the College to borrow the necessary amount to begin rebuilding at once. Insurance payments would only cover some of the costs. In 1926 the General Assembly granted William and Mary $60,000 for the rebuilding. The actual work was begun immediately after the fire and was completed by the end of the summer of 1925. This new dining facility, which could accommodate nearly six times as many students as the old Penniman Building, was appropriately named Trinkle Hall.^[56]

The south campus was changed in a number of other ways in the 1920s. For example, the Miriam Robinson Memorial Conservatory, which served as a laboratory for the biology department and a nursery for campus plantings, was added to the north end of Tyler Hall in 1926. The next year Tyler Hall was again altered by the addition of a permanent extension which replaced a temporary annex that had been brought in from Penniman in 1921. The area was also improved in 1927 by the removal of an old water tower that stood in front of the dining hall and by the removal of Ewell Hall, an old dormitory.^[57] Another addition to the south campus was a new infirmary (often called a hospital), which was built on South Boundary Street at the site of Tyler Annex. Erected in 1930 at a cost of $75,000, it was financed by state appropriations. In 1934 the Board of Visitors named this facility the David King Infirmary in honor of the physician who had served the College from 1919 to 1934.^[58]

One other notable addition to the College’s physical plant during these years, a series of sorority houses, was located across Richmond Road to the north of the colonial campus. The first house, that occupied by Kappa Kappa Gamma, was built along Richmond Road in 1925. Phi Mu house followed in 1927, and Kappa Alpha Theta house in 1932. Sorority Court itself came about in 1929, when Governor Byrd authorized the College to erect three sorority houses on college property between Richmond Road and Prince George Street. Two more were added in 1931. The last, Gamma Phi Beta, was built on Richmond Road a few years later. These proved to be a profitable venture for the College, which recovered its investment from the rentals paid by the residents. At the same time the houses provided an attractive series of residences for many sorority women.^[59]

The Restoration of the Colonial Campus

Although the new buildings at William and Mary had occasioned much favorable comment by the beginning of the 1930s, what national attention the College received at that time was largely a product of its connection to the restoration of colonial Williamsburg. The impact of the restoration on the College, both directly and indirectly, was enormous. When Chandler became president in 1919, he could not have envisaged a project of the magnitude of the one that eventually resulted. But the restoration clearly complemented his objectives for the development of the William and Mary campus. Like many others, Chandler had shown an early interest in the restoration of the Wren Building and in 1920 had included it as one of the objectives of the endowment campaign. Goodwin was also very interested in such a project. In the early 1920s he chaired a committee, which was composed of Episcopal clergymen, for the Blair-Madison Memorial Building and Endowment Fund. One object of this group was to raise about $100,000 to preserve and restore the Main Building of the College (they still did not refer to it as the Wren Building) in memory of the Reverend James Blair and Bishop James Madison. They also hoped to raise scholarship money for students preparing for the ministry, and to endow a school of biblical study and social work at William and Mary.^[60]

Although the Blair-Madison campaign did not succeed, Goodwin maintained his deep interest in the restoration and preservation of historical buildings in Williamsburg and at the College. The restoration of the Wren Building was one of the stated objectives of the 1924 endowment campaign. In the course of his fund-raising work, Goodwin spoke about William and Mary at a Phi Beta Kappa banquet in New York City in February 1924. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was also present on that occasion, so it gave Goodwin an opportunity to acquaint him with the needs of the College. This was the beginning of a relationship that resulted in the restoration of Williamsburg to its colonial aspect. Returning to New York in May of 1924, Goodwin used the opportunity to speak to Rockefeller’s private secretary about the College’s needs. Not until March 1926, however, did Rockefeller finally visit Williamsburg, at which time Chandler arranged to have Goodwin give him a guided tour of the city. Rockefeller returned in November 1926 for the dedication of Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall. Goodwin sat beside him at the banquet, and at that time he obtained an agreement from him to finance sketches of the proposed restoration, although Rockefeller made no commitment beyond that. Nevertheless, during the next year many things began to happen. In early December, Rockefeller authorized Goodwin to purchase the Paradise House on the Duke of Gloucester Street. Then, after a meeting with Goodwin in the Wythe House on May 21, 1927, he authorized the clergyman to buy other properties in town. Still, it was not until the latter part of November 1927 that Rockefeller agreed to be responsible for the execution of the restoration project as then planned. Throughout these preliminary phases, Rockefeller insisted that his role be kept a secret. It was not publicly revealed until June 1928.^[61]

On June 2, 1927, Goodwin sent Chandler a carefully constructed letter describing how he had come to purchase the Paradise House with “the cooperation of some of my friends who are interested in things colonial.” His purpose was to inquire of Chandler and the rector of the Board of Visitors what the College’s position would be if he were able to secure other properties which “would help restore the colonial atmosphere of Williamsburg,” and if these properties “should ultimately be turned over to the College of William and Mary together with an endowment sufficient to take care of the maintenance and up-keep of buildings and grounds so secured.” Goodwin specifically asked if, assuming he were able to have the old capitol and possibly the Governor’s Palace reconstructed, the College would be willing to give its written assurance that it would accept them and use them “either as teaching centres or as depositories for books, documents and other objects of interest relating to the colonial period of American history.” Rockefeller’s name was not mentioned, and Goodwin stated that he was writing on his own initiative. He also asked that his letter be kept “in complete confidence.”^[62]

Chandler and Dillard recognized that Goodwin had presented them with an extraordinary proposition. In a carefully worded response they formally stated “that the College of William and Mary will most gladly cooperate with you in accordance with the terms set forth in your letter.” They added their “earnest hope that in considering the restoration of historic Williamsburg, you will seek to interest your friends in the preservation and restoration of the Christopher Wren Building.^[63] By the summer of 1927, stories were widely circulated about Goodwin’s purchases and their possible relation to the College. In an attempt to clarify matters, insofar as this was possible without revealing Rockefeller’s role, Goodwin wrote a lengthy letter to the Newport News Daily Press on August 21, 1927. In it he reviewed his long-term interest in preserving historic buildings in the area and explained that as a result of his activities some money had been placed at his disposal to purchase certain properties “with the possible view of making the College of William and Mary the owner and perpetual custodian of these investments.” Noting that he received nothing in profit or commissions from these purchases, he pleaded with the community for cooperation and understanding in order that the city might be saved for posterity.^[64]

As it turned out, the College did not assume the role in the restoration that Goodwin mentioned. Rather, its purview was limited to the buildings on the old, colonial campus. But its gains were still very impressive. The most important was, of course, the restoration of the Wren Building, one of Chandler’s most cherished goals. “The Main Building is in terrible condition,” he reported to the Board of Visitors on June 7, 1927. “We have held back for years on repair. The walls are crumbling on one side and something will have to be done.”^[65] Chandler’s warning came shortly after he had received Goodwin’s extraordinary letter of June 2, so he must have considered the possibility of the Wren Building being a beneficiary of the restoration projects. Goodwin explicitly raised the possibility of restoring the Wren Building in a letter to Chandler on November 25, 1927, with the result that Chandler sought the special appropriation from the state to erect Washington Hall as an alternative academic building.^[66]

Things moved rapidly thereafter. On January 8, 1928, the New York Times carried a front-page story about the plans to reproduce the colonial capital, and it noted that the Wren Building was possibly to be included. The article speculated that either the Rockefeller or the Ford family, or both, might have been providing the funds. Meeting on February 14, 1928, the Board of Visitors examined and approved the tentative plans for the restoration of the Wren Building.^[67] By then the story could no longer be contained. Preempting a formal announcement that Goodwin planned to read at a College convocation on April 13, 1928, the Flat Hat carried the story on March 30.^[68] Subsequently, Goodwin finally revealed Rockefeller’s role in the restoration at a mass meeting of Williamsburg citizens on June 12. Four days later the Board of Visitors adopted a resolution thanking Rockefeller for his gift to restore the Wren Building. Final documents were signed on June 25 which provided that the building be turned over to the Williamsburg Holding Corporation (the corporation formed in February 1928 to oversee the restoration) the next day.^[69]

The actual restoration of the Wren Building was a long and complicated process involving a considerable amount of debate, and at times controversy, over the design and nature of the structure. It also forced significant alterations in Robinson’s long-range plan. Thus, the restoration of the colonial campus necessitated the removal in 1931 of the science building (built in 1905) on the northwest side of the Wren Building, and the building (the former gymnasium, built in 1900) on the southwest side of the Wren Building, which housed the Marshall-Wythe School of Government and Citizenship. Robinson’s 1923 plan, which did not envisage the restoration, would have kept and enlarged the science building and would have replaced what became the Citizenship Building with a much larger gymnasium on the same spot. After three years of work, the restored Wren Building was dedicated and returned to William and Mary on September 16, 1931. In the meantime, work to restore the other buildings on the old campus and to landscape the grounds had begun. On January 15, 1931, the College turned over the President’s House for restoration. It was completed by the end of the summer. Work began on the Brafferton in September 1931.^[70] On February 24, 1932, the Board of Visitors requested the General Assembly to give its formal approval to the Board for its actions in regard to the restoration of the colonial campus and to authorize it to accept such a restoration. It noted that more than $650,000 had then been spent on the project. In response, the General Assembly passed an act on March 24, 1932, ratifying and approving the restoration of the old campus. After the completion of the work, the Board of Visitors passed a resolution on December 28, 1932, formally accepting the restored buildings and grounds.^[71]

That occasion marked the end of the initial phase of the work of re-creating the colonial campus. It also brought to an end the remarkable building program Chandler had begun a little over a decade earlier. Within that relatively short time, Chandler had overseen the transformation of the William and Mary campus. To be sure, his goals had included even more, such as a new building for each of the schools and a new athletic field and stadium. In addition, he had sought, but failed to achieve, a large private endowment for the College. But in terms of bricks and mortar, his achievements were so substantial that Chandler’s reputation as a builder remains secure.