WHEN
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
dawned at Emory, its first light burnished the brick bell tower
of Seney Hall, the tallest building, by far, on the bucolic college
campus in Oxford, Georgia. When the sun set on the century just
past, its dying embers glinted off the windows of the Robert W.
Woodruff Library on Emory’s Atlanta campus. The twentieth
century has frequently been called “the American century”
in deference to the United States’ rise to prominence on
the world stage. For similar reasons, it might also be called
“the Emory century,” for there may be no greater academic
Cinderella story in the last hundred years than the tale of an
unheralded college in the rural Deep South and its transformation
into an academic juggernaut in a vibrant city that is unquestionably
the capital of a dynamic New South.
Nine
months ago, we set as our goal a compilation of the most significant
events at Emory in the last hundred years. We
are particularly grateful to University Archivist Ginger Cain,
who reviewed our work on several occasions, offered suggestions
of her own, and gleaned visual material from the holdings at
the Special Collections Department of the Robert W. Woodruff
Library, and to Secretary of the University Gary Hauk ’91PhD,
who provided us access to his research for his recently completed
history of the University, A Legacy of Heart and Mind: Emory
Since 1836. Perhaps most exciting for us was the involvement
of readers who responded to our request for information in the
summer issue of Emory Magazine or through our web site.
Many of their comments are included in these pages.–A.B
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