The Messenger Lectures are a series of talks given by scholars and public figures at Cornell University. They were founded in 1924 by a gift from Hiram Messenger of "a fund to provide a course of lectures on the Evolution of Civilization for the special purpose of raising the moral standard of our political, business, and social life", to be "delivered by the ablest non-resident lecturer or lecturers obtainable". The lecture series has been described as one of Cornell's most important of extracurricular activities. Initially a series of twelve lectures per year, there are now either three or six lectures by one speaker each semester. Archeologist

James Henry Breasted James Henry Breasted (; August 27, 1865 – December 2, 1935) was an American archaeologist, Egyptologist, and historian. After completing his PhD at the University of Berlin in 1894, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago. In 1901 he ...

delivered the first series of Messenger Lectures in 1925.

Hiram Messenger

Dr. Hiram John Messenger Jr (July 6, 1855 - Dec. 15, 1913; B. Litt., Phd,) was from Hartford, Connecticut and graduated from Cornell in 1880. He was a teacher of mathematics Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of the City of New York and an

actuary An actuary is a business professional who deals with the measurement and management of risk and uncertainty. The name of the corresponding field is actuarial science. These risks can affect both sides of the balance sheet and require asset man ...

of the Traveler's Insurance Company. The gift he left to Cornell was part of $4,000 mentioned in his will and a portion of his estate goes to Cornell each year. He was himself the youngest son of Hiram J. Messenger, a mercantile businessman and owner of banks.

The lectures

:''See th
list of Messenger Lectures
at Cornell University for a complete list'' There have been over 80 talks given since 1924, the most famous of which is probably Richard Feynman's 7 lecture series in 1964, '' The Character of Physical Law'', the videos of which were bought and made available to the public by Bill Gates in 2009. A partial listing of some of the lecturers over the years is provided in Cornell's Messenger Lectures brochure as: *

Michael Moss Michael Moss is an American journalist and author. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting in 2010, and was a finalist for the prize in 2006 and 1999. He is also the recipient of the Gerald Loeb Award for Large Newspapers and ...

(2016) *

Cecilia Vicuña Cecilia Vicuña (born 1948) is a Chilean poet and artist based in New York and Santiago, Chile. Her work is noted for themes of language, memory, dissolution, extinction and exile. Critics also note the relevance of her work to the politics of ec ...

(2015) * Leonard Susskind (2014) *

Nima Arkani-Hamed Nima Arkani-Hamed ( fa, نیما ارکانی حامد; born April 5, 1972) is an American-Canadian

(2010) * Steven Weinberg (2007) * Sir Martin Rees (2005) *

Maynard Solomon Maynard Elliott Solomon (January 5, 1930 – September 28, 2020) was an American music executive and musicologist, a co-founder of Vanguard Records as well as a music producer."Maynard Solomon" in ''Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians'', v ...

(1992) *

Susan Moller Okin Susan Moller Okin (July 19, 1946 – March 3, 2004) was a liberal feminist political philosopher and author. Life Okin was born in 1946 in Auckland, New Zealand. She attended Remuera Primary School and Remuera Intermediate and Epsom Girls' G ...

(1989) *

Peter Nye Peter Hague Nye FRS (16 September 1921 – 13 February 2009) was a British soil scientist. He was educated at Charterhouse School, Balliol College, Oxford and Christ's College, Cambridge. He was a Lecturer in Soil Science at the University ...

(1989) *

Edward W. Said Edward Wadie Said (; , ; 1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies.Robert Young, ''Wh ...

(1986) *

Quentin Skinner Quentin Robert Duthie Skinner (born 26 November 1940) is a British intellectual historian. He is regarded as one of the founders of the Cambridge School of the history of political thought. He has won numerous prizes for his work, including th ...

(1983) * Noam Chomsky (1976) * Edward O. Wilson (1976) * Richard Feynman (1964) * 1960-1961 Fred Hoyle, Astronomy, University of Cambridge * 1959-1960

Linus Pauling Linus Carl Pauling (; February 28, 1901August 19, 1994) was an American chemist, biochemist, chemical engineer, peace activist, author, and educator. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific top ...

, Chemistry, California Institute of Technology * 1959-1960 Arthur F. Burns, Economics, Columbia University * 1958-1959

Vincent Wigglesworth Sir Vincent Brian Wigglesworth CBE FRS (17 April 1899 – 11 February 1994) was a British entomologist who made significant contributions to the field of insect physiology. He established the field in a textbook which was updated in a numb ...

, Zoology, University of Cambridge * 1957-1958 Guido Pontecorvo, Genetics, University of Glasgow * 1957-1958

Paul Tillich Paul Johannes Tillich (August 20, 1886 – October 22, 1965) was a German-American Christian existentialist philosopher, religious socialist, and Lutheran Protestant theologian who is widely regarded as one of the most influential theologi ...

, Religion, Harvard University * 1956-1957

W. K. C. Guthrie William Keith Chambers Guthrie (1 August 1906 – 17 May 1981), usually cited as W. K. C. Guthrie, was a Scottish classical scholar, best known for his ''History of Greek Philosophy'', published in six volumes between 1962 and his dea ...

, Classics, University of Cambridge * 1956-1957 Alfred L. Kroeber, Anthropology, University of California * 1955-1956 Edward C. Kirkland, History, Bowdoin College * 1955-1956 Arthur J. Altmeyer, Louis I. Dublin, Edward J. Stieglitz, Gerontology * 1954-1955

Philip Kuenen Philip Henry Kuenen (22 July 1902, in Dundee – 17 December 1976, in Leiden) was a Dutch geologist. Kuenen spent his earliest youth in Scotland, as his father (Johannes Petrus Kuenen) was professor of physics at University College, Dundee until ...

, Submarine Geology, Groningen, the Netherlands * 1954-1955

Alpheus T. Mason __NOTOC__ Alpheus Thomas Mason (September 18, 1899October 31, 1989) was an American legal scholar and biographer. He wrote several biographies of justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, including Louis Brandeis, Harlan F. Stone, ...

, Government, Princeton University * 1953-1954 Luther Gulick, Public Administration, New York * 1953-1954 C. B. van Niel, Bacteriology, Stanford University * 1952-1953 Joseph Wood Krutch, Drama, Columbia University * 1952-1953 Theodore von Karman, Engineering, California Institute of Technology * 1951-1952 Otto Struve, Astronomy, Yerkes Observatory * 1951-1952 Robert Redfield, Anthropology, University of Chicago * 1950-1951 William F. Albright, Archaeology, Johns Hopkins University * 1950-1951 Thomas A. Bailey, Russian-American Relations, Stanford University * 1950-1951 Jens Clausen, Botany, Stanford University * 1949-1950 Otto E. Neugebauer, History of Mathematics, Brown University * 1949-1950 Vincent du Vigneaud, Biochemistry, Cornell Medical College * 1948-1949 Otto Kinkeldey, Musicology, Harvard University * 1948-1949 Harvey Fletcher, Acoustics, Bell Telephone Laboratories * 1947-1948 Howard Mumford Jones, American Literature, Harvard University * 1947-1948 Catherine Bauer, Housing, University of Cambridge * 1947-1948 Marjorie Hope Nicolson, English Literature, Columbia University * 1946-1947

Sumner Slichter Sumner Huber Slichter (January 8, 1892 – September 27, 1959) was an American economist and the first Lamont University Professor at Harvard University. Slichter was considered by many to be the pre-eminent labor economist of the 1940s and 195 ...

, Economics, Harvard University * 1945-1946 Hu Shih, History of Chinese Philosophy, Peking * 1945-1946 J. Robert Oppenheimer, Atomic Physics, California Inst. Of Technology * 1945-1946 C. C. Little, L. H. Snyder,

H. J. Muller Hermann Joseph Muller (December 21, 1890 – April 5, 1967) was an American geneticist, educator, and Nobel laureate best known for his work on the physiological and genetic effects of radiation (mutagenesis), as well as his outspoken politica ...

, Gene * 1944-1945 Douglas Bush, English Literature, Harvard University * 1944-1945 T. R. McConnell, W. H. Cowley, W. DeVane, Higher Education * 1944-1945 Charles E. Kellogg, Agronomy, U.S. Department of Agriculture * 1944-1945

Lydia Roberts Lydia Jane Roberts (1879–1965) was a pioneering nutritionist in childhood nutrition, especially in creating government nutrition standards like the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) of minerals and vitamins. She studied and taught at the Univ ...

, Nutrition, University of Chicago * 1943-1944 Griffith Taylor, Geography, Toronto * 1942-1943 Carl L. Becker, Cornell History, Cornell University * 1942-1943 H. Peyre, French Literature, Yale University * 1941-1942 H. M. Evans, Endocrinology, University of California * 1941-1942 T. M. River and others, Virus Diseases, Rockefeller Institute * 1940-1941 F. A. Pottle, Modern Poetry, Yale University * 1940-1941 H. E. Sigerist, History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University * 1939-1940

T. D. Kendrick Sir Thomas Downing Kendrick (1 April 1895 – 2 November 1979) was a British archaeologist and art historian. Life Early life Kendrick was born on 1 April 1895 in Handsworth, a suburb of Birmingham, England to Fanny Susan (nee Downing, bor ...

, Archaeology, British Museum * 1938-1939 G. P. Adams, Philosophy, University of California * 1938-1939 G. H. McIlwain, History of Political Theory, Harvard University * 1937-1938

E. J. Dent Edward Joseph Dent (16 July 1876 – 22 August 1957), generally known as Edward J. Dent, was an English musicologist, teacher, translator and critic. A leading figure of musicology and music criticism, Dent was Professor of Music at the Univers ...

, Musicology, University of Cambridge * 1936-1937 Isaiah Bowman, Geography, Johns Hopkins University * 1936-1937 Robert Hegner, Parasitology, Johns Hopkins University * 1935-1936 W. M. Calder, History of Christianity, University of Edinburgh * 1934-1935 W. C. Mitchell, Economics, Columbia University * 1933-1934 Sir

Arthur Eddington Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (28 December 1882 – 22 November 1944) was an English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician. He was also a philosopher of science and a populariser of science. The Eddington limit, the natural limit to the lumin ...

, Astronomy, University of Cambridge * 1932-1933 B. Malinowski, Anthropology, London * 1931-1932 F. J. Mather, Fine Arts, Princeton University * 1930-1931 T. H. Morgan, Genetics, California Institute of Technology * 1929-1930 Roscoe Pound, Law, Harvard University * 1928-1929

E. L. Thorndike Edward Lee Thorndike (August 31, 1874 – August 9, 1949) was an American psychologist who spent nearly his entire career at Teachers College, Columbia University. His work on comparative psychology and the learning process led to the theory o ...

, Psychology, Columbia University * 1927-1928

T. F. Tout Thomas Frederick Tout (28 September 1855 – 23 October 1929) was a British historian of the medieval period. He was one of the founders of the Historical Association in 1906. Early life Born in London, he was a pupil of St Olave's Grammar Sch ...

, English History, Manchester * 1926-1927

H. J. C. Grierson Sir Herbert John Clifford Grierson, FBA (16 January 1866 – 19 February 1960) was a Scottish literary scholar, editor, and literary critic. Life and work He was born in Lerwick, Shetland, on 16 January 1866. He was the son of Andrew John Grie ...

, English Literature, University of Edinburgh * 1925-1926 R. A. Milliken, Physics, California Institute of Technology * 1924-1925

J. H. Breasted James Henry Breasted (; August 27, 1865 – December 2, 1935) was an American archaeologist, Egyptologist, and historian. After completing his PhD at the University of Berlin in 1894, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago. In 1901 h ...

, Ancient History, Chicago

References

{{reflist

External links

Feynman's Messenger Lectures
Cornell University Lecture series

Hiram Messenger

The lectures

See also

References

External links