This timeline chronicles more than 250 years of Brown University’s history.
These are key milestones from the 1870s.
Brown's History: A Timeline
Brown’s History: 1870-1879
Brown’s First Intercollegiate Victory
After a hiatus during the Civil War, Brown’s crew team re-formed. The freshman six (shown here) made history, facing and defeating Yale, Harvard and Amherst on Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester, Massachusetts, before a crowd of 20,000 spectators.
July 22, 1870
Natural History Museum Opens
For nearly 40 years, Brown had a natural history museum that was housed in Rhode Island Hall. The collection, lovingly grown and tended by its curator, John Whipple Potter Jenks, Class of 1838, included thousands of examples of minerals, shells and fossils; anthropological and historical artifacts; and taxidermy specimens of all manner of birds, mammals, reptiles and insects. Unfortunately, the museum always struggled financially, dwindled after Jenks' death in 1894, and was finally dismantled in 1915. Although remnants of the collection survive, 92 truckloads of stored material were unceremoniously dumped along the Seekonk River in 1945.
1871
Seventh President: Ezekiel Gilman Robinson
A president with, reportedly, “more force than tact,” Ezekiel Gilman Robinson, Class of 1838, was nevertheless an effective leader. Robinson oversaw a number of building restorations, as well as the construction of Robinson, Slater and Sayles Halls. He established professorships in scientific fields ranging from astronomy to zoology and instituted graduate study at the University, overseeing the awarding of the first A.M.s and Ph.D.s.
1872-1889
First African American to Graduate
Inman Page graduated from the College with the Class of 1877. He and classmate George Washington Milford were the first African American students to do so. Although there were only a small number of black students enrolled in the years that followed, between 1877 and 1912, Brown graduated five black men who became presidents of black colleges.
June 1877
First Time Photography Used for Sound Recording
This recording was made in July of 1878 by using photography to record speech vibrations for the first time in history. Eli Whitney Blake, Jr., a great-nephew of cotton gin inventor Eli Whitney, was Hazard Professor of Physics at Brown University, where he conducted a number of telephone exhibitions and experiments. The speaker says "Brown University" and then "How do you do?"
Courtesy of Dust-To-Digital Foundation.
July 1878
Football Competition Begins
Brown played its first intercollegiate game in football against Amherst College. The Brunonian attributed Amherst’s win to a favorable wind, a lucky kick and two goals gained “by the practice of a somewhat doubtful expedient.” Not to mention the newfangled Amherst uniforms of which it was said: “When our men got hold of an opposing runner, the jersey stretched and he either pulled away completely or added four of five yards to his journey."
November 12, 1878