Editing Andrew Dickson White (section)

==Career==
===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.<ref name="Finch, pg. 7">Finch, pg. 7</ref>  White made his lasting mark on the grounds of the university by enrolling students to plant [[elm]]s along the walkways on [[The Diag]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://michigantoday.umich.edu/2008/04/trees.php |title=U-M Heritage: Professor White's trees |access-date=2010-07-31 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100606173105/http://michigantoday.umich.edu/2008/04/trees.php |archive-date=June 6, 2010 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> 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 of America|Confederate States]].<ref name="Finch, pg. 7"/>

===Founding of Cornell University===
{{Further|History of Cornell University}}
[[File:AD White 1865.jpg|thumb|White in 1865, when he and [[Ezra Cornell]] co-founded [[Cornell University]]]]
In 1863, White returned to reside in [[Syracuse, New York|Syracuse]] for business reasons. In November, he was elected to the [[New York State Senate]] on the [[National Union Party (United States)|Union Party]] ticket.<ref>{{cite news | title = The State. Miscellaneous Returns | work=[[The New York Times]]| date = November 4, 1863| url = https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1863/11/04/79179933.pdf | access-date =May 27, 2009 }}</ref> In the Senate, White met the fellow [[upstate New York|upstate]] Senator [[Ezra Cornell]], a self-taught [[Quakers|Quaker]] farmer from [[Ithaca, New York|Ithaca]] who had made a modest fortune in the [[telegraph]] industry.<ref name="CAM Obit" /> Around then, the senators were called on to decide how best to use the higher education funding provided by the [[Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act]], which allocated timberland in the [[Midwestern United States|Midwest]], which states could sell as they saw fit. Through effective management by Cornell, New York, generated about $2.5 million (equivalent to ${{Format price|{{Inflation|US|2500000|1863|r=-6}}}} in today dollars{{Inflation-fn|US}}) from its allotted scrip, a greater yield per acre than any state except perhaps [[California]].<ref>{{cite book|title=The Individual, Society, and Education|url=https://archive.org/details/individualsociet0002kari|url-access=registration|author=Clarence J. Karier|publisher=University of Illinois Press|year=1986|page=[https://archive.org/details/individualsociet0002kari/page/68 68]}}</ref> The senators initially wanted to divvy the funds among the numerous small state colleges of their districts. White fervently argued that the money would be more effectively used if it endowed only one university. Ezra Cornell agreed and told White, "I have about half a million dollars more than my family will need: what is the best thing I can do with it for the State?" White immediately replied, "The best thing you can do with it is to establish or strengthen some institution of higher learning."<ref name="CAM Obit" /> The two thus combined their efforts to form a new university.

White pressed for the university to be located on the hill in Syracuse, the current location of [[Syracuse University]], because of the city's transportation hub. That could help attract faculty, students, and other persons of note. However, as a young carpenter working in Syracuse, Cornell had been robbed of his wages,<ref>Goldwin Smith, ''Reminiscences'' (New York, 1911), p.371;quoted in Morris Bishop(1962), p.11, ''A History of Cornell.'' Cornell University Press</ref> and insisted for the university to be in his hometown of [[Ithaca, New York|Ithaca]]. He proposed to donate land on his large farm on East Hill, overlooking the town and [[Cayuga Lake]]. White convinced Cornell to give his name to the university "in accordance with [the] time-honored American usage" of naming universities after their largest initial benefactors.<ref name="CAM Obit" /> On February 7, 1865, White introduced a bill "to establish the Cornell University" and, on April 27, 1865, after months of debate, Governor [[Reuben E. Fenton]] signed into law the bill endowing Cornell University as the state's [[list of land-grant universities|land-grant institution]].In 1865, White also authored "...The Negro's Right to Citizenship - a very detailed legal, ethical and logical argument for citizenship for the Negro." A staunch abolitionist, White was also the author of "abolition of Slavery the Right of Government under the War Powers Act" as well as several other legal arguments in favor of the Negro."<ref>{{cite book|title=SWANN Printed & Manuscript African Americana |date=March 1, 2012|page=69}}</ref>

White became the school's first president and served as a professor in the [[Cornell University Department of History|Department of History]].  He commissioned Cornell's first [[Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning|architecture student]], [[William Henry Miller (architect)|William Henry Miller]], to build [[Andrew Dickson White House|his president's mansion]] on campus.

White was elected a member of the [[American Philosophical Society]] in 1869<ref>{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?year=1869;year-max=1869;smode=advanced;startDoc=1|access-date=2021-04-26|website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref> and [[American Antiquarian Society]] in 1884.<ref>{{Cite web|title=MemberList: W |publisher=American Antiquarian Society|url=https://www.americanantiquarian.org/memberlistw|access-date=2023-02-07|website=www.americanantiquarian.org}}</ref>

In 1891, [[Leland Stanford|Leland]] and Jane Stanford asked White to serve as the first president of [[Stanford University]], which they had founded in [[Palo Alto, California]]. Although he refused, he recommended his former student [[David Starr Jordan]].

===Conflict thesis===
{{main|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."<ref>Lindberg and Numbers 1986, pp. 2–3</ref> 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.<ref>Quotation: "The conflict thesis, at least in its simple form, is now widely perceived as a wholly inadequate intellectual framework within which to construct a sensible and realistic historiography of Western science". (p. 7), Colin A. Russell "The Conflict Thesis", ''Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction'', Gary Ferngren, ed., Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. {{ISBN|978-0-8018-7038-5}}".</ref><ref name="Shapin1996">Quotation: "In the late Victorian period it was common to write about the 'warfare between science and religion' and to presume that the two bodies of culture must always have been in conflict. However, it is a very long time since these attitudes have been held by historians of science". (p. 195) {{cite book
 | author = Shapin, S.
 | year = 1996
 | title = The Scientific Revolution
 | url = https://archive.org/details/scientificrevolu00shap_0
 | url-access = registration
 | publisher = University of Chicago Press Chicago, Ill.
 | isbn = 9780226750200
 }}</ref><ref name="Brooke1991">Quotation: "In its traditional forms, the conflict thesis has been largely discredited." (p. 42) {{cite book
 | author = Brooke, J.H.
 | year = 1991
 | title = Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives.
 | url = https://archive.org/details/sciencereligions0000broo
 | url-access = registration
 | publisher = Cambridge University Press
 | author-link = John Hedley Brooke
 }}</ref> The warfare depiction remains a popular view among critics of religion.<ref>"... while [John] Brooke's view [of a complexity thesis rather than an historical conflict thesis] has gained widespread acceptance among professional historians of science, the traditional view remains strong elsewhere, not least in the popular mind." p. x, ''Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction'', Gary Ferngren, ed., Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.  {{ISBN|978-0-8018-7038-5}}.</ref>

===Diplomat===
[[File:AD White Russia.jpg|thumb|White's official portrait as [[List of ambassadors of the United States to Russia|U.S. ambassador to Russia]], where he served from 1892 to 1894]]
While at Cornell, in 1871, he took leave to serve as a Commissioner to [[Dominican Republic#Restoration republic|Santo Domingo]], along with [[Benjamin Wade]] and [[Samuel Gridley Howe|Samuel Howe]], at the request of President [[Ulysses Grant]] to determine the feasibility of an American annexation of the [[Dominican Republic]]. Their report ([https://books.google.com/books?id=mUd9AAAAMAAJ available here]) supported the annexation, but Grant was unable to gain sufficient political support to take further action.

Later, White was appointed as the American ambassador to Germany (1879–1881). After returning to the United States, he was elected as the first president of the [[American Historical Association]] (1884–1886). Upstate [[New York Republican State Committee|New York Republicans]] nominated him for [[list of Governors of New York|governor]] in 1876 and for Congress in 1886, but he did not win either primary.

Following his resignation in 1885 as Cornell's president, White served as the minister to Russia (1892–1894), president of the American delegation to [[Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907)|The Hague Peace Conference (1899)]], and again as ambassador to Germany (1897–1902).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/presidents/view_item.php?sec=3&sub=8 |title= Andrew Dickson White, President, 1866-1885|website=Cornell University|access-date=January 30, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070610110419/http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/presidents/view_item.php?sec=3&sub=8|archive-date=June 10, 2007}}</ref>

In 1904, White published his ''Autobiography'', which he had written while he was relaxing in Italy after his retirement from the Department of State with the change in administrations. Cornell's third president, [[Jacob Gould Schurman]], was appointed as ambassador to Germany from 1925 to 1929.

At the onset of [[World War I]], White supported the German cause within Europe because he had strong professional and emotional ties to Germany. By the summer of 1915, he retreated from this position and refrained from offering any support either publicly or privately.<ref>Finch, pg. 65</ref> In the fall of 1916, President [[Woodrow Wilson]] appointed White to a peace commission to prepare a treaty with China.<ref name="Finch, pg. 66">Finch, pg. 66</ref> As of December 1916, White had reduced some of his obligations, resigning from the [[Smithsonian Institution#Administration|Smithsonian Board of Regents]] and the trustees of the [[Carnegie Institution for Science|Carnegie Institution]].<ref name="Finch, pg. 66"/>

===Bibliophile===
[[File:ADWhiteReadingRoom, CornellUniversity.jpg|thumb|The A. D. White Reading Room at [[Cornell University Library]], named in White's honor]]
Over the course of his career, White [[bibliophile|amassed a sizable book collection]]. His library included an extensive section on [[architecture]], which then represented the largest architecture library in the United States. He donated all 4,000 books to the [[Cornell University Library]] for the purpose of teaching architecture as well as the remainder of his 30,000-book collection.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.arlisna.org/pubs/onlinepubs/colldevpol/cornell.html|publisher=Cornell University Fine Arts Library|title=Architecture Clientele|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100707050306/http://www.arlisna.org/pubs/onlinepubs/colldevpol/cornell.html|archive-date=July 7, 2010|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

In 1879, White enlisted [[George Lincoln Burr]], a former undergraduate assistant for one of his seminars, to manage the rare books collection. Though Burr would later hold other positions at the university, such as Professor of History, he remained White's collaborator and head of this collection until 1922 by traveling over Europe, locating and amassing books that White wanted. In particular, he built the collections on the [[Reformation]], [[witchcraft]], and the [[French Revolution]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://libecast.library.cornell.edu/uris/white.html|title=Andrew Dickson White Library|publisher=Cornell University Library}}</ref> Today, White's collection is housed primarily in the Cornell Archives and in the Andrew Dickson White Reading Room (formally known as the "President White Library of History and Political Science") at Uris Library on the Ithaca Campus. The A.D. White Reading Room was designed by [[William Henry Miller (architect)|William Henry Miller]], who had also designed White's mansion on campus.

While serving in [[Russia]], White made the acquaintance of author [[Leo Tolstoy]]. Tolstoy's fascination with [[Mormons|Mormonism]] sparked a similar interest in White, who had previously regarded the Latter-Day Saints (LDS) as a dangerous [[cult]]. Upon his return to the United States, White took advantage of Cornell's proximity to the religion's birthplace in [[Palmyra (town), New York|Palmyra]] to amass a collection of LDS memorabilia (including many original copies of the [[Book of Mormon]]); it is unmatched by any other institution outside the church itself and its flagship [[Brigham Young University]].