Entries in the Category "Historic Figures and Events"
The Poet in Stone
When you get a statue in order to commemorate your life, usually it means you are fairly important, and usually well liked. For example, Michelson and Morley have sculptures to commemorate their achievement in experimental physics. Amasa Stone has an entire church named in his honor. I suspect that there are already President Obama sculptures in the making, if there are not ones in place already. So it stands to reason that if you have a sculpture that commemorates your life or your achievements or even where you lived, you were important.
So if having a sculpture makes you important, having two must make you doubly important. It takes two monuments to even begin to match your monumental importance, according to this logic. One even has to have your likeness carved into the eternal stone, so that everyone for generations, people will remember your face. So you should not be surprised when I tell you that Hart Crane is so important to the history of University Circle that two sculptures were installed in his honor.
But I am going to guess based upon your confused expressions that unless you are very familiar with early 20th century American literature, you have no idea who Hart Crane was. I would suggest that you keep reading if that is the case.
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Two Presidents and a Secretary of State Walk into a Bar...
Before I begin, I would like to advise everyone who has not done so already to read my entry on Amasa Stone, entitled "Amasa Stone and the Western Reserve College” before reading this entry. In fact, while I’m at it, I recommend that everyone read everything that I write. It will truly shake you to the core, question everything you believe. Or, if it falls short of that, it will at least give you something to think about over your cup of warm distilled solution of tea leaves or coffee beans.
When Amasa Stone was on the board of trustees for Western Reserve College, during his tenure he made sure he would get his way. One way he did this was to be the most domineering personality, and so he was noted for being aggressive and uncompromising. Indeed, his tenacity was so well known that it was rumored that to get what you want, all you needed was a little reverse psychology to use the board on the man. However, he also decided he needed to hedge his bets, so he also monopolized the board. Of the twelve positions on the board, he managed to place eleven of his friends before his early death in 1883. In those names included famous people, such as two Presidents, his son-in-law and a Secretary of State.
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Amasa Stone and the Western Reserve College
When it comes to the naming of a building, there are a few ways to go about it. One way is to pick somebody famous or important to the purpose the building and honor them forever in naming the building after them, unless you are the former Cornell Medical School, in which case you can default to option number two. Option two is to sell the name, whether permanently to the biggest donor, or on a lease basis like so many sports arenas. The third option is a variation on the second option: name it after who owns the building.
At Case Western Reserve the strategy has been no different. Buildings are either named after former presidents and famous faculty, or after important benefactors. There is one exception to this rule: Amasa Stone. Today his name has faded into obscurity, but if you were living in the latter half of the 19th century (that’s the 1800s to those who have trouble with century counting), you would have known his name. And you would have known him as owner of the Western Reserve College.
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The Michelson Morley Experiment
It's hard not to notice that the names Albert Michelson and Edward Morley seem to be everywhere here at Case Western Reserve. There is the Michelson-Morley Monument that is reminiscent of Freud, and nearby is the now defunct Morley Chemistry Building. There is the Michelson House dormitory, which allegedly has a large time capsule somewhere in its walls. At least three plaques on campus commemorate their work, as well as at least two mock apparatuses of their interferometer. Clearly their work was, and to some extent still is, a great source of pride for the university.
To understand their importance, however, you have to go back in time. In fact, a very, very long time.