Department History

1834 Wheaton Female Seminary in Norton, Mass., opens and chemistry at Wheaton begins.

1870 Clara Pike starts teaching science at the Seminary

1879 The Trustees, with Mrs. Wheaton’s money, provide a science laboratory in a new wing of Seminary Hall (Mary Lyon Hall).

1897 The Reverend Samuel Valentine Cole becomes president of Wheaton Seminary.

1911 Cornerstone for the Science Building (Knapton Hall) is laid.

1912 Wheaton opens its doors as a college.

William Warren becomes the first professor of chemistry at the college and the Department of Chemistry gets off to a good start.

1917 Warren is called to serve in WWI.

1918 President Cole appoints Auguste Lawrence Pouleur as professor of chemistry.

1925 President Cole dies.

1926 The Reverend J. Edgar Park takes over as president.

1931 Auguste Lawrence Pouleur is dismissed.

1932 Mildred Evans (PhD, Harvard), assistant professor since 1929, is made associate professor and head of the Department of Chemistry.

1933 Maud Alice Marshall (PhD, Oxford) joins the department.

1939 WWII begins in Europe.

1941 A new wing is added to the Science Building.

Department of Physics and Chemistry are combined into the Department of Physical Science.

US joins the Allies after Pearl Harbor, December 7.

1943 Bojan Hamlin Jennings joins the department; leaves in 1946; returns in 1950.

1944 President Park retires and President A. Howard Meneely is inaugurated.

1957 Esso Education Foundation awards $10,000 to the Wheaton science departments, marking the first outside help for equipment.

1958 Grant from Research Corporation supports student-faculty research.

1959 Mildred Evans retires as head of the Department of Chemistry.

1960 National Science Foundation begins supporting undergraduate research participation at Wheaton.

Herbert Ellison joins the Chemistry Department.

1961 President Meneely dies and Dean Elizabeth May takes over as acting president.

1962 President William Courtney Prentice is inaugurated.

1964 Myrna Pearson joins the department.

1967 Department of Physical Science is split back into the Department of Physics and the Department of Chemistry.

1968 The sciences move into their new quarters in the new Science Center.

1974 Styliani (Elita) Pastra-Landis is part time visiting lecturer.

1975 President Prentice retires and President Alice Emerson is inaugurated.

1976 Styliani (Elita) Pastra-Landis joins the chemistry faculty, leaves in 1979, and returns for good in 1981.

1985 BHJ retires.