Architectural History of Sterling Memorial Library

Alma Mater and Portraits

Explore this page:

James Gamble Rogers | John William Sterling | Edward Bouchet | Cornelia H. B. Rogers | Sara Bulkley Rogers | Margaretta Palmer | Mary Augusta Scott | Laura Johnson Wylie | Charlotte Fitch Roberts | Elizabeth Deering Hanscom

Eugene F. Savage's (BFA, 1924) Mural Behind the Sterling Memorial Library Circulation Disk, circa 1931

Above Sterling’s entrance to the stacks hangs the Alma Mater mural by Eugene Savage. Savage received his BFA from the Yale School of the Fine Arts in 1924 and served on the Yale faculty as a professor of painting for twenty-eight years. The mural’s central figure, Alma Mater, is dressed in Yale’s colors and holds a book bearing Yale’s motto, “Lux et Veritas.” She stands under the tree of knowledge, and allegorical figures of Light, Truth, Science, Labor, Music, the Arts, Divinity, and Literature, (left to right) pay her homage. Kathy M. Newman (Yale PhD 1997) explains: “In college mythology, Alma Mater [or Mother Knowledge] replaces actual mothers, to pro-create knowledge itself, and a whole new family of knowledge seekers. The entrance to Sterling makes this clear—the translation of the Egyptian transcription reads: ‘Would that I might make thee love books more than thy mother.’” Newman reminds us to ask: “Isn’t it strange that these women were created to represent Knowledge, Light, and Truth at Yale at a time when flesh-and-blood women were not allowed to seek knowledge, light and truth within these same walls?”

Portraits of James Gamble Rogers and John William Sterling hang on the Alma Mater mural’s left and right sides, respectively. 

James Gamble Rogers (1867-1947, Yale College 1889) designed buildings across Yale’s campus, including Sterling Memorial Library, Harkness Tower and Memorial Quadrangle, Sterling Law Buildings, Hall of Graduate Studies, and Pierson, Davenport, Jonathan Edwards, Trumbull, Berkeley, and Timothy Dwight colleges. He was responsible for Yale College’s 1924 general architectural plan and also designed the New Haven Post Office and Federal District Court building on New Haven Green. He participated in laying Sterling Memorial Library’s cornerstone in 1928 and saw its completion in 1931.

John William Sterling (1844-1918, Yale College 1864) was a corporate lawyer practicing with Shearman & Sterling in New York City. He left Yale University $15 million in his 1918 estate, which was, at the time, the largest sum of money ever donated to an institution of higher learning. His bequest required Yale to fund "at least one enduring, useful and architecturally beautiful building, which will constitute a fitting Memorial of my gratitude to and affection for my alma mater" and "the foundation of Scholarships, Fellowships or Lectureships, the endowment of new professorships and the establishment of special funds for prizes.” This bequest led to the construction of Sterling Memorial Library, Sterling Law Building, the Hall of Graduate Studies, and the Sterling Hall of Medicine, and the endowment of Yale’s Sterling Professorships, which is Yale’s highest academic rank.

Across from Sterling and Roger’s portraits, respectively, hang portraits of Edward Bouchet and the first seven women to earn PhDs at Yale.

Edward Bouchet (1852-1918, Yale College 1874) was a physicist. He completed his dissertation in physics at Yale in 1876 and was the first African American person to earn a PhD from an American university. Bouchet was born in New Haven to William Bouchet, a formerly enslaved man who worked as a servant and later as a porter at Yale University, and Susan Cooley Bouchet. Edward Bouchet taught physics and chemistry at Philadelphia's Institute for Colored Youth (now Cheyney University of Pennsylvania) from 1876 until 1902. The portrait of Bouchet in Sterling Memorial Library was commissioned by Yale president Kingman Brewster and was unveiled in January 1990. It is a replica painted by Rudolph Zallinger (Yale College 1942, Yale MFA 1971) of a photograph of Bouchet taken circa 1874.

"Yale's First Women Ph.Ds., 1894," the portrait of Cornelia H. B. Rogers, Sara Bulkley Rogers, Margaretta Palmer, Mary Augusta Scott, Laura Johnson Wylie, Charlotte Fitch Roberts, and Elizabeth Deering Hanscom — the first seven women to earn PhDs from Yale — was painted by Brenda Zlamany and commissioned by Jon Butler, former dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, in 2009. Each of the seven women graduated in 1894, two years after Yale opened its doors to women seeking graduate degrees.

Cornelia H. B. Rogers, an alumna of Wellesley College and sister of Sara Bulkley Rogers, received her Yale PhD in Romance languages with her dissertation titled “Sinalefa, sineresis, e hiato en los romances del Cid.” She later taught Romance languages at Vassar and did translation work for the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

Sara Bulkley Rogers was the sister of Cornelia H. B. Rogers and received a BA from Columbia University’s Collegiate Course for Women (later Barnard College). Sara also earned a master’s degree in history from Cornell, and her Yale dissertation was titled “The Rise of Civil Government and Federation in Early New England.” Sara successfully published fiction stories and an 1897 novel, titled Life’s Way.         

Margaretta Palmer graduated from Vassar College in 1887 and worked at the Yale Observatory from 1889 until 1892, when she was able to enroll in Yale’s graduate school to study astronomy. Her PhD mathematics dissertation was titled “Determination of the Orbit of Comet 1847 VI” and was a study of the comet discovered by Maria Mitchell. Palmer continued to work at Yale after her graduation at the observatory, at the library, and as a researcher and instructor. 

Mary Augusta Scott received a BA and a master’s degree from Vassar and earned her Yale PhD in 1894. Her dissertation was titled “The Elizabethan Drama, especially in its Relation to the Italians of the Renaissance.” Scott taught English literature at Smith College beginning in 1902. She edited and published The Essays of Francis Bacon, Elizabethan Translations from the Italian, and frequently contributed to literary and academic journals.

Laura Johnson Wylie graduated from Vassar in 1877 and taught English and Latin for fourteen years before joining Yale in 1892. Her dissertation, “Studies in the Evolution of English Criticism,” was published by Ginn & Company in 1894 at Yale’s expense. She joined the Vassar English department in 1895. She was the longtime partner of Gertrude Buck, with whom she led the Vassar English department during the Progressive Era. Wylie authored several books on English literature; was active in political affairs, particularly women’s suffrage, in Poughkeepsie; and taught at the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers in Industry after her retirement from Vassar. 

Charlotte Fitch Roberts graduated from Wellesley College in 1880 and earned her Yale PhD in 1894. She published her Yale dissertation as the book The Development and Present Aspects of Stereochemistry in 1896. Roberts joined the Wellesley faculty and became a full professor in 1896. She devoted her scholarship to the historical development of chemistry and was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Elizabeth Deering Hanscom received a BA and MA from Boston University before joining Yale. Her 1894 Yale dissertation analyzed William Langland’s “Piers Plowman,” a Middle English poem. Hanscom joined the English department faculty of Smith College in 1894 and remained on their faculty until 1932. She introduced the study of American literature to Smith in 1899.