William Barton Rogers
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- This page relates to the founder of MIT. For other men named William Rogers, see William Rogers (disambiguation).
William Barton Rogers (
1804-
1882) is best known for incorporating the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in
1861. However, the new school was not opened until
1865, due to the
American Civil War. He attended the
College of William and Mary and served as Professor of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry there for 8 years from
1828 until
1835 (his father previously held the very same professorship there until his death in 1828). He then served as Professor of Natural Philosophy for 19 years (
1835 to
1853) at the
University of Virginia, and was Chair of the Department of Philosophy at U.Va. when he famously defended the University of Virginia's refusal to award honorary degrees to the Virginia legislature. From there, he went on to found and serve as President of MIT from
1861 to
1870. Declining health forced him to stand down from this position, but he was forced by necessity to resume office in
1878 and continued to serve through to the year before his death,
1881. He died after having collapsed while giving a speech at MIT's
1882 Commencement Exercises, in which his last words were "
bituminous coal".
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