Yale and America: From Elihu Yale to Elga Wasserman
Saturday, April 18
Lecture: 3-5pm
Reception to Follow
United Methodist Church
720 Grand Avenue, West Des Moines, Iowa 50265
Free to attend. Please register below
For our alums in southern Minnesota and the Dakotas, please join the Yale Club of Iowa as they host Professor Jay Gitlin ’71, Department of History, Yale University.
Professor Jay Gitlin ’71 explores the intertwined histories of Yale University and American culture from the eighteenth century through the twentieth, drawing on his acclaimed Yale seminar Yale and America. The lecture blends intellectual history, institutional biography, cultural analysis, and personal reflection, offering compelling context for alumni of all backgrounds.
The lecture explores Yale’s history and cultural influence through several interwoven themes, including Elihu Yale and the University’s eighteenth-century origins in global trade and intellectual exchange; the intellectual and social lives of women at Yale prior to formal coeducation, with particular attention to figures such as Olivia Day and the Gallinippers; the roles of Henry Luce and Juan Trippe in shaping modern media, aviation, and the global information society (often described to students as “Yale Mad Men, Pan Am, and the Information Society”); and the contrasting visions of Yale embodied by William F. Buckley Jr., William Sloane Coffin, and Jean-Paul Sartre in debates over freedom, responsibility, and culture. Professor Gitlin also offers brief personal reflections from his junior year at Yale, including memories of the May Day protests and the transition to coeducation, along with a light touch of Yale lore via an anecdote involving Obadiah Nimblechops of the Yale Hexahedron Society. Prof. Gitlin will also speak on the French presence in the Upper Mississippi Valley, drawing on his book The Bourgeois Frontier: French Towns, French Traders, and American Expansion (Yale University Press), which situates Iowa and Nebraska within a broader continental history.
Following the Q&A, Professor Gitlin and his wife, Ginny Bales, are pleased to offer a lighthearted musical coda: student-written parody lyrics set to Cole Porter tunes, reflecting Yale student life across generations.
A reception of light refreshments and snacks will follow and all are welcome to stay and enjoy our Yale community.