The Council of Independent Colleges: Historic Campus Architecture Project

John Greenleaf Whittier Monument

Click on image titles for larger views.

John Greenleaf Whittier Monument (detail, plaque), Whittier College

John Greenleaf Whittier Monument, Whittier College

Institution Name: Whittier College
Original/Historic Place Name: John Greenleaf Whittier Monument
Location on Campus: on Lower Quad (lawn area at the west side of campus)
Date(s) of Construction and Designer(s):

1911	original construction Unknown

Type of Place: Landscape site
Type of landscape–

Other characteristics:
A monument to the poet for whom the college and town of Whittier were both named.

Materials: brick; spherical light globe (formerly); bronze plaque with a likeness of the poet

Function:

1911-present (2007)

memorial site

Significance: culture, education, history, landscape, religion
Landmark designation:

none

Narrative: see below
References: see below

Narrative:
John Greenleaf Whittier was the best-selling versifier of his day. Whittier, a Quaker and staunch Abolitionist in the pre-Civil War period, was instrumental in helping to turn American public opinion against slavery. To give a new town in the "wild West" his name and open a college there in the 1880s implied that this community would be a bulwark against the chaos and mayhem of the old frontier. Although developers deeded Whittier a lot in the new subdivision and installed a rose garden adjacent, the aged poet never visited his namesake city. But the monument built with public subscriptions solicited by the local newspaper bears his likeness and a poem he sent to one of the founders in the early days:

Dear town, for whom the flowers are born,
Stars shine, and happy songbirds sing,
What can my evening give to morn,
My winter to thy spring?

A life not void of pure intent,
With small desert of praise or blame;
The love I felt, the good I meant,
I leave thee with my name.

References:

I. Bibliographic sources:

Arnold, Benjamin F. History of Whittier. Whittier, CA: Western Print Corporation, 1933.

Carter, Coila. "History of Whittier." B. A. thesis, Whittier College, 1908.

Cooper, Charles W. Whittier: Independent College in California. Los Angeles, CA: Ward Ritchie Press, 1967.

Cooper, Charles W. The A. Wardman Story. Whittier, CA: Whittier College, 1961.

Elliott, Charles, Jr. Whittier College: The First Century on the Poet Campus, a Pictorial Remembrance. Redondo Beach, CA: Legends Press, 1986.

Feeler, William Henry. History of Whittier College. M. A. thesis, University of Southern California, 1919.

Harris, Herbert Eugene. The Quaker and the West: The First Sixty Years of Whittier College. [s.l.]: Whittier College, 1948.

Pearce, Phyllis M., Claire G. Radford, and Mary Ann Rummel. Founders and Friends. Whittier, CA: Rio Hondo College Community Services, 1977.

II. Location of other data:

University: Library

Other: Whittier Daily News Archives