Biographies

Featured Biographies

Bill Borden: Challenge to a Consecrated Life

He was only 25 at his death, yet his life was one of great impact. When news of his death was cabled from Egypt, Princeton Seminary declared, “No young man of his age has ever given more to the service of God and humanity!”

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Living with All His Might: Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening

Jonathan Edwards was a gentle man who through a lifelong labor of pastoral service quietly established himself as a towering giant in Christian history and Christian thought.

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Benjamin Silliman: Father of American Science

Silliman believed that not science but only God’s word could reveal God’s mercy. “In Nature, in God’s creation, we discover only laws, [but] there is associated with natural laws no system of mercy; that dispensation is not revealed in Nature, and is contained in the Scriptures alone.”

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Horace Tracy Pitkin: Yale’s First Martyr

Horace Tracy Pitkin lived thirty years. Yet from the time he entered Yale as a freshman in 1888 until 1900 when he died as a martyr in China, Pitkin accomplished more in “twelve glorious years of crowded life” than most people do in a lifetime.


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Living with All His Might: Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening

Despite the oft-depicted caricature of a scowling preacher who conjured up hell’s flames when he preached, Jonathan Edwards was a gentle man who through a lifelong labor of pastoral service quietly established himself as a towering giant in Christian history and Christian thought.


Freshman Jonathan Edwards: “…with all my might while I do live.”

When Jonathan Edwards entered Yale at the age of thirteen, he began a career that turned traditional-minded churches upside-down throughout the country. The decisions he made at Yale were the basis for a life that influenced thousands in Europe and America. 


David Brainerd, Freshman 1739

David Brainerd was one Yale student who did not “pass to be forgotten like the rest.” Although he died before age thirty, his biographies are still being printed, and his personal journal is considered a classic in American literature.


Timothy Dwight and Yale: The Making of a University

Few men have poured out as much for Yale as did Timothy Dwight. He was a prodigious scholar, a brilliant educator, and an educational reformer far ahead of his time. He was the chief architect of Yale as a university.


Timothy Dwight Speaks

Timothy Dwight was probably the best president Yale has ever had. When he arrived in 1795 morale was low and the financial prospects of the college were dim. Buildings were falling apart and discipline was lax. During his tenure, Dwight transformed the ailing “Collegiate School” of 100 students and 3 teachers into a nascent university, with a pioneering science department, a medical school, an expanding library, and the beginnings of a law school and a divinity school.


Chauncey Goodrich: Yale’s Professor of Compassion and Revival

Academically, Yale needed an overhaul, and one of the first things this new professor did was entirely revamp his department’s curriculum. Goodrich felt men should leave Yale gifted to persuade, whether they became public servants, or spokesmen for God. His lectures on rhetoric become famous, and he has been considered America’s only important rhetorical theorist of the nineteenth century.


Benjamin Silliman: Father of American Science

Silliman believed that not science but only God’s word could reveal God’s mercy. “In Nature, in God’s creation, we discover only laws, [but] there is associated with natural laws no system of mercy; that dispensation is not revealed in Nature, and is contained in the Scriptures alone.”


Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet: Friend to the Deaf

A few years ago, Hollywood released a movie about the deaf, describing them as “Children of a Lesser god.” Fortunately, Thomas H. Gallaudet (Yale, 1805), the man who started education for deaf-mutes in this country, would not have agreed with this characterization. His pupils were to him “immortal souls,” created by the same God who made the hearing. He longed to give them knowledge of Jesus the Savior.


Lord Shaftesbury: God’s Reformer

The room was large, but filling up rapidly. In it were nearly four hundred thieves of every description, from elegant dandies in black coats and white neckcloths, to scarred, fierce-looking toughs without shirts and stockings. Several of the most notorious and experienced stood by the door to deny entrance to any who were not professional criminals. Only two law-abiding citizens were admitted: Thomas Jackson, a London city missionary, and Lord Ashley, heir to the Earldom of Shaftesbury.


From Grace Note to Symphony: The Life of William E. Dodge

The life of William E. Dodge was the score of such a symphony, developed by a Composer of infinite care and grace. Its theme could only have been played upon a human heart that had answered Jesus’ “Come, follow me” with a simple Yes.


Horace Tracy Pitkin: Yale’s First Martyr

Horace Tracy Pitkin lived thirty years. Yet from the time he entered Yale as a freshman in 1888 until 1900 when he died as a martyr in China, Pitkin accomplished more in “twelve glorious years of crowded life” than most people do in a lifetime.


Bill Borden: Challenge to a Consecrated Life

He was only 25 at his death, yet his life was one of great impact. When news of his death was cabled from Egypt, Princeton Seminary declared, “No young man of his age has ever given more to the service of God and humanity!”


Borden of Yale

Millionaire Bill Borden arrived at Yale like any other freshman. But soon his classmates noticed something unusual about him: “He came to college far ahead, spiritually, of any of us. He had already given his heart in full surrender to Christ—had really done it.


Uncle Ken

A century from now, scholars may find themselves asking how many prodigies there were back in the twentieth century named Kenneth Latourette. It will certainly appear that no one man could have left behind the brilliant record of accomplishment to which that name is attached. Dr. Kenneth Scott Latourette was a world-renowned historian, the author of 83 books.


George W. Bush – In His Own Words: A Charge To Keep

What is most controversial about President George W. Bush may not be his narrow victory in the virtually tied election.  The Yale-educated politician has a radical stance in today’s United States of America: he claims to be a born-again believer in Jesus Christ.  Bush has a story of personal conversion, and strives to live his life in alignment with his faith.  Some of his actions and policies proceed from this fact.


From Morningside Heights to the Land of the Morning Calm

When a decision is made to do all that you can for others, what flows from it can exceed expectations. The largest women’s university in the world, which sprang from soil that held no precedent for it is a case in point.