Williams College

Williams College, private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Williamstown, Massachusetts, a town in the Berkshire Hills in the northwestern part of the state. The college opened in 1791 with money bequeathed by Colonel Ephraim Williams, a member of a Massachusetts military regiment based in Williamstown (then West Township). Colonel Williams was killed in 1755 while fighting as a member of the British colonial forces in the French and Indian War. In 1793 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts chartered the school as Williams College. It is the second-oldest college in Massachusetts after Harvard University, which was founded in 1636. Formerly an all-male institution, Williams began admitting women in 1970.

Williams College confers bachelor’s degrees in the liberal arts, the natural and physical sciences, and the fine and performing arts. A number of interdepartmental programs are also offered. Williams awards master’s degrees in art history and development economics. The college’s Center for Development Economics is geared toward the education of experienced economists from developing countries.

The Williams campus covers about 180 hectares (about 450 acres). The college’s library maintains a collection of more than 800,000 volumes, housed in one main library and numerous departmental libraries. The Chapin Library of Rare Books houses more than 45,000 volumes, manuscripts, and prints, including official copies of the four founding documents of the United States: the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Articles of Confederation (1777), the Constitution of the United States (1787), and the Bill of Rights (1791). Williams is home to Hopkins Observatory (built in 1838), the oldest astronomical observatory in the United States. The Williams College Museum of Art, which has more than 10,000 works of art in its permanent collection, is located on campus, and the renowned Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute is nearby. Adjacent to campus is the 1000-hectare (2500-acre) Hopkins Memorial Forest, owned by the college and used for research and recreation.

American educator Mark Hopkins attended Williams from 1822 to 1824, taught there from 1830 to 1887, and served as the college’s president from 1836 to 1872. James Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, graduated from Williams in 1856.

Reviewed by: Reed F. Noss