Maxwell History
George Holmes Maxwell was a successful Boston patent attorney, financier, inventor, and shoe manufacturer, and a steadfast defender of democracy, education, and the American Way, as it was defined in the early part of the 20th century. Although distressed with American politics as it was practiced then, Maxwell retained his optimism about the nation’s future.
A Syracuse University graduate (Class of 1888) and member of its board of trustees, Maxwell came to think that the best way to promote "intelligent patriotism" in future generations would be to create a fund of $500,000 for SU to establish a "School of American Citizenship."
"The primary object of this school is to teach good citizenship," said Maxwell at the time of the School's founding, "to cull from every source those principles, facts, and elements which, combined, make up our rights and duties and our value and distinctiveness as United States citizens. This involves the diffusion of good citizenship throughout the entire student body.
In Maxwell’s mind, his college would graduate young people who would teach old-fashioned, patriotic values in their classrooms—what came to be known as “civics.” Frederick Morgan Davenport, a former educator and politician who had signed on as a consultant to the new college, argued for a school that also would graduate trained practitioners in public affairs--young people who could instantly enter government and immediately effect change. The name of the school—the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs—reflected the coexistence of these two often diverse curricular directions, both of which were represented in the same school, thus making Maxwell a singular experiment in higher education in the United States. The singularity of that arrangement continues today.
The Maxwell School of Citizenship formally opened on October 3, 1924. It began with six graduate students in public administration and a mission to teach citizenship to undergraduates in the University’s College of Liberal Arts.
The School quickly outgrew the space it had been allotted, and plans were made to erect a building that the Maxwell School could call its own. In October 1937, Maxwell Hall opened for instruction. Built in the colonial style, the most impressive part of the building was the lobby off the main entrance, a 40–by–70–feet antechamber that would become the most remembered part of Maxwell Hall for all its graduates. It is distinguished by its Ionic columns and dark terrazzo floor, and houses an exact replica of Houdon's life-size figure of George Washington.
A second famous piece of sculpture arrived in 1968, when James Earle Fraser’s bronze cast of Abraham Lincoln was installed on the Maxwell Hall lawn--lowered into place by a 50-foot crane. (The statue of America's 16th president weighs 2,770-pounds.) It is one of the most popular landmarks on the Syracuse University campus today.
While Maxwell was founded to provide public administration and citizenship education, the School now also houses SU's academic departments in the social sciences. This role dates to 1938, when Syracuse University’s graduate-degree programs in the social sciences formally were relocated to the School, and the name Maxwell Graduate School of Citizenship and Public Affairs was adopted. And yet, at the same time, all undergraduate instruction in these disciplines took place through the School. This unique combination of missions still defines the School today.
Over the remaining decades, the Maxwell School grew, serving more and more students. At the same time, the School’s research specialties became increasingly distinct and notable. The 1960s saw a boom in regional studies, particularly in East Africa. By the 1970s, Maxwell’s Metropolitan Studies Program was one of the nation’s chief sources of insight on budget policy and other city-management matters. These are but two examples.
Today, Maxwell is a sponsor or co-sponsor of eight research centers and institutes, which exist to optimize the School’s many scholarly emphases. Metropolitan Studies has been absorbed into the Center for Policy Research. The Program on the Analysis and Resolution of Conflicts was born in 1986, augmenting already strong programs in peace studies and the like. Since the 1990s, centers have been created that focus on global affairs; citizenship and public affairs; environmental policy; technology and information policy; international security and counterterrorism; and politics, media, and the judiciary.
In 1990, the School undertook the $50-million Campaign for Maxwell to provide for an array of programs, professorships, scholarships, and the like; and to fund a new building, recognizing that the Maxwell School’s teaching responsibilities and research efforts had grown exponentially. By late December 1993, the move into the new building, Melvin A. Eggers Hall, was largely completed. Together, the old building and the new created an integrated social science complex, where all Maxwell departments, programs, centers, and institutes were combined under one roof.