Yale Class of '52
Artists & Authors

G. Dennis O'Brien
Yale 1952
Ph.D. University of Chicago 1961

Dennis 's distinguished academic career started at Princeton as an “appointed, sight unseen, non-PhD philosophy instructor, progressed to Dean at Middlebury, before becoming President of Bucknell in 1976, then to President of the University of Rochester in 1984. He describes his entry into the world of academia thusly in the 1952 fiftieth reunion class book Time and Change: “ I majored in English at Yale because I figured I at least spoke the language. After Yale my parents moved next to the University of Chicago, so it seemed convenient to take some graduate courses as a delay in to the 'real' world. I never emerged.”

On display from the Sterling Library are four of his publications:

Hegel on Reason and History: A Contemporary Interpretation (1975)

God and the New Haven Railroad - And Why Neither Is Doing Very Well (1986 Boston: Beacon Press)

“The title of this book was a direct product of the 25th Reunion of the Class of '52. At the conclusion of the event, I took a train to New York from New Haven.

...I recalled the station as a rather grandiose classical structure in marble. Twenty- five years later, that building was closed, abandoned, boarded up. All that remained were miserable sheds for arrivals and departures. It struck me that the state of the station (railroad) and religion were analogous: formerly grand structures leading to exciting trips to exotic locales now reduced to arrivals and departures-if that!”

“The metaphorical role of the New Haven Railway is like that now-defunct line: life is subject to repeated delays, cancellations and breakdowns, e.g. death... Religion is the response to life's unfixable fixes; it is humanity's Chapter 11.”

All The Essential Half-Truths About Higher Education (1998)

Walfredo Toscanini
Yale 1952
Yale Architecture School 1955

Walfredo submits two items for our exhibit. First, a photo-biography of his grandfather, Arturo Toscanini, co-authored with John W. Freeman (Yale '50). He calls attention to some of the pages that depict the tour that his grandfather took with the NBC orchestra. The tour went from New Orleans to Texas, California, Oregon, Washington and Colorado. Walfredo went along for three weeks returning to Yale for his sophomore final exams. He exclaimed ”I got away with it!”

Second, the architectural piece he presents was an exercise he was assigned while at the Yale Architecture School: A colored rendering of a structure to house a “Farmers Market.” Having been dissatisfied with some of his previous efforts to represent space, he reflected on his courses, and particularly what he had learned in Josef Albers Art School courses about colors.

“It occurred to me that most people would feel more relaxed within a space that was a recreation of their daily experience outdoors in a natural setting.” Using this as a concept, he rendered the illustrated project and was satisfied.

Dwight F. Rettie
Yale 1952

Our National Park Service: Caring for America's Greatest Natural and Historic Treasures (1995 Urbana: University of Illinois Press)

With a forward by Stewart L. Udall, this book, now in its third printing, is a comprehensive study of what has been described as one of America's greatest ideas-- its National Parks. This book was written by Dwight after he spent the last third of his career working for the National Park Service, the agency charged with the responsibility for managing the system. It is a loving, critical, in-depth study of the National Park System, its history, institutions, resources, problems and opportunities.

This book was characterized by Professor Robin W. Winks of Yale's History Department as “The Best Book on the Subject in 30 Years.”

In 1998-1999 Dwight and his wife, Karen took eleven months to travel from North Carolina to Alaska and back, visiting seventy-one units of the National Park Service along the way. The notes he took on this trip will be the basis for another book on the subject of national parks.