April 27, 1966

“Oh, some speak very softly, and some are most polite,

And some will make concessions, and admit you may be right,

But I’m for disputation, and a good old fashioned fight,

Says that rough, tough wreckster, J. H. Hexter.”

Quoted in “Historian J. H. Hexter dies at the age of 86,” http://wupa.wustl.edu/record_archive/1996/12-12-96/6978.html

The Thompson lectureship, given by an anonymous donor, honored American historian C. Mildred Thompson ’03, who taught in the history department from 1910 until 1923, when she became Vassar’s dean, a position she held until her retirement in 1948. Dean Thompson died in 1975.