UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #240
ELLIOTT, BENJAMIN G.

ELLIOTT, Benjamin G.  1889-1993)
Professor of Mechanical Engineering; Extension
At UW: 1912-1959

Interviewed: 1982	 
Interviewer: Donna Hartshorne
Length: 4.5 hours   

Recollections of childhood in Nebraska; Interest in engineering; Teaching Extension classes; Railroads; Work during WWI; Textbook on gasoline automobile; Mechanical Engineering Department; Industrial research; Dean F. Ellis Johnson; Glenn Frank; Engineers' Day; Engineering personalities; Changes in College of Engineering; University issues; Relationship between Engineering and Agricultural Engineering; Leisure activities.

Tape 1/Side 1  

00:00:01	Born in a very small Nebraska town.  Father a blacksmith from England.  Stayed there until left to go to high school in 1906.  Worked for Union Pacific Railroad as machinist during summers.  1910, after graduating from high school, worked for Allis Chalmers in Milwaukee for about 6 or 7 months.  Story about why he returned to Nebraska to go to college.  Went to Rhodes Polytechnic in Nebraska.  

00:03:45	Various anecdotes about Bill Cody.  He lived in same town and knew him.  

00:25:20	Naturally interested in engineering because of father's work and own work with railroads etc.  Worked on development of the diesel train.  Ran one of the engines for a while.  Story about his running into a passenger train.  

00:28:40	Masters at Rhodes Polytech.  Came to UW September 1, 1912.  Helped develop Moliere diagram.  

00:30:14	End of side. 

Tape 1/Side 2

00:30:16	His first contact with Extension; Louis Reber.  Dean of Extension asked John Mack if there was anyone who could handle an extension class on the internal combustion engine.  Mack recommended Elliott, who gave classes all over Wisconsin-- Janesville, Beloit, even in Waupun prison.  Anecdote about bumping into a former Waupun inmate in Chicago's Union Station.  

00:32:16	More on Extension work.  Sent to Milwaukee to start up the Milwaukee Center.  Worked for United States Shipping Board during WWI building freighters in Hog Island, south of Illinois.  Then sent back to the Great Lakes and Manitowoc to help train welders, etc.  Got interested in the internal combustion engine because he was working to try and integrate it with the railroad engine. 

00:35:45	Railroads used the steam engine before that.  Had much experience with steam engines when he was younger.  Wrote a textbook about the gasoline automobile because there were none then.  Published about 500,000 copies in many translations, including Russian.  Problem of accuracy of machine tools that built parts for the internal combustion engine.  Had to be essentially custom-made to fit.  Great mistake to let our railroads go to pot like we have.  Trains still a part of the life in Europe.  

00:41:54	Contest between the two rail lines that ran from Chicago to Denver.  The contract was awarded to the fastest.  The lines were the Union Pacific and the Burlington.  People watched those contests like people today watch football.  

00:43:10	Discussion of trains vs airplanes for transportation.  

00:45:40	What department was like when BE first joined.  

00:46:47	Relationship with industry.  

00:48:10	Initiation of short conferences.  

00:48:40	Involved in National Society of Mechanical Engineers.  

00:49:00	Three terms as national vice-president of N.S.M.E.  

00:49:15	Mrs. Gilbert commemorative stamp.  Discussion on Mrs. Gilbert.  

00:52:45	Facilities, research facilities.  

00:53:12	Change in attitudes on Extension's industrial research. 

00:55:05	Slow development in industrial research interest and UW.

00:55:30	The largest industry in the state.  

00:56:25	BE worked for Extension and the UW at the same time.  

00:57:08	College of Engineering.  Mack in charge of machine design.  Civil, hydraulic and electrical.  Mechanical, gas and steam engineering. 
 
00:58:00	Torkelson in charge of steam and gas.
  
00:58:25	Interdepartmental cooperation within Engineering.  

00:59:00	Problem areas.  

00:59:33	Controversy with Dean Johnson.  Brought apples to a faculty meeting and said that it was good that everyone was there because half of the faculty would be fired next time.  

01:01:18	End of tape. 

Tape 2/Side 1   

00:00:01	Problems with Dean Johnson.  Faculty repercussions at his election as dean.  Professor Edward Bennett.  

00:01:30	Dean Johnson noted good turnout at faculty meeting and stated that half of the faculty would be gone by that time next year.  Dean Johnson didn't know much about the tenure system.   He was under the impression that he could hire and fire anyone he wanted to.  The faculty didn't appreciate Johnson's activities and intentions.  They felt that he was working against them.  

00:03:27	Dykstra's attitude against College of Engineering.  Origins of this attitude.  Split faculty into two groups--those for and against Dean Johnson.  Culminated in President Fred being authorized to ask Board of Regents to dismiss Johnson as Dean of Engineering.  

00:05:30	Professor Bennett's attitude about the way Dykstra and Johnson had handled a lot of things.

00:06:06	Faculty groups didn't get salary increases if they didn't support Johnson, who felt he could get his way by threatening people.  What he did in Iowa State to coerce the faculty.  

00:07:12	Dykstra had some "detective" keeping an eye on what the anti-Johnson faculty meetings did.  Elliott invited Dykstra to come to the meetings himself rather than to send someone else.  

00:08:07	BE and his contacts with Dean Johnson.  He tried to make life miserable by saying he would kick him out of his office etc.  

00:09:30	Background information on Regents' efforts to find a successor to President Dykstra [he may mean President Birge]. Zona Gale, a Regent from Portage, was with the original party of Regents that talked to Roscoe Pound, then Dean of Harvard Law School.  Had offered the job to him and he had accepted.  Gale then went back to Cambridge and asked Pound if he realized that the Regents and not the president would have the actual power in the University.  When Pound found out that he was supposed to be subservient to the LaFollettes he didn't want anything to do with the job.  

00:13:38	BE had dinner with Glenn Frank the night before he was killed in Wisconsin Dells.  BE knew him rather well.  Anecdote about Frank and Louis Kahlenberg.  Story about Louis Kahlenberg. During WWI he was almost fired because he was German.  

00:17:19	Didn't know very much about the Experimental College. 

00:18:24	Trying to get more of the "liberal courses" in College of Engineering.  "Contemporary Trends" course development.  

00:19:05	Farrington Daniels; comments. 

00:20:14	Glenn Frank was a master speech maker.  BE feels that he would have been elected to the Senate if he had not been killed.

00:21:40	BE was in the University Club eating breakfast on the morning that it was announced that WWI had started. 

00:22:44	New engineering building.  Visited many engineering societies to try to get financial backing to help build the needed building.  Talked a person into donating a needed crane.  

00:26:30	Story about an instructor who got his coat caught in a flywheel of a machine in the lab and was killed in the old mechanical engineering building.  

00:27:53	The present engineering building is a good practical building.  Some remodeling is being done to suit the department's changing needs.  

00:29:05	Danny Mead helped to build Hoover Dam.  He would go there, take photos and then show then to his classes the next day.  

00:29:50	Emma Goldman controversy.

00:30:17	End of side. 

Tape 2/Side 2

00:30:22	BE heard Glenn Frank speak for the first time in the Red Gym.  Discussion of the present renovations of the Red Gym.  

00:31:50	Emma Goldman was an anarchist and people didn't think she should speak.  There was a lot of anti-anarchist feeling at the time.  BE thinks she was allowed to speak, but he didn't attend.

00:33:25	All faculty meetings used to be in the old Law Building.  Howard Smith put life into the faculty meetings.  Picture of him in the University Club.  

00:34:25	Story about Mark Ingraham and BE in the governor's office lobbying about something [very choppy and unclear in this whole section].  The state was apparently not making their part of the contribution to the University's retirement fund.  They were making bad land investments in land.  

00:38:35	BE and his activities in connection with the University's Centennial Celebration.  He traveled for the Alumni Association.

00:39:31	Engineers Day and its beginnings.  Recognizing alumni and faculty and their contributions.  Of the first four men who received the award, three were Wisconsin graduates from Wisconsin Electric Power.  The Pro Arte Quartet was the entertainment.  Some problems with the musicians union in getting them to play.  Perterello and the union people and finally came to an agreement.  One or two of the members of the Quartet resigned from the union in protest.

00:44:45	Several regents, the president of the University, and the Governor was there.  Engineers Day has continued ever since.  

00:47:15	Engineering Experiment Station.  BE had little contact with it.  Relationship between mechanical engineering and engineering extension.  A company would have a particular problem and ask if some graduate student or faculty member could work on the problem in return for a donation.  Benjamin Reynolds.  

00:51:08	Short courses.  Faculty would participate and companies would send people and donate money.  Extension takes over most of this now.

00:52:47	Law-Engineering rivalry on St. Patrick's Day.  

00:54:52	Dean Russell was the one who felt he had to put a stop to the St. Patricks Day parade and all the destruction that was involved with it.  

00:56:05	Anecdote about a Baraboo judge, Robert Golmar.  

00:57:34	Contact with industry had been very good for the state and the University.  

00:59:45	Attitude of students much more serious today.  

01:00:45	Good relations between different branches of engineering.  BE voted into chairmanship one year while he was away.   

01:01:43	End of tape. 

Tape 3/Side 1   

00:00:05	During the War, while he was chairman, problems of a great influx of students, cramped quarters, low money and good instructors.  The three divisions within the College of Engineering were shop, steam and gas, and machine design.  Each division had one faculty man over it.  

00:01:23	Pat Hyland's strong personality caused a little irritation now and then. 
 
00:02:00	Comments on a staff member tearing down the R.O.T.C. signs.  FBI knew about him; he was fired and moved to Milwaukee.  

00:02:50	Brilliant staff member who was a member of Communist Party of China.  Best teacher.  Named Hsu.  Always seemed to have a lot of money.  He left suddenly but not necessarily voluntarily.  Fine family.  

00:05:30	Supposed he was a spy.  He was at MIT before he came to UW. He also had trouble there.  Anecdote about a Christmas present that he received from him years later.  

00:07:55	Hsu dropped off his cat at BE's house on his way out of town.  Anecdote about finding an illegal case of beer on campus outside the door of the engineering building.  

00:09:20	Changes in progress.  Shifts from practice to more theoretical education.  Sort of a problem now because industries are finding it difficult to train young engineers because they lack the practical knowledge. 

00:12:15	Many faculty jobs available for engineering students because so many graduate students are going into private sector because of more money.  

00:14:00	Research vs teaching.  New faculty are hired by the amount of money he/she can bring with them for research grants.  "Publish or perish" compulsion. 
 
00:16:25	Went to a college where the best of the senior faculty would teach incoming freshmen and sophomores.  Situation now almost reversed with TAs teaching lower level classes.  

00:17:13	Best people nowadays are not going into teaching, but into research or business. 

00:18:14	Job market for engineers is dropping off because industry is finding out it is too expensive to train the essentially green young engineers with no practical experience.  

00:19:25	No problem recruiting students now.  But used to recruit quite extensively.  

00:20:22	Everybody now primarily interested in money.  

00:22:18	Changes in programs.  Fundamental change was that an engineer used to have to go out and do things.  Now it is almost pure theory.  Great interest in research. 

00:24:13	An instructor who practically started the insulation with asbestos.  Withey's work on concrete beams. 

00:25:16	Story about a man who accepted a teaching job at Wisconsin without even asking about salary or anything.  

00:26:16	Story about a student who had forged BE's name on a document. 

00:28:05	Teaching BE's primary engineering interest.  High schools are very deficient in teaching of mathematics, physics etc. 

00:30:23	Journalists are the best writers. 

00:31:18	End of side. 

Tape 3/Side 2  

00:31:20	Engineering department used to have 77 labs, and a great emphasis on developing internal combustion engine. 

00:32:08	Liked to teach undergraduates more than graduate students. 

00:33:41	In the power plant field and there still are not many graduate students.

00:34:57	Once he was in New York and the people there asked him to do some investigating and write up his findings on the problem of water glass breakage in power plants.  Water glasses were water level indicators.  Pyrex later came along and solved the problem of high pressure, high temperature water. 

00:36:58	BE was on accreditation committee of the International Engineers Joint Councils.  He was severely criticized by a number of institutions because he insisted that the instructors know how to do what they are teaching. 

00:38:50	BE's teaching and research.  Primary interest was in teaching; he did very little research.  Very interested in all his students.  He had some students come to see him in the middle of the night about some personal problem. 

00:40:54	Particularly interested in the power industry.  An Indian minister of railways came over and spent some time and he expressed an interest in seeing a power plant, and his shock at seeing the head of the plant (a former student of BE's) in his shirt sleeves repairing a turbine. 

00:43:15	Indian students didn't want to do manual labor in the machine shops. 

00:45:45	Background of the model of the Curliss engine that the UW used to have.  Very effective for use in power plants.  Explanation of its functioning. 

00:50:13	Used for driving turbines.  Still a large number of Curliss engines. 

00:52:53	Model of the engine had been preserved and is now in the Milwaukee Museum. 

00:54:20	Wisconsin Utilities Association citation. 

00:56:02	Committees during E. B. Fred's presidency on Communist speakers on campus.  Members of the committee. 

00:57:38	A budget amputation meeting that was held every morning for about a month at 7:00 a.m. in E.B. Fred's office.  Salary reductions.  Ray Penn made the final motion for a 4 1/2% decrease in salaries. 

00:59:27	Retirement committee with Mark Ingraham.  State Teachers Retirement Board.  Two people from public schools, two from state colleges and two from the University were on the committee. Problem with teachers saying that they were older than they really were to help get them the teaching job, and then later not wanting to retire when they actually weren't of age yet. 

01:02:36	End of tape. 

Tape 4/Side 1  

00:00:01	Discussion of the State Teachers Retirement plan. 

00:01:25	In the First National Bank Building in beginning but later moved to Johnson Street.

00:03:15	Indian program.  Merton Barry ran the Mexican program.  Arranged the visits to places and industries for the Indians who came here. 

00:04:44	He was most involved in the Indian program.  Villemonte, Roy Lindberg. 

00:06:54	Mechanical engineering and WARF relations.  Have supported it but not aware of any particulars. 

00:07:40	BE's brother instrumental in starting Wisconsin High School.  Interested in training teachers; Miller, who was principal.  Details on brother. 

00:10:43	John Guy Fowlkes in School of Education. 

00:12:30	BE's activities since retirement; one of Kiwanis Club's founding members.  Raising money for many different charities.

00:17:30	Masonic Temple activities.  Joined 68 years ago.  Supports children's burn hospitals, medical research and also has lots of fun.  Best dining room in the state. 

00:20:58	Power conference.  Promote interest of electric utilities Reading of various citations from different organizations. 

00:26:30	Glenn Frank brought here by the liberal element in Board of Regents.  Anti-LaFollette resolution during the war (WWI).  BE told that the LaFollettes wanted to punish the faculty for opposing his pacifist stand during the war. 

00:29:45	Louis Kahlenberg was opposed to the war and there was much pressure to force him off the faculty.  The Board of Visitors stopped his firing.

00:31:26	End of side. 

Tape 4/Side 2

00:31:38	Image of College of Engineering was not very good around the state in 1930s.  A faculty committee was organized to improve it.  BE assigned to visit industries etc.  Engineers Day a direct consequence of this. 

00:32:37	A group of faculty members traveled the state when Withey was dean, visiting high schools to try and foster an interest in engineering among prospective students. 

00:34:00	John Mack was acting dean of College of Engineering when BE first came to UW.  He invited BE to his house for dinner on his first night in Madison. 

00:36:20	Knew President Van Hise fairly well.  Story about Van Hise lecturing to the Senate and pulling the bills apart.  He was very effective in getting what he wanted for the University.  Supposedly the first graduate of the College of Engineering. 

00:38:29	E.B. Fred was president during BE's chairmanship.  Richard McCaffery in mining and metallurgy worked closely with him.  Knew Kurt Wendt when he was a student. 

00:40:49	Story about a speech Charlie Burgess made to faculty. 

00:42:33	Dean Withey was a lifesaver for the College of Engineering after the Johnson episode.  Withey got all the votes from the faculty except his own. 

00:44:00	Relations between ag. engineering and regular engineering. 

00:45:34	Discussion of ag. engineering.  Floyd Duffee organized a talk on redesigning the cow. 

00:49:40	Anecdote about Ray Allen's horse and the mess it would cause during the day. 

00:51:30	A streetcar that jumped the tracks.
 
00:53:10	President Birge story. 

00:54:05	BE's hobbies: Bill Cody lore, railroading, visiting all national parks and state capitals, in both Canada and the U.S.

00:59:03	Roy Nichols in Vet. Sciences was a fishing buddy of his. 

01:00:41	Circus Fan Association member.

01:02:24	End of tape. 

Tape 5/Side 1  

00:00:01	Continuation of Circus Fan Association discussion. 

00:01:27	A French exchange student who knew all about Bill Cody. 

00:02:28	The 630 gang.  Story.

00:03:45	High school bell story. 

00:06:45	Walked every street in New York City from the Battery to the Bronx. 

00:09:23	Plan for the city to buy the Madison Gas and Electric corporation.  Evjue and the newspapers pushing it on the public.  Evjue got some of the faculty members to write letters to the editors favoring the plan.  Agard was one who wrote to the  Capital Times.  BE challenged his statements and was able to prove that his assumptions were not based on fact. 

00:15:38	First met Evjue when he was a member of the State Senate. 

00:16:19	John Hunter is a friend of his from Capital Times. 

00:16:37	End of interview

END