Walter Hines Page School of International Relations

The Walter Hines Page School of International Relations was a

The Page School's initial director was the American diplomat John Van Antwerp MacMurray,^[1] who officially stayed in the position until 1936.^[3] The international law scholar Frederick Sherwood Dunn was the school's executive secretary from 1929 to 1935,^[10] and Dunn was effectively head of the school during the mid-1930s when MacMurray was recalled to diplomatic duty in the Baltics.^[5]

Some of the initial emphasis of the school was on European relations.^[4] Perhaps the best-known early work coming out of the Page School was Albert K. Weinberg's 1935 book Manifest Destiny: A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History.^[5] But the school was already running a deficit by 1932,^[4] and failing to acquire new sources of funds and lacking sufficient resources, Dunn departed.^[5]

The Orientalist Owen Lattimore was director of the school from 1939 to 1953,^[11] except for the years 1941 through 1944, which he spent in China.^[4] The staff of the school mostly consisted of senior professors and postdoctoral students.^[12] Under Lattimore, the school's direction changed to a focus upon Oriental studies and especially Sinology.^[5] There was a major effort around 1950 that emphasized Mongolian studies.^[12] One account described the school at this time as "an Asian research bureau",^[4] which was not what the leaders of Johns Hopkins nor Page's heirs had envisioned.^[5]

End

In 1950, Johns Hopkins acquired the previously independent

Meanwhile, McCarthyism had taken hold, and in 1950 attacks were made upon Lattimore as a supposed agent of the Soviet Union which that eventually resulted in Lattimore being indicted on federal charges of perjury in 1952 and having to take a leave of absence from the university.^[3]

Action was taken to "discontinue" the Page School in 1953, as part of what Bronk termed "a series of steps being taken at the university to simplify its academic structure."^[3] Among scholars, views have differed upon the full rationale for the closing of the school. One has stated that the decision had already been made to close the school and that it had nothing to do with the controversies surrounding Lattimore,^[5] with some further academics repeating that contention without necessarily endorsing it.^[13] Another has said that "it seemed to be an expression of criticism of Lattimore" on the part of administration and trustees of Johns Hopkins.^[14] Yet another has suggested that the closure was possibly "intended so to anger Lattimore that he would quit without needing to be fired".^[15] Regardless of the reasons, the closing of the school did not elicit much in the way of protests.^[13] (The perjury charges against Lattimore were subsequently dismissed by the courts or dropped by the government.^[11] While the university never dismissed Lattimore, it effectively lowered his status there, and several years later he departed for a position in England.^[14])

In any case, it has been the general impression that at Johns Hopkins, the Page School was effectively supplanted by SAIS, which subsequently became known as the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.^[9]

References