Young's Biology Class (1917)

This lantern slide shows students seated at laboratory tables and peering into microscopes during Professor Young’s Biology Class. They are in the F. M. Kirby Histological Laboratory, located in the southeast basement corner of the library at the International YMCA College, now Springfield College.The histological laboratory was originally located in the basement of Administration Building (then called Old Dormitory). In 1907, it was named the F. M. Kirby Histological Laboratory, after Frederick Morgan Kirby, who donated $800 for microscopes and “a micro-projection apparatus” to Springfield College. Kirby was the vice-president of the Woolworth Company, served on the school’s National Committee, and helped lead the Expansion Fund drive. In 1913, the F. M. Histological Laboratory moved to the southeast corner of the library basement. In 1920, the College Catalogue begins to refer to the laboratory as the F. M. Biological Laboratory, indicating that the name was changed. When Alumni Hall opened in 1927, a $25,000 donation from Kirby allowed the F. M. Biological Laboratory to move into the building’s basement. Donnell Brooks Young (April 25, 1888 – July 28, 1989) was the son of Edward Lorraine Young and Nellie Soule Oakman. Young earned his BS in Biology from Amherst College (1911). He stayed at his alma mater for the next two years as an Assistant in Biology. From 1913 through 1916, he attended Columbia University, and he spent his first two summers as a student at the Marine biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. During his second two summers as a graduate student, he taught Biology during the summer sessions at William and Mary College. His second year as a graduate student, he was hired as an Assistant in Zoology, and he stayed in this position until graduation. One June 21, 1916, he married Helen Hartwell Sewall, and the following fall he was hired to teach Biology at Springfield College. In 1922, Young published “A Contribution to the Morphology and Physiology of the genus Uronychia.”Glass is cracked and corner is missing