[Chancellor James Hampton Kirkland, 1859-1939]
Circa 1912-1913
James Kirkland served as the second Chancellor of Vanderbilt University from 1893 to 1937. He pushed for a more progressive, national-scale university than the relatively local institution that Vanderbilt was prior to the 1910s. This required funding from northern benefactors such as Carnegie, who favored non-denominational universities. While Kirkland initially preferred reforming the University's relationship with the Church, by 1910 the Board of Trust essentially blocked the bishops from serving and tensions had reached an insurmountable height. By 1914 the Tennessee State Supreme Court ruled that the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, had no right to the control of Vanderbilt University.
Vanderbilt University Archives