Abraham Flexner

On this date in 1866, Abraham Flexner, one of the founders of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, was born in Louisville, Kentucky. Flexner himself was originally a high-school educator who was interested in different approaches to education and who was highly critical of many aspects of American higher education and pushed for education reform at levels from primary school through graduate and professional schools. Because of his activism, he was approached by Louis Bamberger and Caroline Bamberger Fuld, a brother and sister who were dedicated philanthropists. With their financial support, Flexner founded the Institute for Advanced Study in 1930 and began recruiting mathematicians and physicists, many of whom were fleeing Europe at the time. The initial recruits included Albert Einstein, Hermann Weyl, John von Neumann, Oswald Veblen, and James Alexander.

Date in History: 13 November 1866