Messenger Lectures


The Messenger Lectures are a prestigious series of talks given by leading scholars and public figures at Cornell University. They were founded in 1924 by a gift from Hiram Messenger of "a fund to provide a course of lectures on the Evolution of Civilization for the special purpose of raising the moral standard of our political, business, and social life", to be "delivered by the ablest non-resident lecturer or lecturers obtainable". The lecture series has been described as one of Cornell's most important of extracurricular activities.
Initially a series of twelve lectures per year, there are now either three or six lectures by one speaker each semester.
Archeologist James Henry Breasted delivered the first series of Messenger Lectures in 1925.

Hiram Messenger

Dr. Hiram John Messenger Jr was from Hartford, Connecticut and graduated from Cornell in 1880. He was a teacher of mathematics Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of the City of New York and an actuary of the Traveler's Insurance Company. The gift he left to Cornell was part of $4,000 mentioned in his will and a portion of his estate goes to Cornell each year. He was himself the youngest son of Hiram J. Messenger, a mercantile businessman and owner of banks.

The lectures

There have been over 80 talks given since 1924, the most famous of which is probably Richard Feynman's 7 lecture series in 1964, The Character of Physical Law, the videos of which were bought and made available to the public by Bill Gates in 2009.
A partial listing of some of the lecturers over the years is provided in Cornell's Messenger Lectures brochure as: