Andrew Dickson White

Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) was an American historian, educator and diplomat. With the businessman Ezra Cornell he founded Cornell University and served as its first president from 1866 to 1885, building it as a nonsectarian institution open to practical and scientific studies. He later represented the United States as minister to Germany and to Russia, as ambassador to Germany, and as head of the American delegation to the Hague Peace Conference of 1899. His History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, expanded over decades from an 1869 lecture, made his conflict thesis famous.