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SOLOMON CADY HOLLISTER
1891-1982
BY RICHARD N. WHITE
SOLOMON CADY HOLLISTER retired Dean of Engineering and Pro-
fessor Emeritus of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell
University, died on July 6, 1982, at the age of ninety. Dean Hollis-
ter's remarkable career as an engineer and educator spanned more
than six decades. Among his many contributions to American engi-
neering were pioneering developments in structural welding and in
concrete technology. As an educator and administrator, his career
showed bold innovation, with continuous emphasis on the needs of
the engineering profession and how the engineering curriculum
should respond to these needs.
Solomon C. Hollister was born in Crystal Falls, Michigan, on
August 4, 1891, and grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He enrolled
at Washington State University in 1909 and worked his way through
college, taking considerable time off to earn money as a surveyor
and engineer. He transferred to the University of Wisconsin, where
he completed his final year and a half and received the Bachelor of
Science degree in 1916 (and later, in 1932, the Civil Engineering
degree). He entered engineering practice in 1916 and also taught at
the University of Illinois for one year.
In 1918, at the age of twenty-six, he was appointed Chief
Designer and Head of the Research Branch of the Concrete Ship
Section of the U.S. Shipping Board. In this capacity he was respon-
sible for several major innovations in reinforced concrete that led to
the construction of the world's first practical seagoing concrete ves-
121
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
sets. In the 1920s he had a consulting practice in Philadelphia,
designing mainly in reinforced concrete; in 1929 he received the first
Wason Research Medal from the American Concrete Institut
(ACI) for his innovative design, construction, and testing of a skew-
arch bridge built in Chester, Pennsylvania. His other contributions
to concrete technology included development of transit-mixed con-
crete and being a leader in developing standard specifications that
helped evolve this engineering area from empiricism to structural
science.
Dean Hollister had a major role in the design of the 30-foot-
diameter welded steel penstocks for Hoover Dam. Through his
extensive research and consulting activities, he helped produce
many advanced designs for welded steel bridges, boilers, and pres-
sure vessels.
After four years on the faculty at Purdue University, Solomon
Hollister came to Cornell as Professor and Director of the School of
Civil Engineering in 1934. He became Associate Dean and then
Dean of the College of Engineering in 1937, a position he held for
twenty-two years, until his retirement in 1959. He physically and
intellectually rebuilt the College of Engineering and thrust Cornell
into the top echelons of engineering education in the United States.
One major step he initiated was to move the college into a five-year
undergraduate curriculum, strengthening scientific course content
as well as the engineering design and liberal arts electives. He
brought the School of Chemical Engineering into the college and
initiated a new School of Engineering Physics and a Graduate
School of Aeronautical Engineering.
Much of his work in strengthening engineering education at the
national level was done through his chairmanship of various com-
mittees of the Engineers"{oint Council for Professional Develop-
ment. While leading the American Society for Engineering
Education (ASEE), he established a committee that in 1955 pro-
duced a major study, known as the Grinter Report, which outlined
~ . . . . . .
tuture Innovations In engineering education.
As a development officer at Cornell, Solomon Hollister was an
outstanding success; he raised funds to build an entire new engineer-
ing campus during his tenure as Dean of Engineering. For a period
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SOLOMON CADY HOLLISTER
123
after World War II he was Vice-President of Development as well as
Dean. After his retirement in 1959, he maintained an active role in
professional and educational affairs, particularly at Cornell as a Uni-
versity Trustee (1959-1964) and as a member of the Engineering
College Council until his death.
Dean Hollister had a unique capability to undertake difficult
problems that impacted on the public sector. This breadth of interest
and capability was recognized by requests for his assistance through-
out his life, such as service on the Second Hoover Commission on
the reorganization of the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government;
chairmanship of the Board of Consultants on the Isthmian Canal
Study; member of a Defense Department committee of business and
scientific leaders to advise the National Security Council on defense
systems; and a member of the Steering Committee for the study of
Africa south of the Sahara undertaken by the National Academy of
Sciences. He also served as a member of many other professional
and public commissions, giving freely of his precious time for these
important national activities. Of these experiences, he especially
treasured the friendship he developed with Herbert Hoover during
and after their work on the Second Commission. He admired
Hoover particularly as an engineer-become-public-servant. The
admiration was reciprocal; as Hoover wrote for an event honoring
Solomon Hollister, "He is a great engineer, he is a superb teacher,
and he knows more about our government than any engineer I
know."
Solomon Hollister was elected to the National Academy of Engi-
neering in 1973. He was also named to the Hall of Fame of Engi-
neering Education of the ASEE. He served as President of the
American Concrete Institute in the early 1930s, President of ASEE
in 1951, and was the recipient of the Lamme Award of ASEE in
1952.
Solomon Hollister was awarded honorary Doctor of Engineering
degrees from Stevens Institute of Technology, Purdue University,
and Lehigh University, and an honorary Doctor of Science degree
from the University of Wisconsin. He was elected to honorary mem-
bership in no fewer than six national professional societies: Ameri-
can Society of Civil Engineers, American Society for Mechanical
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
Engineers, American Concrete Institute, American Institute of
Architects, American Society for Engineering Education, and
American Association for the Advancement of Science. To be so
honored by civil engineers, mechanical engineers, and architects
reflects the unique breadth of this man. He received the Turner
Medal of ACI in 1979, and his last award came in the spring of
1982, when he received Washington State University's Alumni
Achievement Award for "brilliance and boldness in pioneering
the field of reinforced concrete, and in bringing prominence to his
profession. "
Dean Hollister contributed articles to several handbooks and texts
and wrote many technical papers and articles on structural mechan-
ics, structural engineering, construction materials, and educational
matters. He consulted with numerous companies and was a Director
of Raymond International, Inc. In one of his many and varied
hobbies, paleontology, he achieved professional status. He was a
Research Associate and President of the Paleontological Research
Institute in Ithaca and contributed scientific papers and one book to
the literature of this field.
Solomon Cady Hollister was a famous man, a distinguished man,
a good man, a man of great achievements; to those who knew him
well, he was a Renaissance man. He was an artist, a paleontologist,
a musician, an analyst, an avid reader and collector of rare books, a
creative designer, a visionary educator, a most effective promoter,
and a great engineer of truly uncommon breadth. We have lost a
good friend and a patient adviser.
Dean Hollister is survived by Ada, his wife of sixty-three years; by
three children, ten grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
solomon hollister
