Frank Aydelotte

Who was Frank Aydelotte?

Franklin Ridgeway Aydelotte was a U.S. educator. He is known for redefining Swarthmore College as an institution while he was president between 1921 and 1940 and was also the director of the Institute for Advanced Study from 1939 until 1947.

Aydelotte was born in a small town in Sullivan County, Indiana, the son of William Ephraim Aydelotte and Matilda Brunger Aydelotte, and attended Indiana University where he was an English major, a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity, earned a varsity letter in football and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1911. After graduation he became an English professor first at a teaching college in California, Pennsylvania, then at Vincennes University and Louisville Male High School in Louisville, Kentucky. He became one of the first Rhodes Scholars and studied at Brasenose College, Oxford University.