Joseph Pomeroy Widney

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Joseph P. Widney during his tenure as President of USC

Joseph Pomeroy Widney, M.D. (1841-1938) was a medical doctor and the second President of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. He held office from 1892 to 1895. Prior to that, he was the first dean of the USC College of Medicine. He was the brother of Robert Maclay Widney, who was also involved with USC.

After his tenure at USC, Widney and Dr. Phineas F. Bresee, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, co-founded the Church of the Nazarene in Los Angeles, California. Their primary purpose was to bring the gospel to the poor and underprivileged. Widney came up with the name for the new church. He explained the choice of the name had come to him one morning after spending the whole night in prayer. He said that the word "Nazarene" symbolized "the toiling, lowly mission of Christ. It was the name that Christ used of Himself, the name which was used in derision of Him by His enemies, the name which above all others linked Him to the great toiling, struggling, sorrowing heart of the world. It is Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth to whom the world in its misery and despair turns, that it may have hope" (Called Unto Holiness, Volume I).

In her book Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding (2005), Alexandra Minna Stern describes that Widney was similar to many other prominent Californians of his time, such as David Starr Jordan or Paul Popenoe, in espousing eugenic opinions. Stern notes that Widney published a book in 1907, Race Life and the Aryan Peoples. In this book (direct quote from Stern, p.129), Widney "saw Anglo colonization west of the Mississippi as a triumphant procession that had begun centuries ago in Eurasia. From this distant region, the Aryan began his journey to the New World and eventually to Los Angeles, which, he argued, would become the world capital of white domination. . . .in 1935, then in his nineties, he (Widney) wrote The Three Americas, reasserting his previous predictions of Aryan ascendancy."

[edit] References

Rand, Carl Wheeler. Joseph Pomeroy Widney : physician and mystic / by Carl W. Rand ; edited by Doris Sanders. Los Angeles : Printed by Anderson, Ritchie & Simon, c1970. vii, 133 p. : ill., facsims., ports. ; 24 cm. (available at USC library)
Stern, Alexandra Minna. Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding , by Alexandra Minna Stern. Berkeley and Los Angeles, Calif., University of California Press [2005], p.129.
Widney, Joseph Pomeroy.. Life and its problems, as viewed by a blind man at the age of ninety-six, by Joseph Widney; edited by T. Cameron Taylor. Hollywood, Calif., Joseph P. Widney Publications [1941?] 4 p. *., 215, [1] p. front. (port.), plate. 24 cm.
Widney, Joseph Pomeroy, 1841-1938. Race Life of the Aryan Peoples, by Joseph Widney. New York, Funk & Wagnells [1907].
Widney, Joseph Pomeroy, 1841-1938. The Three Americas: Their Racial Past and the Dominant Racial Factors of their Future, by Joseph Widney. Los Angeles, Pacific Pub. Co. [1935]
Widney, Joseph Pomeroy, 1841-1938. Civilizations and their diseases and Rebuilding a wrecked world civilization, by Joseph Widney. Los Angeles, Pacific Pub. Co. [1937] 2 v. in 1. front. (port.) pl. 24 cm.
History of USC, USC.edu