James F. McClelland

James F. McClelland graduated from Columbia School of Mines in 1900. Except for two years as a mining engineer in Nevada, he taught geology and mining until 1917. During this period he served successively on the faculties of the Universities of Wyoming, Columbia, Stanford, and Yale, where he received an honorary M.A. degree.

After the First World War—he served in the Signal Corps—he gave up teaching, in which he had a distinguished record, and became consulting engineer to the Liberty Bank of New York; from there he went to the New York Trust Company, and then to the Chemical Bank. In 1931 he joined Phelps Dodge Corporation as a vice-president and director, and became a member of the company’s executive committee; and there he continued until he retired in 1952.

This is a very interesting performance. There are plenty of Centurions who have withdrawn from the marts of trade to enter monasteries, or libraries, or laboratories; but it is a rare bird who starts a career in the cloistered halls of learning and then bursts into Wall Street. It is provoking to speculate on what he thought of banks and bankers, of high pressure executives, of the solemn platitudes that go for wisdom among the midgets. But we shall never know. Though he belonged to the Club for forty-two years, even [head hallman William] Daniel cannot remember ever seeing him come in.

George W. Martin
1956 Century Association Yearbook