William S. Vaughn

William Scott Vaughn was born on December 8, 1903, in Kansas City, Missouri.[1][2] His grandfather, William J. Vaughn, was a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and later at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee; the Vaughn Home on the Vanderbilt campus is named after him.[1] His aunt, Stella Vaughn, pioneered women's athleticism at Vanderbilt University.[1] His father, Harry Vaughn, worked as a dentist in Kansas City until he moved back to Nashville to become a businessman and bird collector; his bird collection was later donated to the Adventure Science Museum (previously known as the Nashville Children's Museum or the Cumberland Science Museum).[1][2] William, his parents, and his two brothers, Charles and Houghton, lived on 24th Avenue, a few street away from his paternal grandfather's home.[1] Later, they moved to a farm in the affluent suburb of Brentwood, Tennessee.[1]

He was educated at the Robertson Academy, where he skipped the eighth grade, and at the Hume-Fogg High School in Nashville.[1] He went on to graduate from Vanderbilt University in 1923, where he studied German and Mathematics and he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and Class Poet.[1] He was then a Rhodes scholar at the Christ Church, a constituent college of the University of Oxford, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics.[1][2]

He started his career in the development department of Kodak in 1928.[1][2][3] From 1942 to 1943, during the Second World War, he worked for the War Production Board in Washington, D.C.[2][3] He returned to Kodak.[2] He became President and Director of the Eastman Chemical Products, a Kodak subsidiary, in 1956.[2] He then served as the President of Eastman Kodak from 1960 to 1967 and Chairman from 1967 to 1970.[1][2][3][4][5] During his tenure, he committed to the training and employment of more African-Americans.[5] He served on its board of directors until 1973.[2][3]

Additionally, he served on the Boards of Directors of TRW Inc., Procter & Gamble and the Lincoln First Bank.[2]

He sat on the Board of Trustees of his alma mater, Vanderbilt University, from 1952 to 1995, and as its President from 1968 to 1975.[1][6] In 1985, together with his brother Houghton he donated $350,000 to restore the Vaughn Home on the Vanderbilt campus.[1] In 1991, he donated an additional $150,000 to the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, a research center named for Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989) at Vanderbilt University.[1] The William S. Vaughn Visiting Professorship at Vanderbilt University is now named in his honor.[7]

He also served on the board of trustees of the University of Rochester as well as chairman of the board of directors of the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School.[1][2] Additionally, he served as a trustee of the George Eastman House, the Eastman School of Music and the YMCA in Rochester, New York.[2]

A supporter of Civil Rights for African-Americans, he sat on the National Council of the United Negro College Fund and he was a member of the Rochester chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).[1][2]

He was married to Elizabeth Harper Vaughn, whom he met through his German Professor, George Pullen Jackson (1874–1953), at Vanderbilt University, after the latter suggested he tutor her in German.[1][2] They got married in 1928 in Rochester, New York, where they resided.[1] Later, they resided at 258 Buckland Avenue in Brighton, New York.[2][8]

He died on September 20, 1996, in Brighton, New York.[2][3]