Hunter Laboratory

Hunter Laboratory of Psychology, named for Walter S. Hunter, chairman of the psychology department from 1936 to 1954, was dedicated on November 1, 1958. The building had been made possible through a gift of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. in 1955 and a federal grant of $400,000 from the United States Public Health Service. The square building, 106 by 106 feet, was designed by Perry, Shaw, Hepburn and Dean, and built by Gilbane Building Company. When it was built, it was described as “modified Georgian,” and some were offended by the blank walls of the windowless first floor facing Waterman Street. The functional reason for the design was to provide the psychology laboratories with controlled illumination. The 228-seat lecture room on the ground floor was named the Leonard Carmichael Auditorium in honor of the department chairman from 1927 to 1936, and the seminar room on the second floor was named in honor of Professor Edmund Burke Delabarre, who founded Brown’s psychology laboratory in 1892. It was the first new academic building constructed on the campus in twenty years. Carmichael was the main speaker at the dedication, which also featured a symposium by former members of the department Clarence H. Graham, Donald B. Lindsley and Joseph McVicker Hunt. As part of the dedication ceremonies honorary degrees were awarded to Joseph McVicker Hunt, Nils Y. Wessell, Clarence H. Graham, and Donald B. Lindsley, all formerly associated with the Brown Psychology Department.