I have never seen this story about Lewis Mumford told anywhere in spite of my extensive reading of his work and works about him, including his authorized biography. I was disturbed at reading that, which the author agreed not to publish until his and Sophie’s daughter had died, as it told of his affairs. I remember telling the woman I was living with at the time how devastated I was to discover my idol was, well, just human!

When I was deciding on where to go to Graduate School, I mentioned to Lewis Mumford that I had been admitted to Boston University. He said that if I chose to go there, he would like me to be his guest at his seminar at MIT in the spring of ‘74. Since 1957 he had been the Visiting Bemis Professor of Architecture at MIT. You can imagine my excitement at finally meeting him personally.

So there I am in his class at MIT. I recollect there were just a few of us as it was a graduate school seminar. He opened the class by asking us not to call him Dr. Mumford.

“You can call me Professor Mumford or Mr. Mumford, which I prefer. In fact, I do not have a PhD.”

Before proceeding he let that sink in. This was a man who at the time held a professorship in Urban History at Harvard, in Urban Design and Planning at Penn, and at MIT where we were sitting.

He then went on:

“Neither do I have a Master’s. When I went to graduate at CCNY they said I had not taken an English course which was required. I asked if being a published writer would suffice. They said No. So you see, I never graduated from college at all!”

You could have heard a pin drop in that carpeted room!

He went on,

“When I first taught this course in 1957 the students had the same dumbfounded look on their faces as you all have now, until one young man raised his hand. I called on him.”

“He said ‘Mr. Mumford, perhaps it’s not too late!’ “