Rand, Frank Prentice

English, 1914-1960

b. Nov. 8, 1889, Worcester, Mass.

d. 1971

Frank Prentice Rand, professor, playwright, poet, and historian, was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on November 8, 1889. He attended school at Monson Academy and Cushing Academy, and graduated from Williams College in 1912. After graduation he taught English at the University of Maine for one year. In the fall of 1914 he came to the Massachusetts Agricultural College. In 1915 he received an M.A. in English from Amherst College. Rand remained at Massachusetts Agricultural College for 46 years, the only interruption being a year in the U.S. Army during World War I.

From 1914 to 1929 Rand served as editor of The Signet of Phi Sigma Kappa, and for three years was national secretary of that fraternity. In 1920 he became director of the Roister Doisters, a student theater group, and continued in that role until 1947. From 1933 until 1955 Rand was Chairman of the English Department, and from 1948 to 1955 he served as Acting Dean of the School of Liberal Arts. He also served as the Director of the College English Association, and was a trustee of Cushing Academy, Amherst Academy, and the Jones Library. Rand received two honorary doctorates, one from the University of Massachusetts in 1955 and the other from Williams College in 1956. He retired from the University of Massachusetts in 1960 and died in 1971.

Rand was the author of the following books and plays (published books except where indicated otherwise):

The Americans Come (1931) (Play in typescript)
Crumpled Leaves of Old Japan (1922)
Cushing Academy (1865-1965)(1965)
David Grayson (1963)
Doctor Ben of Butter Hill (1923)
Garlington (1918)
Heart O'Town (1945)
In the Octagon (1927) (Published play)
The Jones Library in Amherst (1969)
John Epps (1921) (Published play)
Not Without Hope (1938) (Play in typescript)
On Corpus Christi Day (1935) (Play in typescript)
Our Lady Cushing (1925, 1950)
Phi Sigma Kappa a History (1923)
Royal and Ancient (1936) (Play in typescript)
Sidney (1925) (Published play)
The Village of Amherst (1958)
Wordsworth's Mariner Brother (1966)
Yesterdays at Massachusetts State College (1933)

Resources

See Frank Prentice Rand Papers, University Archives (FS 083)
Listen to oral history with Rand's wife (1976):
Oral history, part 1
Oral history, part 2