century association biographical archive

Earliest Members of the Century Association

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John H. T. Main

College President

Centurion, 1919–1931

Full Name John Hanson Thomas Main

Born 2 April 1859 in Toledo, Ohio

Died 1 April 1931 in Grinnell, Iowa

Buried Hazelwood Cemetery, Grinnell, Iowa

Proposed by William Frederick Slocum and George Meason Whicher

Elected 3 May 1919 at age sixty

Century Memorial

John Hanson Thomas Main, one of our out-of-town members during the last dozen years, had been president since 1906 of Grinnell College, Iowa. As a teacher, he applied himself to the Greek language and literature. It was presumably his linguistic faculties which equipped him, in 1919, as commissioner for Syrian and Armenian relief.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1932 Century Association Yearbook