Administrative/Biographical History
Lucien Calvin Warner, son of Alonzo and Lydia Converse Warner, was born in Cuyler, N.Y. on October 26, 1841. He attended school in Lincklaen, New York and Dehuyter Academy in Cortland, New York, before entering the Oberlin Preparatory School in 1860. In 1861, he enrolled in Oberlin College, graduating in 1865. During his junior year, he served one hundred days of emergency war service as a sergeant in the 150th Ohio Volunteer Infantry.
After he earned his M.D. at New York University in 1867, he spent the following six years giving lectures on health-related issues throughout the United States. During this time, Oberlin College granted him an honorary Master’s degree in 1870.
He settled in New York City in 1873. Warner’s intent was to practice medicine, but his strong inclination for the business world led him to abandon a medical career to associate with his brother, Dr. Ira DeVer Warner. Together they founded Warner Brothers, a manufacturing company to produce women’s corsets—corsets not as physically harmful to women as those available to women at the time. Originally, the enterprise was located in McGraw, New York; later the manufacturing division moved to Bridgeport, CT, and the office headquarters to New York City. In 1900, they also organized Warner Chemical Co. Lucien was Chairman of the Board of Directors at the time of his death in July, 1925.
In 1873, he began fifty-two years of service to Oberlin College as a member of the Board of Trustees. At the semi-annual meeting of the Board in June 1923, a gold Medallion was presented to him in recognition of his work and continual popularity with the alumni.
Dr. Warner and his wife, Karen Osborne (1849-1933), h. 1902 m. 1868, gave repeatedly and generously to Oberlin’s needs. The most notable of their material gifts were Warner Hall for the Conservatory of Music, 1884-1887, and Warner Gymnasium for Men, 1901 and 1912.
His public service in philanthropic and religious organizations was also notable. For fifteen years, he was Chairman of the International Committee of the Y.M.C.A.; for eighteen years, President of the Congregational Church Building Society; for thirty-three years, member of the Executive Committee of the American Missionary Association, and for many years, Lucien was a member and officer in the Broadway Tabernacle Church. He served as chairman of the Commission of the Congressional World Movement. In recognition of this public service, Oberlin College granted to him the Doctor of Laws in 1900. New York University also conferred this same degree on him in 1917.
He died on July 30, 1925 at his home in New York City. His wife and four children survived him. All of the children studied at Oberlin College, three graduating: Mrs. Agnes Warner Mastick (1872-1963), 1892; Franklin H. Warner (1875-1962), 1898; Lucien T. Warner (1877-1950), 1898 (member of Board of Trustees), and Elizabeth C. Warner Gallowher (1879-1952), enrolled 1896-97.
Sources Consulted
Student File and Trustee File in Alumni Records (RG 28).
Administrative InformationStudent file and Trustee file in Alumni Records (RG 28).
Henry C. King Papers (RG 2/6) (re The Commission of the Congregational World Movement).
