William Pepper Medical Library Fund

Established in 1891, this fund provides resources for the purchase of materials for the Penn Biomedical Library in honor of William Pepper, M.D., LL.D., Provost of the University of Pennsylvania from 1882-1894.

William Pepper was born in 1843 and received both bachelor's and M.D. degrees from Penn. He began a thirty-year career at Penn in 1868. From 1870-1874 he helped raise money for the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania which opened in 1874. As Provost, Dr. Pepper enhanced Penn's research capabilities by increasing faculty and class sizes, raising over $400 million, and adding more than 40 acres and twenty new buildings to the campus in West Philadelphia.

He established thirteen new University Departments, including a University Library. So it is indeed fitting that an endowed Library fund remembers Dr. Pepper, who constantly used, as a most convincing argument in favor of persistent effort, this statement:

"You and I must pass away, but these things will last."