Tarnished Legacy: The Arthur Dean Story
Arthur Dean was born in Southwick, Massachusetts, in 1878. He attended Harvard, and two years after graduating, he took his degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Yale, eventually joining the faculty.
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| Dr. Arthur Dean |
When Dr. Dean transferred to the then College of Hawaii as its second president in 1914, it was a small, struggling college with only 21 students. Before resigning in 1927, he transformed the college into the University of Hawai'i® with 874 students. (He left his position to give his full attention as the director of the Hawaii Pineapple Canners' Experiment Station, the Pineapple Producers Cooperative Association. The research facility dedicated to improving pineapple cultivation and canning in Hawaii.)
The university held its twentieth annual commencement on June 2, 1931, honoring Dr. Dean by renaming its Biological Sciences Building Arthur Lyman Dean Hall and installing a plaque for its former president.
During Dean’s presidency, a young lady named Alice Augusta Ball enrolled at the College of Hawaii. Born in Seattle in 1892 to a multiracial family—her father Black, her mother white—Alice became the first woman, and the first African American, to earn a master’s degree from the school, later joining the faculty as its first Black female chemistry instructor. Her research focused on the chemical makeup of plants.
Harry Hollmann, a physician at Kalihi Hospital in Honolulu, was using oil derived from the seeds of the chaulmoogra tree to treat mild cases of Hansen's disease, better known as leprosy. The oil had been used for centuries in Asia as a topical remedy for various skin conditions. (A British doctor introduced the oil's healing properties to the Western world in 1854. Western doctors recognized its potential, but it often caused nausea and painful side effects due to their inability to use it effectively.)
Dr. Hollmann tapped Alice to identify the chemicals in the oil. Aided by Dr. Dean, Alice found a way to make it water-soluble.
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| Alice Ball |
With Dean’s support, Alice had developed a method to modify the oil’s active compounds so they could be dissolved in water and injected directly into the bloodstream, later becoming one of the primary treatments of leprosy of the time and was used some thirty years before the introduction of sulfone drugs.
Alice's work was in its infancy but bearing fruit when the twenty-four-year-old died on December 31, 1916, from complications following a lab experiment, inhaling chlorine gas during a demonstration of gas mask use before her class. (Alice's death certificate listed complications from tonsil surgery combined with excessive chlorine gas inhalation as contributing causes.)
After Alice's death, Dr. Dean continued her research and published findings in 1917. For a brief time, the treatment was called the “Ball Method,” but gradually it became known as the “Dean Method.” Whether deliberately or by omission, credit shifted away from Ball to her former mentor.
In 1922, Dr. Hollmann sought to correct the record, publishing a paper that emphasized Alice’s central role in the discovery. Still, her contributions faded into obscurity for decades, overshadowed by the name of her former mentor and university president.
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| Dr. Dean |
In later years, especially in the 21st century, activists, historians, and scientists worked to restore Alice Ball’s rightful place in history. On February 29, 2000, the University of Hawai'i® honored her legacy with a ceremony attended by 150 people, and the governor declared the day “Alice Ball Day.” A commemorative plaque now stands at the university, not far from Dean Hall, ensuring her story is remembered.
The rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in the 2010s reignited discussion of Alice’s erasure and Dr. Dean’s role in claiming credit for her research. The debate underscored the need to confront how historical narratives are shaped—and whose contributions are celebrated or forgotten.
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| Alice Ball's Yearbook Photo 1911-2 |
Two Lives, Two Legacies
Dr. Arthur Lyman Dean died on March 1, 1952, at the age of seventy-three. For Southwick, he remains one of the town’s most distinguished sons, having shaped higher education in Hawaii and guided a small college into a university.
Alice Augusta Ball, born July 24, 1892, and gone too soon by 1916, left behind a legacy of scientific brilliance that outshone her brief life. Her high school yearbook quote read: “I work and work, and still it seems I have nothing done.” Yet in truth, she had accomplished something extraordinary—saving lives and pioneering a medical treatment remembered for decades.
Today, both names endure at the University of Hawai‘i: Dr. Dean on a building, Alice Ball on a plaque. Together, they tell a complicated story—of ambition, tragedy, discovery, and the long journey toward justice in history.
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Edited Out/Author's Research Notes:
Dr. Arthur Lyman Dean: October 1, 1878 - March 1, 1952.
Alice Augusta Ball: July 24, 1892 - December 31, 1916.
Alice Ball's death certificate lists her as being white.
Alice was very intelligent, having attended a few different colleges and earning multiple degrees.
Dr. Dean may or may not have intentionally introduced it as the Dean Method. His findings were released in 1917.
Dr. Dean's father was a Baptist minister.
Built
in 1929, the Biological Sciences Building originally housed facilities
for Zoology, Botany, Entomology, Geology, and Anthropology.
Alice Ball was the author of several scientific articles published in magazines.
The incident in the classroom was in September 1916.
The college doubted that the poisonous gas caused Ball's death; they believed she had some undiagnosed illness.
Alice Ball and Dr. Dean had many accomplishments, too many to cover in this short story. Several things have been done to recognize Alice Ball's legacy and correct history.