Nathan Fasten was born in Austria on December 4, 1887. He grew up in New York City, and graduated from the College of the City of New York in 1910 with a bachelor of science in chemical biology. Fasten studied at the University of Wisconsin as a graduate student from 1911 to 1914, earning a Ph.D. in 1914. Fasten came to Oregon Agricultural College in 1920 as an associate professor of zoology and physiology. The next year he was promoted to professor and department head; he served in that capacity until his resignation from Oregon State College in 1944. He later worked as Chief Scientist for the Washington State Water Pollution Commission in Seattle. Fasten authored many journal articles and books. He was a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Fasten died in Seattle on September 19, 1953.
Coming to Oregon Agricultural College in 1908, Arthur L. Peck served as a Professor of Landscape Architecture until his retirement in 1948. Peck was also chair of the Fine Arts Department and directed the planning and supervision of the Oregon State campus grounds. Peck is credited for introducing formal education in landscape architecture to the western United States. He died in 1962.
Hector MacPherson, Sr. (1875-1970) taught Economics and Sociology at OAC from 1911 to 1926. Later, as an Oregon legislator, he co-sponsored the School Moving Bill, a failed proposal that advocated for the consolidation of OAC and the University of Oregon, and the relocation of other state-funded schools. MacPherson was the father of Hector MacPherson, Jr., a farmer and state legislator known for his major impact on land use law in Oregon.
Linus Carl Pauling (1901-1994) graduated from Oregon Agricultural College in 1922 with a degree in Chemical Engineering. A giant of twentieth century science and a peace activist of international consequence, Pauling is Oregon State's most famous alumnus. He remains history's only recipient of two unshared Nobel Prizes (Chemistry, 1954; Peace, 1962).
Lucy M. Lewis was the University Librarian from 1920-1945. During her 25 years, Lewis established the Friends of the Library and helped Oregon State College's library become the second at a land grant institution in the nation to change classification systems from Dewey Decimal to Library of Congress.
Kinney was an important suffragist in Oregon who served as president of the Astoria Women's Suffrage Club in 1912, the year that women in Oregon were granted the vote. She later served in both the Oregon House and Senate, and was a member of the Oregon Agricultural College Board of Regents.
Sarah Finley was the daughter of a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Despite health concerns that precipitated the Finleys’ return to California in 1872, she lived to be 89 years old, passing away in 1937. Finley was a leader of the suffrage movement in Sonoma County, California. Thomas Houseworth & Co. was one of the leading photography studios in San Francisco in the 1870s and 1880s.