11 Notes on Alfred W. Lawson, Founder of the Weirdest University Ever

Many noble Americans have founded universities, but Alfred W. Lawson's school was devoted entirely to the study of his own questionable teachings. Did Lawson build the University of Lawsonomy out of pure hubris, or of genuine concern for the human race? Perhaps, as he posits, “Ninety nine per cent (roughly estimated) of the human race lack imagination” (parentheses his). Perhaps you have unwittingly spent your life as a dullard, because until you’ve learned Lawsonomy, “you are not educated.” Well, dear readers: Educate yourselves. Enter the imagination of Alfred W. Lawson, the man, the mystery, the shameless self-promoter who once claimed, of himself, in his awkwardly named magazine Manlife: “If Lawson should die today, posterity will honor and glorify him as no other mortal, because he has given mankind the true base from which to start an edifice of super-knowledge of the universe and its laws.”

1. Lawson claimed that from the moment of his birth in 1869 (“...the most momentous occurrence since the birth of mankind”), he was destined for greatness. His father, Robert Henry Lawson, spent decades trying to patent a perpetual motion machine, an ultimately misguided devotion that became formative in young Alfred’s understanding of the laws of “physics.”

2. At age eighteen, Lawson became a pitcher in the early days of professional baseball. He bounced around from team to team for a few seasons without making an impact. Lawson fared just as poorly on the business side of the game, founding and folding three leagues with bombastic names like Union Leagues of Professional Base Ball Clubs of America.

3. When baseball failed him, Lawson decided to start publishing an aviation magazine aimed at general audiences—a brave undertaking, considering (a) Lawson had no experience in either publishing or aviation, and (b) in 1908, only about three people in the world had actually flown airplanes. Fueled by the belief that air travel was the way of the future, Lawson managed to popularize two magazines, Fly and Aircraft, and helped popularize the latter term in the process.

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4. Though Lawson may not have invented the word “aircraft,” he most likely did invent the word “airliner.” Because...he actually invented the airliner. Rather, he invented the idea of the airliner, and (ever undeterred by his lack of technical knowledge) hired a team of designers and engineers who could literally give his vision wings.

In Milwaukee in 1920, Lawson unveiled the world’s first airliner: the largest non-military plane in the U.S. at that point, with a capacity of 16—26, if removable seats were placed in the aisle. Lawson Airlines was born.

5. As the U.S. entered the Great Depression, Lawson’s lofty endeavors struggled. He authored Direct Credits for Everybody, a utopian manifesto about a society in which “Direct Credits” would be used instead of money as a way to indicate ownership of land, products or labor. Kind of like money, but...not. The subtleties of Lawson’s concepts, he claimed, couldn’t be understood unless you also understood physics. “Economics is a side partner of physics...like a couple that can’t be separated.”

6. Lawson had his own version of physics, of course, based almost entirely on a childhood observation that dust could be moved through space by sucking and blowing. As such, Lawsonic physics were based on principles of “Suction” and “Pressure” acting upon substances. “Substances,” by the way, are everything, ever: air, “other gases,” solids, liquids, “mentality,” heat, cold, light, sound, electricity the “ether of outer space,” and something called “lesether” (see below). Energy had no place in Lawsonic physics: “There is no greater load of misconception that Science has ever had to shoulder than the unprovable theory that somewhere, somehow, and in some shape, there exists a substance called Energy that causes movement. No such thing exists anywhere and Science should expunge the fallacy without delay.”

7. Lesether, for the uninformed, is comprised of substances “supplied directly by the Sun in currents of various density and also by solid substances which are drawn into the Solar System, such as meteors and other cosmic debris which are dissolved into gases by contact with the atmosphere of the Earth.” Obviously.

8. Another Lawsonic law: Given ideal circumstances, universal substances can achieve a “state of maturity” called “Equaeverpoise,” or “a perpetual movement of matter.” (Sound familiar?) Inside the body, Equaeverpoise is called “Lawsonpoise,” which -- achieved via the proper combination of diet, hygiene, rest and exercise -- can potentially allow a human being to live 200 years. In short, Lawsonomy leads one to become one’s own perpetual motion machine.

9. By 1943, Lawson had published over 50 volumes, and he decided it was time to found a school. He managed to raise over $100,000 to buy an abandoned college campus and convert it to the Des Moines University of Lawsonomy (later renamed and relocated to Sturtevant, Wisconsin). There, people young and old gathered to study Lawsonomy and live communally according to its principles. At its height, DMUL boasted two thousand “part time students,” but the number had fallen to the lower hundreds by Lawson’s death in 1954.

10. Students of the University of Lawsonomy were expected to devote all their study to Lawson’s works -- in fact, no other books were allowed on campus. Exams entailed verbatim recitation of Lawson’s works, and therefore took years of study; interim exams were supposed to be held after 10-20 years, and a comprehensive exam after 30, at which point passing students would receive the degree of “Knowledgian.” By the time he died, Alfred Lawson was the only person holding the degree of Knowledgian, which posed a problem: Only Knowledgians could bestow the degree of Knowledgian. Officers of the University tweaked the laws a bit, and eventually graduated several Knowledgians, all well into their sixties.

11. With such a workload, Lawsonomy left little room for life after graduation. As for post-graduate work, the University of Lawsonomy offered Lawsonian Religion, intended to provide students the highest “grade of consciousness.”

In recent years, the Lawsonic community has been reduced to a cult following and a few mysterious internet advertisements for Lawsonomy Student Reunions. As of the publication of this article, the University of Lawsonomy has yet to return our calls.