The Bamberger siblings wanted to use the proceeds from the sale of their Bamberger’s department store in Newark, New Jersey, to fund a dental school as an expression of gratitude to the state of New Jersey. Flexner convinced them to put their money in the service of more abstract research. (There was a brush with near-disaster when the Bambergers pulled their money out of the market just before the Crash of 1929.) The eminent topologist Oswald Veblen at Princeton University, who had long been trying to found a high-level research institute in mathematics, urged Flexner to locate the new institute near Princeton where it would be close to an existing center of learning and a world-class library. In 1932 Veblen resigned from Princeton and became the first professor in the new Institute for Advanced Study. He selected most of the original faculty and also helped the Institute acquire land in Princeton for both the original facility and future expansion.