History of Georgetown University
The history of Georgetown University spans nearly 400 years, from the early European settlement of America to the present day.
The role of the
Founding
The history of Georgetown University traces back to two formative events, in 1634 and 1789. Until 1851, the school used 1788, the start of construction on the Old South building, as its founding date. In that year a copy-edit in the college catalog began mislabeling the construction as beginning in 1789. This was discovered in preparation for the centennial celebration in 1889, at which point, rather than correct the annual, the date of Georgetown's foundation was fixed to the date January 23, 1789.[3]
First establishments
On November 22, 1633
Inquiring about patronage for a school at this site, Poulton wrote to
Newtown Manor, also known as "Bretton's Neck", near modern-day
Georgetown Heights
After returning in 1774 to live on the
Beginning in 1783, Carroll convened meetings of area clergy, mostly ex-Jesuits, at
Georgetown Academy
On April 24, 1787, Georgetown landowner John Threlkeld donated a plot of land to Carroll, which was ultimately where he founded Holy Trinity Church.[16] In April 1788, construction began at a larger neighboring plot on Georgetown's first building, later called "Old South", leading Carroll to write "We shall begin the building of our Academy this summer. On this Academy are built all my hopes of permanency and success of our holy religion in the United States."[17] On January 23, 1789, John Carroll, Robert Molyneux and John Ashton completed the purchase from Threlkeld and William Deakins, Jr. for "seventy five pounds current money" of the acre and a half on which construction had already started.[14] This land became the core of Georgetown's campus. As a result, the university celebrates this date as its founding.[18]
Carroll had difficulty filling the position of
Early growth
In its early years, Georgetown suffered from considerable financial strain, relying on private sources of funding and the limited profits from local plantations had been donated to the Jesuits by wealthy landowners.[22] Some of these included enslaved African-American workers.[23] By September 1792, tuition had to be increased for the first time.[14]
In 1796,
Beginning in 1798, Leonard Neale and his brother Francis oversaw the growth of the university as presidents for a combined eleven years. At Carroll's request, Neale was also appointed coadjutor bishop by Pope Pius VI in 1800. In 1799 Neale invited three sisters of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary to open a monastery at Georgetown. On June 24, 1799, the young Georgetown Visitation Monastery under Mother Teresa Lalor began a Saturday school for young women.[27] This developed into an academy, now Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School, in 1802. Leonard Neale served as president of Georgetown until 1806, when he was succeeded by Robert Molyneux, who died in 1808. Leonard Neale's brother, Francis Neale, became president of Georgetown College in 1809.[28]
When the suppression of the Society of Jesus in Maryland ended in 1805, several former Jesuits rejoined, including Leonard Neale. Carroll commenced a series of agreements to ensure Jesuit involvement in the school. Carroll, however, never rejoined the Society. In 1806 the school began a novitiate for Jesuit recruits moving from Russia, which had harbored the Society during the suppression.[29]
Carroll did not seek civil recognition for Georgetown after the suppression of the international Society ended in 1814. Instead of a state charter, he went to the federal government, then directly in charge of the District of Columbia. William Gaston, then a Congressman, sponsored the legislation for a congressional charter, which passed the Thirteenth Congress. Georgetown received the first federal university charter on March 1, 1815, signed into law by President James Madison.[30] This allowed Georgetown to grant academic degrees, and the college's first two recipients, a pair of brothers from New York City named Charles and George Dinnies, were awarded the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1817.[30] Graduate degrees were first awarded in 1821,[14] and other Jesuit schools conferred degrees under Georgetown's charter for many years afterward.[31] In 1833, the Holy See empowered Georgetown to confer degrees in philosophy and theology.[32]
Founder John Carroll died December 3, 1815, at age 80, and in his will he left Georgetown $400.00, which marked the beginning of Georgetown's endowment.[24] In 1830, construction of an infirmary in the new Gervase Building brought the first hospital beds to Georgetown.
In 1838, the Maryland Jesuits
On June 10, 1844, the growing school was reincorporated by Congress under the name The President and Directors of Georgetown College. Georgetown's Observatory, completed in 1844, was used in 1846 to determine the latitude and longitude of Washington, D.C., which was the first such calculation for the nation's capital.[32] In 1849, four Catholic doctors frustrated with what they felt were discriminatory practices at neighboring Columbian College petitioned Georgetown President James Ryder to found a medical program.[38] A building for this purpose was purchased at 12th and F Streets, and the School of Medicine was founded in 1850, holding its first classes the following year.[39]
Early student life
From its beginning, Georgetown was not intended to be exclusively Catholic, and over its first ten years, nearly one-fifth of students were Protestant. A fifth of students were also from the
The first student society, the Sodality of Our Lady, was founded in 1810 as a religious devotional group.[41] A strict revision of school rules in 1829 forbade personal conversations or particular associations.[25] Despite this the Philodemic Society was founded in 1830 as the school's debating and literary society, the oldest of its kind in America and the oldest secular group at Georgetown. Other debating societies were founded in its model, or in opposition to it in later years, such as the short lived Philisorian Society and the Philonomosian Society, which lasted from 1839 until 1935.[24][42] The College Cadets were officially organized in 1836, becoming the oldest military unit native to the District of Columbia.[43] The Dramatic Association of Georgetown College, renamed the Mask and Bauble Dramatic Society after World War I, was founded in 1852, and is itself the oldest surviving student dramatic society in America.[44][45] The first Christmas tree was introduced to campus in December 1857.[46]
Civil War
Responding to lack of adequate hospital beds and housing for soldiers needed to protect the District, the Union commandeered University buildings, and by the time of President
Georgetown would later be connected to the
The years after the war drastically changed Georgetown College, making it both more northern and more Catholic.
Expansion
In 1874, Patrick Francis Healy became president of Georgetown University. He is now known as the first African-American president of a predominantly white university, but at the time he was generally taken to be Irish American (his father was from Ireland and he had been educated in largely white institutions, including Boston College and in France).[54] Healy's influence on Georgetown was so far-reaching that he is often referred to as the school's "second founder." He modernized the curriculum by requiring courses in the sciences, particularly chemistry and physics. Healy and his successors sought to bind the professional schools into a university, and concentrate on higher education.[9] The most visible result of Healy's presidency was the construction of a large building begun in 1877 and first used in 1881, later named Healy Hall in his honor.
A school of law was approved by the board of directors in March 1870, and graduated its first students in 1872.[55] In 1884 the "Law Department" moved to 6th and F Streets, N.W., not far from the Medical School, and then again in 1891 to 506 E Street, N.W.[56] In 1870, Georgetown raised the raise the minimum age of enrollment at Georgetown Preparatory School from eight to twelve. This was raised again in 1894 to thirteen. As part of the focus on higher education, Georgetown Preparatory School relocated from campus in 1919 to nearby North Bethesda, Maryland. It fully separated from the university in 1927.[57] Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School has remained attached to the university campus, and while independently run, the two occasionally share facilities.
Numerous new schools were founded during the twentieth century. The
On October 4, 1966, Congress passed a bill that recognized the school's name as "Georgetown University" for the first time.
Across borders
The 1950s and 60s saw major changes in administration as well as in the student body.
President Lawrence C. Gorman phased out racial segregation, with Samuel Halsey Jr. becoming the first Black undergraduate in 1950.[66] The Black Student Alliance was formed in 1968, and in 1969 Georgetown named the first Black member of the Board of Directors since Patrick Francis Healy.[67][68]
Freshmen hazing rituals, long tolerated by the administration, were banned in 1962 after one student brought suit against the school for injuries he sustained.[69]
Modern Georgetown is largely a product of substantial changes during the 1980s.
In 1987, the university decided to close the School of Dentistry following the class of 1990 for financial reasons, as the number of dental students dropped nationwide.
DeGioia also founded the annual Building Bridges Seminar in 2001, which brings global religious leaders together, and is part Georgetown's effort to promote religious pluralism.
Fictional depictions
Georgetown, as a major world university, has been featured in many media over the years. The most prominent example is the 1971
The 1985 "
See also
- Georgetown Preparatory School
- History of Washington, D.C.
- List of presidents of Georgetown University
- List of Georgetown University alumni
- 1838 Jesuit slave sale
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Bibliography
- Burns, James Aloysius (1908). The Catholic School System in the United States. New York: Benziger Brothers.
- Carter, Cynthia Jacobs; ISBN 978-1-4262-0127-1.
- Curran, Robert Emmett (1993). The Bicentennial History of Georgetown University. Washington, D.C.: ISBN 0-87840-485-6.
- Easby-Smith, James Stanislaus (1907). Georgetown University in the District of Columbia, 1789-1907, Its Founders, Benefactors, Officers, Instructors and Alumni. New York: Lewis Publishing Company. ISBN 1-150-14481-5.
- Nevils, William Coleman (1934). Miniatures of Georgetown: Tercentennial Causeries. Washington, D.C.: OCLC 8224468.
- O'Gorman, Thomas (1895). A History of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. New York: Christian Literature Co. ISBN 1-150-14481-5.
- O'Neill, Paul R.; Williams, Paul K. (2003). Georgetown University. Charleston, SC: ISBN 0-7385-1509-4.
- OCLC 612832863. Archived from the original on November 28, 2018. Retrieved February 3, 2020 – via Google Books.
- Tillman, Seth P. (1994). Georgetown's School of Foreign Service: The First 75 Years. Washington, D.C.: OCLC 32749296.
- ISBN 0-87840-557-7.
External links
- Georgetown University homepage
- Georgetown University Libraries Special Collection on Georgetown History