Alphabets with DIYA for DP
The Founding of Georgetown
Georgetown University is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institution of higher learning in the United States. John Carroll’s founding of Georgetown College coincides with the birth of our nation.
Beginnings
In 1789, Carroll secured the deed to 60 acres of land on a hilltop overlooking the village of Georgetown. He was appointed Archbishop of Baltimore in 1808.
Classes began in 1792. Within the first year, attendance grew to more than 40 students – some as far away as the West Indies. In 1817, the school awarded its first two bachelor’s degrees.
Blue and Gray
The Civil War (1861-1865) nearly closed Georgetown, as the student body dropped from 313 to 17 between 1859 and 1861. A total of 1,141 students and alumni enlisted in the war, serving in both the Union and Confederate forces.
After the Second Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Virginia, in 1862, several campus buildings were turned into a temporary hospital. To celebrate the end of the Civil War, Georgetown students selected the colors blue (Union) and gray (Confederate) as the school’s official colors in 1876.
Expanding Education
Georgetown established the School of Medicine in 1851 and the Law School in 1870. Patrick F. Healy, S.J., the university’s president between 1873 and 1882, was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. and the first to head a major U.S. university. Healy dramatically reformed the university’s curriculum with a new emphasis on history and the natural sciences and started construction on the Flemish Romanesque-style Healy Hall in 1877.
Joseph Havens Richards, S.J., president from 1888 to 1898, established graduate courses in the arts and sciences and built new facilities for the law and medical schools. The university’s expansion continued into the 20th century, with the opening of the School of Dentistry in 1901, School of Nursing in 1903 and the School of Foreign Service in 1919 under the direction of Edmund Walsh, S.J. The School of Dentistry closed in 1990.
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