The Five Oldest Colleges in Pennsylvania
The earliest Pennsylvanian colleges and universities were established before 1800, and most were either founded and/or funded by historically prominent political and religious figures. Each of these schools evolved into colleges and universities from boarding schools and even grammar schools, three of which are the result of mergers between two or more separate institutions.
University of Pennsylvania
While the school construction project that became University of Pennsylvania began in 1740, the institution did not open until 1751, two years after Benjamin Franklin bought the site. UPENN was the first school in America to be labeled a university, and is also home to the country's first medical school. Today, Philadelphia-based UPENN's athletic teams belong to the Ivy League, home to the country's academic elite, and the university is ranked the seventh-best university in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.
The development of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania's Moravian College stems from three separate schools -- two for boys and one for girls, all established by Moravian followers between 1742 and 1743 in Bethlehem and Nazareth. The two boys' schools merged in 1759, known as Nazareth Hall, which later became Moravian College and Theological Seminary. In 1954 the girls' school -- which had since became a women's college -- joined the institution and formed the Moravian College that exists today.
Dickinson College began in 1773 as a grammar school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, but became Dickinson College after physician -- and United States Declaration of Independence signer -- Benjamin Rush chartered for the school in September of 1783. And because the Treaty of Paris had been signed only a few days earlier, Dickinson was the first college officially chartered in the newly recognized United States of America. Dickinson's connection to the founding fathers, however, doesn't end with its charter. After New College Hall burned down in 1803, Benjamin Latrobe, who designed the U.S. Capitol building, offered to design the new building. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison made personal donations to the project.
Washington and Jefferson College
Washington and Jefferson College is the product of an 1865 merger between Washington College and Jefferson College, two western Pennsylvanian schools. Washington Academy, the precursor to Washington College, was founded in either 1780 or 1781 -- the date is disputed according to scholar Helen Turnbull Waite Coleman -- by Presbyterian Reverend John McMillan. Jefferson College opened in 1806, and cultivated a rivalry with Washington. Today, Washington and Jefferson prides itself as a liberal arts school from which 90 percent of its graduates who apply to professional law or health sciences schools are accepted.
University of Pittsburgh and Franklin and Marshall College
1787 was the year during which both Franklin and Marshall College and University of Pittsburgh were founded. Franklin and Marshall began simply as Franklin College, named after Benjamin Franklin, the school's primary Benefactor. It wasn't until 1853, when Marshall College moved to Lancaster that the two schools merged. President James Buchanan served as Franklin and Marshall's first President of the Board of Trustees. University of Pittsburgh began as the Pittsburgh Academy, and was rechartered in 1819 as Western University of Pennsylvania. The school didn't take the name, University of Pittsburgh until 1908, after a series of moves -- three of which resulted from fires.
- University of Pennsylvania: Penn's Heritage
- Moravian College: College History
- Dickinson College: The Dickinson Story
- University of Pittsburgh Press Digital Editions: Banners in the Wilderness: Early Years of Washington and Jefferson College; Coleman, Helen Turnbull Waite
- Franklin and Marshall College: About
- University of Pittsburgh: Pitt 225th Anniversary Timeline
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