page_title: Dickinson College
section_title: 18th–20th centuries
hierarchical_section_title: Dickinson College / History / 18th–20th centuries
caption_attribution_description: English: Dickinson College
context_page_description: Dickinson College is a private liberal arts college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1773 as Carlisle Grammar School, Dickinson was chartered September 9, 1783, six days after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, making it the first college to be founded after the formation of the United States. Dickinson was founded by Benjamin Rush, a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, and named "John and Mary's College" in honor of John Dickinson, a signer of the Constitution who was later the governor of Pennsylvania, and his wife Mary Norris Dickinson. They donated much of their extensive personal libraries to the new college.
  In addition to offering either a bachelor of arts or bachelor of science degree in 22 disciplinary majors and 20 interdisciplinary majors, Dickinson offers an engineering option through its 3:2 program, which consists of three years at Dickinson and two years at an engineering school of Columbia University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, or Case Western Reserve University.
context_section_description: The Carlisle Grammar School was founded in 1773 as a frontier Latin school for young men in western Pennsylvania. Within years Carlisle's elite, such as James Wilson and John Montgomery, were pushing for development of the school as a college. In 1782, Benjamin Rush, a physician who was a prominent leader during and after the American Revolution, met in Philadelphia with Montgomery and William Bingham, a prominent businessman and politician. As their conversation about founding a frontier college in Carlisle took place on his porch, "Bingham's Porch" was long a rallying cry at Dickinson.
  Dickinson College was chartered by the Pennsylvania legislature on September 9, 1783, six days after the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1783) that ended the American Revolution; it was the first college to be founded in the newly independent nation. Rush intended to name the college after the president of Pennsylvania John Dickinson and his wife Mary Norris Dickinson, proposing "John and Mary's College." The Dickinsons had given the new college an extensive library which they jointly owned, one of the largest libraries in the colonies. The name Dickinson College was chosen instead. When founded, its location west of the Susquehanna River made it the westernmost college in the United States. For the first meeting of the trustees, held in April 1784, Rush made his first journey to Carlisle. The trustees selected Charles Nisbet, a Scottish minister and scholar, to serve as the College's first president. He arrived and began to serve on July 4, 1785, serving until his unexpected death in 1804.
  A combination of financial troubles and faculty dissension led to a college closing from 1816 to 1821. In 1832, when the trustees were unable to resolve a faculty curriculum dispute, they ordered Dickinson's temporary closure a second time.
  The law school dates to 1833. It became a separate school 1890, although the law school and the college continued to share a president until 1912. The law school is now affiliated with the Pennsylvania State University.
  Among the 18th-century graduates of Dickinson were Robert Cooper Grier and Roger Brooke Taney, who later became U.S. Supreme Court justices, and served together on the court for 18 years.
  During the 19th century, two noted Dickinson College alumni had prominent roles in the lead up to the Civil War. They were James Buchanan, the 15th president of the United States, and Roger Brooke Taney, the 5th chief justice of the United States. Dickinson is one of three liberal arts colleges to have graduated a president and a chief justice (Bowdoin and Amherst are the others). Taney led the Supreme Court in its ruling on the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, which held that Congress could not prohibit slavery in federal territories, overturning the Missouri Compromise. Buchanan threw the full prestige of his administration behind congressional approval of the Lecompton Constitution in Kansas. During the Civil War, the campus and town of Carlisle were occupied twice by Confederate forces in 1863.
  When George Metzger, class of 1798, died in 1879, he left his land and $25,000 (equivalent to $686,000 in 2019) to the town of Carlisle to found a college for women. In 1881, the Metzger Institute opened. The college operated independently until 1913, when its building was leased to Dickinson College for the education of women. The building served as a women's dorm until 1963.
  In 1887, Zatae Longsdorff became the first woman to graduate from Dickinson. In 1901, John Robert Paul Brock became the first black man to graduate from Dickinson; in 1919, Esther Popel Shaw was the first black woman to graduate.
  Henry Clarke, an alumnus who developed the Klondike bar into a national brand for an ice cream bar, founded the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues at Dickinson College, and in 1994 established the Clarke Center.
  The town of Carlisle was also the location of the Carlisle Army Barracks, which was adapted in the late 1870s for use as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. In 1879 Dickinson College and the nearby Carlisle In
caption: Waidner-Spahr Library
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