page_title: Oberlin College
section_title: 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: Oberlin College / History / 19th century
caption_attribution_description: English: The undefeated 1892 Oberlin College football squad. Caption: "The undefeated Oberlin eleven--the 1892 varsity coached by John Heisman, who also played in several of its contests. Back row (from left): Louis Hart, Louis (Lou) B. Fauver, Will Merriam, Bert Hogen, John H. White, George Berry, Orin W. Ensworth. Second row: John Heisman, Lynds Jones, Josiah (Joe) C. Teeters, Miles E. Marsh, Clayton (Clate) K. Fauver, John Wise, Thomas W.Johnson. Bottom row: Washington Irving Squire, Fred Savage, Carl Williams, Ellsworth B. Westcott, Max F. Millikan, Harry Zimmerman, Andrew B. Kell. The woolen cap that Berry is wearing was the only kind of "helmet" that was acceptable." Photo from Oberlin College Archives.
context_page_description: Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest coeducational liberal arts college in the United States and the second oldest continuously operating coeducational institute of higher learning in the world. The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States. In 1835 Oberlin became one of the first colleges in the United States to admit African Americans, and in 1837 the first to admit women. It has been known since its founding for progressive student activism.
  The College of Arts & Sciences offers more than 50 majors, minors, and concentrations. Oberlin is a member of the Great Lakes Colleges Association and the Five Colleges of Ohio consortium. Since its founding, Oberlin has graduated 16 Rhodes Scholars, 20 Truman Scholars, three Nobel laureates, seven Pulitzer Prize winners, and 12 MacArthur fellows, and 4 Rome Prize winners.
context_section_description: Asa Mahan (1799–1889) accepted the position of first president of the Oberlin Collegiate Institute in 1835, simultaneously serving as the chair of intellectual and moral philosophy and a professor of theology. Mahan's liberal views towards abolition—immediatism, the immediate and complete freeing of all slaves—greatly influenced the philosophy of the newly-founded college; likewise, only two years after its founding, the school began admitting African Americans, becoming the second college in the United States to do so, and the oldest still existing. The college had some difficult beginnings, and Rev. John Keep and William Dawes were sent to England to raise funds for the college in 1839–40. A nondenominational seminary, Oberlin's Graduate School of Theology (first called the undergraduate Theological Department), was established alongside the college in 1833. In 1965, the board of trustees voted to discontinue graduate instruction in theology at Oberlin, and in September 1966, six faculty members and 22 students merged with the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University. Oberlin's role as an educator of African-American students prior to the Civil War and thereafter is historically significant. In 1844, Oberlin Collegiate Institute graduated its first black student, George Boyer Vashon, who became one of the founding professors at Howard University and the first black lawyer admitted to the Bar in New York State.
  The college's approach to African Americans was by no means perfect. Although intensely anti-slavery, including admitting black students almost immediately from its founding, the school began segregating its black students by the 1880s with the fading of evangelical idealism. Nonetheless, Oberlin graduates accounted for a significant percentage of African-American college graduates by the end of the 19th century. The college was listed as a National Historic Landmark on December 21, 1965, for its significance in admitting African Americans and women.
  Oberlin is also the oldest coeducational college in the United States, having admitted four women in 1837. These four women, who were the first to enter as full students, were Mary Kellogg (Fairchild), Mary Caroline Rudd, Mary Hosford, and Elizabeth Prall. All but Kellogg graduated. Mary Jane Patterson graduated in 1862, the first black woman to earn a B.A. degree. Soon women were fully integrated into the college, and comprised from a third to half of the student body. The religious founders, especially evangelical theologian Charles Grandison Finney, saw women as inherently morally superior to men. Oberlin briefly stopped operating for seven months 1839 and 1840 due to lack of funds, making it the second oldest continuously operating coeducational liberal arts college in the United States.
  Mahan, who had often been in conflict with faculty, resigned his position as president in 1850. In his place, famed abolitionist and preacher Charles Grandison Finney (already a professor at the college since its founding) was made president, serving until 1866. At the same time, the school was renamed  Oberlin College, and in 1851 received a charter with that name. Under Finney's leadership, Oberlin's faculty and students increased their activity in the abolitionist movement. They participated together with people of the town in biracial efforts to help fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad (where Oberlin was a key stop), as well as to resist the Fugitive Slave Act. One historian called Oberlin "the town that started the Civil War" due to its reputation as a hotbed of abolitionism. In 1858, both students and faculty were involved in the controversial Oberlin-Wellington Rescue of a fugitive slave, which received national press coverage. Two participants in this raid, Lewis Sheridan Leary and John Anthony Copeland, along with another Oberlin resident, Shields Green, also participated in John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry. This heritage was commemorated on campus by the 1977 installation of sculptor Cameron Armstrong's "Underground Railroad Monument" (a railroad track rising 
caption: Oberlin's football team in 1892
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