Between 18, the medical school graduated six of the first seven women to ever receive a medical degree from a U.S. Western Reserve founded its medical school in 1843 in Cleveland, Ohio, foreshadowing the future move of the entire institution. Western Reserve College graduated John Sykes Fayette, its first Black student, in 1836, far earlier than many other peer institutions. Famed abolitionist and former slave Fredrick Douglass gave the annual commencement address at Western Reserve College in 1854 and spoke on the necessity of considering all races to be truly equal, punctuating just how big of a center of anti-slavery we were at the time. This conversion led to much controversy and conflict between Storrs and the board of trustees of Western Reserve, and the debate continued for decades, though the town and college was united in disgust of slavery. Charles Storrs, was converted to abolitionism after a student at the college gave him a copy of William Lloyd Garrison’s influential abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. Most of Hudson and Western Reserve were originally colonizationists, but things started to change when Western Reserve’s first president, Rev. Some of this debate played out between professors and students through letters and editorials in the 1830s Hudson newspaper, The Observer and Telegraph-the paper that we, The Observer, are named after.
#Meld into stone free#
There was much debate at the time over whether those in the town and the college should be colonizationists, who advocated for returning emancipated slaves and free Black Americans in Africa, or abolitionists, who believed in the peaceful coexistence between races post-emancipation. This included David Hudson and Owen Brown, who was also the father of John Brown-the leader of the 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry to free slaves by force. Hudson was a stop on the Underground Railroad, with many people involved in Western Reserve College being active in the operation of it. Hudson, and consequently Western Reserve, was also a hotbed of anti-slavery sentiments. The first teacher, Ephraim Sturtevant, was a Yale alumnus and taught all 23 students that made up the first class of Western Reserve. Western Reserve was largely modeled on Yale University, from the architecture to the curriculum. There was also the matter of protecting the students of Western Reserve from the unsavory sorts that would frequent the lake port of Cleveland, such as foul-mouthed sailors who might corrupt the minds of the youth. Additionally, with most of Ohio’s population more concentrated in the southern and central areas of the state, Hudson allowed for greater proximity to more potential students. It was not certain that Cleveland would become the metropolis it is today. In the 1820s, Hudson wasn’t too much smaller than Cleveland, with both having populations just in the hundreds. Hudson is 30 miles southeast of Cleveland and though looking back you would think that it makes more sense to locate the university in a bigger city from the beginning, it was a pragmatic decision.
Our university’s story began in 1826 when the Western Reserve College was founded in the village of Hudson, Ohio following the work of the town’s founder, David Hudson, to bring a university to the area. Both institutions had long histories and had been linked together almost since the beginning. In 1967 Case Western Reserve University was formed following the union of Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve University, and the federation brought together both of the universities’ histories and values in an uneasy union. We may have the clunkiest name of any university in the United States, but it’s for a good reason. Through this endeavor, we hope that both students and alumni will be able to learn and gain an appreciation for the essentials of their university’s history. To celebrate this Homecoming weekend, we here at The Observer have compiled a brief history of CWRU following much research perusing the archives, reading books and talking to our university archivists and historians. Unlike most universities, we are not one thing, but rather a conglomeration of many things and many identities. It also helps that CWRU’s history is endlessly fascinating. There is much to learn from the stories of those who came before us and there is also much to be proud of. However, this does not mean that we cannot look back on the history of our institution because much of it informs our present and determines to some extent what identity we all have as a university. This is a good thing-universities should be places of change and be constantly evolving. We are always growing and focusing on new endeavors, new research initiatives and new modes of education.
Case Western Reserve University is an institution that tends to always look forward toward the future.
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