Oglethorpe University history

Oglethorpe’s most distinguished alumnus from the antebellum era was the poet, critic, and musician Sidney Lanier, who graduated in 1860.

Lanier remained as tutor in 1861 until he, with other Oglethorpe cadets, marched away to war.

The university closed in 1862 due to the Civil War when its students were soldiers, its endowment was lost in Confederate bonds and its buildings were used for barracks and hospitals.

It reopened in 1870 in Atlanta, with business and law courses added, but it was forced to close after two years.

He first came to Agnes Scott College in 1909 to serve as their Executive Secretary.

He began his campaign in 1912, seeking donations and people to head his fund raising drives.

Oglethorpe College was re-chartered as a non-denominational institution in 1913 by Thornwell Jacobs.

The initial excavation of land to make way for Oglethorpe University’s Administration Building on the Peachtree Road campus in 1914.

Thornwell Jacobs refounded the University as a private, non-sectarian liberal arts college at the present site in 1915.

Doctor Thornwell Jacobs breaking ground for Lupton Hall in 1919.

Lupton Hall was constructed in 1920, using the same type granite to keep a consistent look.

In 1923 Jacobs discovered the tomb of James and Elizabeth Oglethorpe in Cranham, England.

By 1929 Oglethorpe had acquired about 600 acres, including nearby Silver Lake, a gift from publisher William Randolph Hearst.

Four buildings of limestone and native granite, built before 1930, were designed by the noted firm of Morgan and Dillon.

Silver Lake was renamed Lake Phoebe for a period of time, beginning with a dedication ceremony in 1935.

Perhaps the best known of all of Jacobs’ innovations was the Oglethorpe Crypt of Civilization, which he proposed in the November 1936 issue of Scientific American.

The Crypt of Civilization time capsule, a vault located in Hearst Hall, was sealed in 1940 and is not to be opened until 8113 A.D.

Doctor Thornwell Jacobs, the man who worked so diligently to reopen Oglethorpe University, became the institution’s first President and stayed on as President until 1943.

In 1944 Oglethorpe University began a new era under Philip Weltner, a noted attorney and educator.

The idea of a core curriculum was at that time so revolutionary in higher education that news of the Oglethorpe Plan appeared in The New York Times in the spring of 1945.

But the historical identity of Oglethorpe University was so strong that in 1972 the original chartered name was re-established.

A National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grant, which Oglethorpe received in 1996, helped to create an endowment for the core curriculum, guaranteeing that faculty have the resources to keep the core vital and central to learning at Oglethorpe.

Beginning in 1998, Oglethorpe implemented a sequence of new interdisciplinary year-long courses.