The story
Founded by Benjamin Rush in 1783.1
18th century
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 the 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; it was the first college to be founded in the newly independent United States of America. 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. Dickinson College's location west of the Susquehanna River made it the westernmost college in the United States at the time of its 1783 founding. Rush made his first journey to Carlisle to attend the first meeting of the trustees, held in April 1784. 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.
Among Dickinson's 18th century graduates were Robert Cooper Grier and Roger Brooke Taney, both of whom later became U.S. Supreme Court justices.
19th century
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 was founded in 1834, the third school of law established in the United States. It became a separate school in 1890, although the law school and college continued to share a president until 1912. The law school is now affiliated with the Penn State University.
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 fifteenth president of the United States, and Roger Brooke Taney, the fifth 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.
Carlisle was also the location of the Carlisle Barracks, which was converted in the late 1870s for use as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. In 1879, Dickinson College and the nearby Carlisle Indian School began a collaboration, when James Andrew McCauley, president of the college, led the first worship service at the Indian School. The collaboration between the institutions lasted almost four decades, from the opening day to the closing of the Indian School in 1918. Dickinson College professors served as chaplains and special faculty to the Native American students. Dickinson College students volunteered services, observed teaching methods, and participated in events at the Indian School. Dickinson College accepted select Indian School students to attend its Preparatory School ("Conway Hall") and gain college-level education.
When George Metzger, class of 1798, died in 1879, he left his land and $25,000 (equivalent to $864,000 in 2025) 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.
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In 1887, Zatae Longsdorff became the first woman to graduate from Dickinson.
20th century
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.
Dickinson also admitted Native American students: Thomas P. Marshall, a Sioux from Pine Ridge agency, South Dakota, was one of the first; his grave is in the Carlisle Indian Industrial School (CIIS) cemetery. In 1910, Frank Mount Pleasant was the first Native American to graduate from Dickinson.
The college introduced the Joseph Priestley Award in 1952, which gives recognition to scientists who have made a contribution to "the welfare of humanity". The first person to receive this was Hugh Stott Taylor, for his work in chemistry, with a later recipient being Vint Cerf.
In the 1990s, the college experienced financial troubles. Acceptance rates climbed upwards. Henry Clarke, an alumnus who was in the ice cream business, founded the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues at Dickinson College, and in 1994 established the Clarke Center. William Durden, who became the 27th President in 1999, was credited with improving financial climate and revamping academics.
21st century
Dickinson's acceptance rate is 35%, and the institutional endowment has more than doubled since 2000.
In 2000 Dickinson opened a new science building, Tome Hall, a state-of-the-art interdisciplinary facility to host astronomy, computer science, math, and physics. Tome houses Dickinson's innovative "Workshop Physics" program and was the first stage of a new science complex. Opened in 2008, the LEED Gold certified Rector Science Complex serves as a place of scientific exploration and learning in an environment that is artful and sustainable.
Dickinson acquired Allison United Methodist Church for college expansion in 2013. The building, located at 99 Mooreland Avenue, provides the college with more than 33,000 square feet (3,100 m2) for events, guest speakers, student presentations, meetings, ecumenical worship, and additional offices.
Dickinson aims for campus environmental sustainability through several initiatives. In the Sustainable Endowments Institute's 2010 green report card Dickinson was one of only 15 schools in the United States to receive an A−, the highest grade possible. In the same year, Dickinson was named a Sierra magazine "Cool School" in its Comprehensive Guide to the Most Eco-Enlightened U.S. Colleges: Live (Green) and Learn. The college's commitment to making study of the environment and sustainability a defining characteristic of a Dickinson education was also recognised through being top of The Princeton Review's 2010 Green Honor Roll.
In 2008, the college bought 100% of its energy from wind power, had solar panels on campus, owned and operated an organic garden and farm, and had signed the American Colleges & Universities Presidents Climate Commitment. The college's emphasis on sustainability education recognizes its importance for innovation and the lives of tomorrow's graduates. The college had made a commitment to being carbon neutral by 2020. This involved a mixture of increased energy efficiency on campus, switching energy sourcing, promoting behavior change and carbon offsetting.
From Wikipedia’s article on Dickinson College, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5