Patrick Francis Healy Inaugurated

Healy Hall,
Georgetown University,
Washington, D.C.,
Theodor Horydczak, photographer. October 1948.
Washington as It Was, 1923-1959

Patrick Francis Healy, S.J., was inaugurated as president of Georgetown University on July 31, 1874. Although Georgetown's founder The Reverend Father John Carroll (later Archbishop Carroll) began to collect funds for its construction in 1787, Healy initiated Georgetown's transformation from a small school to a modern university.

The first African American to receive a Ph.D. and the first to head a predominantly white university, Healy was the Georgia-born son of an Irish-immigrant planter and a slave. Michael Healy freed his nine children by Mary Eliza at his death. Most of the young Healys were educated in the North. After graduating from Holy Cross College in Massachusetts, Patrick Healy entered the Jesuits in 1850.

As a Jesuit, Healy was sent to Europe where he received his doctorate from Louvaine University in Belgium. In 1866, he returned to teach philosophy at Georgetown then a preparatory academy and small college. Healy was named prefect of studies in 1868 and the university's board of directors voted him acting president in 1873. The following year Healy's position as president was confirmed.

The Aqueduct Bridge and Georgetown from Virginia,
William Morris Smith, photographer,
between 1860 and 1865.
Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865

In the antebellum period, Georgetown attracted mainly Southern students: four-fifths of its alumni joined the Confederacy. After the war, however, students came in far greater numbers from the Northeast. The university's colors -- blue and gray -- were selected to symbolize the healing and reuniting of the country.

In the post-Civil War years, Healy prepared Georgetown to become a true university. His curricular reforms included placing new emphasis on science and making law and medical programs integral to the college. Healy founded the Alumni Association and oversaw major construction projects. The unique Flemish Renaissance structure pictured above, a distinctive feature of the Washington, D.C. skyline, was a product of the Healy administration. His untiring efforts on behalf of the university cost him his health and forced his retirement in 1881. Patrick Francis Healy died in 1910.

• See more images of Georgetown University and pictures of Washington, D.C. as seen from the campus. Search across the American Memory collections on Georgetown.
• Learn more about the role religion and religious education played in the development of the United States. See the online exhibition Religion and the Founding of the American Republic.
• Search the Today in History Archive on college or university to find features on American colleges and universities including Columbia, Harvard, Howard, and Vassar.

Rock of Chickamauga

Portrait of Major General George H. Thomas,
Officer of the Federal Army,
Brady National Photographic Art Gallery,
between 1860 and 1865.
Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865

On July 31, 1816, George H. Thomas was born in Southampton County, Virginia. Known as the "Rock of Chickamauga" for his 1863 defense of the creek in northwestern Georgia, Thomas also played a key role in Union General William T. Sherman's siege of Atlanta the following year.

A graduate of West Point, Thomas served in the Mexican War and returned to teach at West Point. When the Civil War began, he remained loyal to the Union.

In the fall of 1864, Thomas clashed twice with Confederate General John B. Hood in Tennessee, first at Franklin in November and then at Nashville in December. Thomas's rout of Hood at Nashville, the most decisive victory of the war, virtually destroyed Hood's army and forced him to give up his command.

Learn more about the Civil War in American Memory collections:

• Search the collection Touring Turn-of-the-Century America, 1880-1920 on the term Chickamauga for images associated with the battle.
• Use the Time Line of the Civil War, a special presentation of the Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865, to follow a year-by-year overview of the conflict.
• Locate recollections of participants in the war by a searching on Civil War in American Life Histories, 1936-1940. Narrow the selection by adding a major battle or topic to the search, for example, Civil War AND Gettysburg.
• Search the Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865 collection to find more photographs of people and battles.
• Search the collection Civil War Maps on the names of locations or battlefields to find maps of sites of the conflict.
• Search the Today in History Archive on Civil War to locate more features, such as the First Battle of Bull Run, the three days of the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1, July 2, and July 3), and Lee's surrender to Grant.

Railroad Yard and Depot,
Nashville, Tennessee,
George N. Barnard, photographer,
1864.
Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865

Federal Outer Line,
Nashville, Tennessee,
George N. Barnard, photographer,
December 16, 1864.
Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865