The definitive history of the first American research university. The Quaker merchant Johns Hopkins set in motion a revolution when he left what was then the largest philanthropic gift in the US: a $7 million bequest to found a university and hospital. In Johns Hopkins: The First 150 Years, historian Andrew Jewett, with Jonathan Strassfeld, captures the sweeping evolution of an institution that rose from the bustle of a post-Civil War port city to become a global titan of discovery and innovation. The book begins with a vivid portrait of Hopkins himself, whose life embodied the economic dynamism and deep moral tensions of nineteenth-century Baltimore. Jewett and Strassfeld then turn to the story of how the university's trustees worked with visionary leader Daniel Coit Gilman to establish original research and graduate training as defining features of American academic life-previously centered on classical education for undergraduates-and to position Hopkins as a global innovator in both the sciences and the humanities. The authors move beyond the lecture hall and the laboratory to track the university's often turbulent ascent, chronicling the birth of modern medical education and the rise of world-leading programs in nursing, engineering, and public health, later followed by international studies, music, education, business, and public policy. This expansive chronicle also looks candidly at the university's complex relationship with its home city of Baltimore, examining its changing role in debates over race and equity and its emergence as a major economic and political player. The definitive history of Hopkins reveals an institution grappling with the heavy responsibilities arising from its influence and power. It is a story of ambition, conflict, innovation, and reinvention-an authoritative and essential account of a university that continues to reshape the world.
Andrew Jewett is a teaching professor at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Science, Democracy, and the American University: From the Civil War to the Cold War and Science under Fire: Challenges to Scientific Authority in Modern America. Jonathan Strassfeld is a lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University Alexander Grass Humanities Institute. He is the author of Inventing Philosophy's Other: Phenomenology in America.
Preface: A University for Outsiders Introduction: A University for Baltimore Part I: A Hopeful Youth, 1875-1901 1. Early Experiments, 1875-1883 2. Additions and Adjustments, 1883-1890 3. New Beginnings, 1890-1901 Part II: A Season of Struggle, 1901-1941 4. Consolidation, 1901-1916 5. War and Prosperity, 1916-1929 6. Hard Times, 1929-1941 Part III: The Social Compact, 1941-1956 7. Global War, 1941-1948 8. Permanent Mobilization, 1948-1956 9. Size and Spirit, 1948-1956 Part IV: Small but Superb, 1956-1988 10. The Era of Good Feelings, 1956-1967 11. Navigating the Sixties, 1967-1971 12. International and Big Time, 1971-1988 Part V: To Build Anew, 1988-2019 13. Structural Shifts, 1988-1996 14. Campus and Community, 1996-2007 15. Cultural Change, 2007-2019 Conclusion: The Compact Broken? Acknowledgments Notes Index
The definitive history of the first American research university.
