Johns Hopkins University: Nathaniel T.
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- Published: 2008-08-11
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| Coordinates | 23°32′28″N46°22′08″N |
|---|---|
| Name | Johns Hopkins |
| Birth date | May 19, 1795 |
| Birth place | Anne Arundel County, Maryland, U.S. |
| Death date | December 24, 1873 |
| Death place | Baltimore, MD, U.S. |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur, Investor, Philanthropist, Abolitionist |
| Religion | Society of Friends (Quakerism) |
Johns Hopkins (May 19, 1795 – December 24, 1873) was a wealthy entrepreneur, philanthropist, and abolitionist of 19th century Baltimore, now most noted for his philanthropic creation of the institutions that bear his name, namely the Johns Hopkins Hospital, and the Johns Hopkins University and its associated divisions, in particular the schools of nursing, medicine, and public health. A biography entitled Johns Hopkins: A Silhouette written by his cousin, Helen Hopkins Thom, was published in 1929 by the Johns Hopkins University Press.
Whitehall Plantation is now known as the Walden Community (Crofton, Maryland), however the house, since restored and modified, is located on Johns Hopkins Road, adjacent to Reidel Road. The heavily landscaped house is surrounded by Walden Golf Course, and contains a historic marker.
The Civil War had taken its toll on Baltimore, however, as did the yellow fever and cholera epidemics that repeatedly ravaged the nation's cities, killing 853 in Baltimore in the summer of 1832 alone. Hopkins was keenly aware of the city's need for medical facilities, particularly in light of the medical advances made during the war, and in 1870 he made a will setting aside seven million dollars - mostly in B&O; stock - for the incorporation of a free hospital and affiliated medical and nurse's training colleges, as well as an orphanage for colored children and a university. Many board members were on both boards. The hospital and orphan asylum would each be overseen by the 12-member hospital board of trustees, and the university by the 12-member university board of trustees. Johns Hopkins' bequest was used to found posthumously the Johns Hopkins Colored Children Orphan Asylum first as he requested, in 1875; the Johns Hopkins University in 1876; the Johns Hopkins Press, the longest continuously operating academic press in America, in 1878; the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in 1889; the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine 1893; and the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in 1916.
Johns Hopkins' views on his bequests, and on the duties and responsibilities of the two board of trustees, especially the hospital board of trustees led by his friend and fellow Quaker Francis King, were formally stated primarily in four documents, the incorporation papers filed in 1867, his instruction letter to the hospital trustees dated March 12 1873, his will, which was quoted from extensively in his Baltimore Sun obituary, and in his will's two codicils, one dated 1870 and the other dated 1873.
In these documents, Hopkins also made provisions for scholarships to be provided for poor youths in the states where Johns Hopkins had made his wealth, as well as assistance to orphanages other than the one for African American children, to members of his family, to those he employed, black and white, his cousin Elizabeth, and, again, to other institutions for the care and education of youths regardless of color and the care of the elderly, and the ill, including the mentally ill, and convalescents.
John Rudolph Niernsee, one of most famous architects of the time, designed the orphan asylum and helped to design the Johns Hopkins Hospital. The original site for the Johns Hopkins University had been chosen personally by Hopkins. According to his will, it was to be located at his summer estate, Clifton. However, a decision was made not to found the university there. The property, now owned by the city of Baltimore, is the site of a golf course and a park named Clifton Park. While the Johns Hopkins Colored Children Orphan Asylum was founded by the hospital trustees, the other institutions that carry the name of "Johns Hopkins" were founded under the administration of the first president of the Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Hospital, Daniel Coit Gilman and his successors.
The Johns Hopkins Orphan Asylum opened with 24 boys and girls. Under Gilman and his successors, this orphanage was later changed to serve as an orphanage and training school for black female orphans principally as domestic workers, and next as an "orthopedic convalescent" home and school for "colored crippled" children and orphans. The asylum was eventually closed in 1924 nearly fifty years after it opened, and was never reopened.
By the end of Gilman's presidency, Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins Press, Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and Johns Hopkins Hospital Colored Children Orphan Asylum had been founded, the latter by the trustees, and the others in the order listed under the Gilman administration. "Sex" and "color" were major issues in the early history of the Johns Hopkins Institutions. The founding of the School of Nursing is usually linked to Johns Hopkins' statements in his March 1873 instruction letter to the trustees that "I desire you to establish, in connection with the hospital, a training school for female nurses. This provision will secure the services of women competent to care for those sick in the hospital wards, and will enable you to benefit the whole community by supplying it with a class of trained and experienced nurses".
Women's most well known success after the founding of the nursing school was their requirement that they be allowed to attend Johns Hopkins medical institutions after they provided funds that made possible the opening of the School of Medicine in 1893. Five African American women were among the first women enrolled in the Johns Hopkins University's undergraduate school in 1970. Kelly Miller and Frederick Scott were the first persons of African descent to attend the Johns Hopkins University's graduate and undergraduate schools, respectively. Frederick Scott was the first graduate of African descent from Johns Hopkins University, and he, Robert Gamble, and Kenyan-born James Nabwangu were the first graduates of African descent from Johns Hopkins University's undergraduate school, and Johns Hopkins' medical schools respectively. Those employees holding jobs in the service sector are those of African descent who have the longest and most continuous history at the Johns Hopkins Institutions.
Johns Hopkins' Quaker faith and his early life experiences, in particular the 1807 emancipation, had a lasting influence through out his life and his posthumous legacy as a businessman, railroad man, banker, investor, ship owner, philanthropist and a founder of several Institutions. From very early on, Johns Hopkins had looked upon his wealth as a trust to benefit future generations. He is said to have told his gardener that, "like the man in the parable, I have had many talents given to me and I feel they are in trust. I shall not bury them but give them to the lads who long for a wider education"; his philosophy quietly anticipated Andrew Carnegie's much publicized Gospel of Wealth by more than 25 years.
His philanthropy, banking and other business practices were founded neither on slavery nor on the separate but unequal racism of the post Civil War years of his life. In this vein, integral parts of his legacy, as an emancipator, a founder of an orphan asylum for African-American youths, a staunch advocate of abolitionism and of quality care not just for those physically ill, but also for the elderly, the poor, no matter their age, sex, or color, and the mentally ill, have by and large been overlooked, even in the institutions that carry his name.
In 1973 Johns Hopkins was cited prominently in the Pulitzer Prize winning book The Americans: The Democratic Experience by Daniel Boorstin, former head of the Library of Congress. From November 14, 1975 to September 6, 1976 Hopkins portrait was displayed at the National Portrait Gallery in an exhibit on the democratization of America based on Boorstin's book. In 1989, the United States Postal Service issued a $1 postage stamp in Johns Hopkins' honor, as part of the Great Americans series.
Category:American businesspeople Category:American abolitionists Category:American philanthropists Category:Johns Hopkins University Category:University and college founders Category:People from Baltimore, Maryland Category:People from Anne Arundel County, Maryland Category:American Quakers Category:1795 births Category:1873 deaths
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