The story
Founded by Zephaniah Swift Moore in 1821.1
Founding and 19th century
In 1812, funds were raised in Amherst for a secondary school, Amherst Academy; it opened December 1814. The academy incorporated in 1816, and eventually counted among its students Emily Dickinson, Sylvester Graham, and Mary Lyon (founder of Mount Holyoke College). The institution was named after the town, which in turn had been named after Jeffery, Lord Amherst, a veteran from the Seven Years' War and later commanding general of the British forces in North America. On November 18, 1817, a project was adopted at the Academy to raise funds for the free instruction of "indigent young men of promising talents and hopeful piety, who shall manifest a desire to obtain a liberal education with a sole view to the Christian ministry". This required a substantial investment from benefactors.
During the fundraising for the project, it became clear that without larger designs, it would be impossible to raise sufficient funds. This led the committee overseeing the project to conclude that a new institution should be created. On August 18, 1818, the Amherst Academy board of trustees accepted this conclusion and began building a new college.
Founded in 1821, Amherst College developed from Amherst Academy, first established as a secondary school. The college was originally suggested as an alternative to Williams College, which was struggling to stay open. Although Williams survived, Amherst was formed and developed as a distinct institution.
Establishment
Moore, then President of Williams College, however, still believed that Williamstown was an unsuitable location for a college. When Amherst College was established, he was elected its first president on May 8, 1821. At its opening, Amherst had forty-seven students. Fifteen of these had followed Moore from Williams College. Those fifteen represented about one-third of the total students at Amherst, and about one-fifth of the whole number in the three classes to which they belonged in Williams College. President Moore died on June 29, 1823, and was replaced with a Williams College trustee, Heman Humphrey.
Williams alumni are fond of an apocryphal story ascribing the removal of books from the Williams College library to Amherst College. In 1995, Williams president Harry C. Payne declared the story false, but many still nurture the legend.
In 1826, Edward Jones became Amherst's first Black graduate.
Amherst grew quickly, and for two years in the mid-1830s, it was the second largest college in the United States, behind Yale. In 1835, Amherst attempted to create a course of study parallel to the classical liberal arts education. This parallel course focused less on Greek and Latin, instead emphasizing contemporary English, French, and Spanish languages, chemistry, economics, etc. The parallel course did not take hold and replace the classical until the next century.
Amherst was founded as a non-sectarian institution "for the classical education of indigent young men of piety and talents for the Christian ministry" (Tyler, A History of Amherst College). One of the hallmarks of the new college was its Charity Fund, an early form of financial aid that paid the tuition of poorer students. Although officially non-denominational, Amherst was considered a religiously conservative institution with a strong connection to Calvinism; the Puritans still controlled much of Massachusetts life.
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As a result, there was considerable debate in the Massachusetts government over whether the new college should receive an official charter from the state. A charter was not granted until February 21, 1825, as reflected on the Amherst seal. Religious conservatism persisted at Amherst until the mid-nineteenth century: students who consumed alcohol or played cards were subject to expulsion. A number of religious revivals were held at Amherst. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, however, the college began a transition toward secularism. This movement was considered to culminate in the 1949 demolition of the college church.
Development and academic reform
Academic hoods in the United States are traditionally lined with the official colors of the school, in theory so watchers can tell where the hood wearer earned his or her degree. Amherst's hoods are purple (Williams' official color) with a white stripe or chevron, said to signify that Amherst was born of Williams. Amherst records one of the first uses of Latin honors of any American college, dating back to 1881. The college was an all-male school until the late 1960s, when a few female students from nearby schools in the Four-College Consortium (Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Smith, UMass) attended on an experimental basis. In October 1974, the faculty voted in favor of coeducation and in November 1974, the board of trustees voted to admit female students starting in the 1975–1976 school year. This was done while John William Ward served as president. In 1975, nine women who were already attending classes as part of an inter-college exchange program were admitted as transfer students. In June 1976, they became the first female graduates of the college.
The college established the Black Studies Department in 1969. In 1973, it launched the nation's first undergraduate neuroscience program. In 1983, it established a Department of Asian Languages and Literatures, which was later to become the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations.
In 1984, on-campus fraternities were abolished. The former fraternity buildings, which were owned by the college, were converted into residence halls. The Department of Women's and Gender Studies, which later became the Department of Sexuality, Women's, and Gender Studies, was established in 1987, and the Department of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought in 1993.
In March 2013, the faculty adopted an open-access policy. Eight years later, the college ended its practice of legacy admissions and increased financial aid to increase access to low and middle-income students and diversify the college.
Presidents
The following persons have served as president of Amherst College:
Table notes:
From Wikipedia’s article on Amherst College, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5