The story
Founded by John Ireland in 1885.1
Early history
Founded in 1885 by John Ireland, then archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, St. Thomas began as an all-male Catholic seminary. In 1894, the liberal arts program became an independent college through a gift from local railroad tycoon James J. Hill, who provided funds to establish the Saint Paul Seminary apart from the college.
Expansion
In 1903, the College of St. Thomas established a military program on campus, and it was officially termed a military school by the U.S. War Department in 1906. Initially, the school gave out two-year diplomas in commercial and classical programs before awarding its first academic degrees in 1915. In the years before World War I, the commandant of cadets and professor of military science was Robert I. Rees, who attained the rank of brigadier general during the war and was later an executive at AT&T. In 1922, military training became optional.
From the late 1920s through the mid-1930s, the Holy Cross Fathers, who run the University of Notre Dame, controlled the college's administration. The diocese called them in to help with the school's financial problems; they were known as a crisis intervention team of sorts for parochial schools of the time.
During World War II, St. Thomas served as a training base for naval officers, which kept the school open when men who would have attended college were fighting in the war. Also during this period, Japanese American students in concentration camps were invited to study at St. Thomas.After the war, in 1948, the college established "Tom Town" on the eastern end of the lower quadrant, now the site of the O'Shaughnessey-Frey Library and O'Shaughnessey Education Center. Tom Town, made of 20 double-dwelling huts, consisted of white, barracks-like housing units for faculty, students, and their families. The units helped meet housing demand after World War II.
Diversification
In the latter half of the 20th century, St. Thomas started two of its most notable graduate programs, education in 1950 and business administration in 1974. The school became co-educational in 1977, and although women were not allowed to enroll until then, female students from St. Catherine University (then the College of St. Catherine) often took classes at St. Thomas. Women were also present as instructors and administrators on campus, but the staff, faculty, and administration have seen a vast increase in female employment since the move to co-education. In 1990, the College of St. Thomas became the University of St. Thomas and in 1991, the university opened the Minneapolis campus. In 2001, St. Thomas reinstated its School of Law at its Minneapolis campus; it had been shut down during the Great Depression. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was the speaker at the grand opening.
From Wikipedia’s article on University of St. Thomas (Minnesota), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5