Lombard College was a Universalist college located in

Galesburg, Illinois Galesburg is a city in Knox County, Illinois, United States. The city is northwest of Peoria. At the 2010 census, its population was 32,195. It is the county seat of Knox County and the principal city of the Galesburg Micropolitan Statistical ...

History

Lombard College was founded in 1853 by the Universalist Church as the Illinois Liberal Institute. In 1855, however, a major fire damaged much of the college, placing its future at risk, but a large gift from

Benjamin Lombard Benjamin ( he, ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel (Jacob's thir ...

(1815–1882), a Massachusetts-born farmer and businessman, rescued the institution, rechristened as Lombard University. The official name of the school was changed to Lombard College. Lombard was

coeducational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...

from its founding, reflecting the Universalist philosophy. The institution was the seat of the Ryder School of Divinity from sometime in the 1880s until 1913. The very first chapter of the national sorority

Alpha Xi Delta Alpha Xi Delta (, often referred to as A-''"Zee"''-D ) is a women's fraternity founded on April 17, 1893. Baird's Manual is also available online hereThe Baird's Manual Online Archive homepage at Lombard College in Galesburg, Illinois, United Stat ...

was also founded there in 1893. Lombard College was a member of the

Illinois Intercollegiate Athletic Conference The Interstate Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC) was a college athletic conference that existed from 1908 to 1970 in the United States. At one time the Illinois Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, or IIAC, was a robust league that clai ...

from 1910 to 1929. The

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

proved to be too much for Lombard; the last class was graduated in 1930. While Lombard did not merge, some of its students transferred to nearby Knox College, and its alumni activities take place at Knox.

Sigma Nu Sigma Nu () is an undergraduate Fraternities and sororities in North America, college fraternity founded at the Virginia Military Institute on January 1, 1869. The fraternity was founded by James Frank Hopkins, Greenfield Quarles and James McIlva ...

fraternity's Delta Theta chapter, which formed at Lombard in 1867 as the Delta Theta Society and became a part of Sigma Nu in 1891, continues its activities at Knox to this day. Until 1973, the Alpha Chapter of Alpha Xi Delta also continued at Knox. The former Lombard College building and campus is currently used as Lombard Middle School. When the college closed in 1930, the Lombard charter was transferred to Meadville Theological School in Chicago. a Unitarian seminary, bringing with it Lombard's privilege of a tax exemption, "one of only three in Illinois granting full tax-exempt status in perpetuity for all college-owned property." In 1964 the school adopted the name "Meadville Theological School of Lombard College". The combined institution later became

Meadville Lombard Theological School The Meadville Lombard Theological School is a Unitarian Universalist seminary in Chicago, Illinois. History Meadville Lombard is a result of a merger in the 1930s between two institutions, a Unitarian seminary and a Universalist seminary. M ...

Notable alumni

* Ken Carpenter - radio-TV announcer *

Edwin H. Conger Edwin Hurd Conger (March 7, 1843 – May 18, 1907) was an American Civil War soldier, lawyer, banker, Iowa congressman, and United States diplomat. As the United States' minister to China during the Boxer Rebellion, Conger, his family, and ...

– U.S. Congressman, diplomat, and Minister to

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, and

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

* Jennie Florella Holmes — American temperance activist and suffragist *

Effie McCollum Jones Effie McCollum Jones (1869-1952) was an American Universalist minister and suffragist. Biography Born in rural Kansas, she attended Lombard College in Galesburg, Illinois and received an honorary doctorate from Lombard College's Ryder School of ...

- Universalist minister, suffragist * William Bramwell Powell - educator, co-founder of

National Geographic Society The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, and ...

Carl Sandburg Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg ...

(non-graduate) – author, poet,

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

winner * Paul Jordan Smith – editor, educator, poet *

Evar Swanson Ernest Evar Swanson (October 15, 1902 in DeKalb, Illinois – July 17, 1973 in Galesburg, Illinois), was a professional baseball and football player. He played outfielder in the Major Leagues from to . He would play for the Cincinnati Reds an ...

– professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

and

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player *

Vespasian Warner Vespasian Warner (April 23, 1842 – March 31, 1925) was a U.S. Representative from Illinois. Biography Born in Mount Pleasant (now Farmer City), De Witt County, Illinois, Warner moved with his parents to Clinton, Illinois, in 1843. He attend ...

– politician, lawyer, businessman. * Owen B. West - Illinois state legislator, farmer, and businessman * Sewall G. Wright – geneticist *

Quincy Wright Philip Quincy Wright (December 28, 1890 – October 17, 1970) was an American political scientist based at the University of Chicago known for his pioneering work and expertise in international law, international relations, and security studies. ...

– educator, poet, economist *

Theodore Paul Wright Theodore Paul Wright (May 25, 1895 – August 21, 1970), also known as T. P. Wright, was a U.S. aeronautical engineer and educator. Biography He was born in Galesburg, Illinois on May 25, 1895. His father was the economist Philip Green Wri ...

– engineer, first director of the Civil Aeronautics Administration

Notable faculty

Anna Groff Bryant Anna Groff Bryant (1860 — January 27, 1941) was an American concert singer and voice educator. Early life Anna Groff was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the daughter of Michael Groff and Anna Kirch Groff. She studied music at Downer College and ...

— vocal teacher, head of music department * Philip Green Wright *

David Starr Jordan David Starr Jordan (January 19, 1851 – September 19, 1931) was the founding president of Stanford University, serving from 1891 to 1913. He was an ichthyologist during his research career. Prior to serving as president of Stanford Univer ...

– ichthyologist, president of

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universit ...

; founding president of

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

*Frederick William Rich-Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Conger Professor of Chemistry and Physics atalogue of Lombard College, 1906-1908*

Wilhelmine Key Wilhelmine "Minnie" Marie Enteman Key (February 22, 1872 – January 31, 1955) was an American geneticist. She was the first woman to gain a PhD in zoology from the University of Chicago, where she studied coloration in paper wasps. She contrib ...

- geneticist, eugenics

References

External links

Lombard history
at Knox College {{authority control Educational institutions established in 1853 Defunct private universities and colleges in Illinois Educational institutions disestablished in 1930 Education in Knox County, Illinois Universities and colleges affiliated with the Universalist Church of America 1853 establishments in Illinois 1930 disestablishments in Illinois