Not Penn State since 1740
I always chuckle when I see anyone reference 1740 as the start of Penn.
If you investigate the history of Penn, it all started in 1749, when Benjamin Franklin presented a proposal for a school to be called "Public Academy of Philadelphia" in a pamphlet he wrote and published,
Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania.
The proposal was well received, and Franklin assembled a group of leading citizens of Philadelphia to serve on the board of trustees of the Academy. James Logan, a city leader at the time, offered the board for free a plot of land he owned that was across the street from the State House (which is now known as Independence Hall).
The board and Franklin liked the idea of free land, but they were concerned that it would take too long to erect a building and get the Academy up and running. So they also looked around for a building they could purchase.
In 1740, George Whitefield, an ordained Anglican cleric, traveled to North America, and gave a number of outdoor sermons. These sermons/revivals came to be known as the Great Awakening. In response, a group of Philadelphians in 1740 constructed in the city, at 4th & Arch, a preaching hall for George Whitefield. It was, at the time, the largest building in the city. The plan when they started the construction was that the building(s) would serve as a chapel and a
charity school (remember that minor detail). However, due to a shortfall of funds, construction of the buildings never got close to what had been planned.
The board of trustees of the Public Academy of Philadelphia learned that there were still a great deal of construction debts owed on the preaching hall. They approached those that had built the hall, and on Feb. 1, 1750, in exchange for assuming the construction debts, they took possession of the hall as well as the
inactive trusts (remember this detail) of the group that built the hall.
Sometime between Franklin's proposal in 1749 and the board of trustees taking possession of the former preaching hall in 1750, the name of the school was changed to "Academy of Philadelphia." On August 13, 1751, the first students attended the school -- they were what we would in modern times call middle school and high school students.
In June of 1755, the College of Philadelphia was chartered. At this point, the original school was the Academy for secondary students whose families paid for their instruction, a charity school which provided free education to secondary students, and the College which provided instruction for what we'd now call undergraduates. The board of trustees for the three schools were the same, as it was all considered the same educational institution.
In 1779, during the Revolutionary War, the Pennsylvania Legislature created the University of the State of Pennsylvania. In essence, they took over the College of Philadelphia because they felt that the provost of the College, Rev. William Smith, was a loyalist. Smith fought this action, and continued to run a College of Philadelphia while the University of the State of Pennsylvania was also starting. For several years, there was a college and a university, with separate boards. In 1791, the Pennsylvania Legislature issued a new charter for the schools, which merged the two schools and changed the name to the University of Pennsylvania. To ensure that both schools bought in to this action, the legislature set the new board of trustees to be composed of 12 men from Smith's College of Philadelphia board and 12 men from the University of the State of Pennsylvania board.
So what did Penn set up as its founding date? 1751, when the Academy of Philadelphia accepted their first students? 1755, when the College of Philadelphia was chartered? No, it decided to set its founding as 1750, when the board of the Academy of Philadelphia took possession of their first building and grounds.
All was well and good with 1750 as the founding, but within 10-20 years, Penn started claiming its origin was in 1749, when Franklin published his pamphlet and a board of trustees was set up. Penn used this date as its origin for more than 100 years.
In 1896, Penn's General Alumni Society started to advocate for moving back the date of Penn's founding. Their major motivation -- to be able to claim that they were older than Princeton, which was chartered in 1746 as the College of New Jersey. Penn's alumni organization kept up their campaign, and in 1899 Penn's board of trustees voted to change their founding to 1740. Where did they pull that date from? The earliest "inactive trusts" for the "charity school" component of the preaching hall built for George Whitefield were established in 1740.
I think Penn is a great university. Several members of my family, and several friends of mine, have attended it. I've been on the campus dozens of time, and think Penn is one of the best educational institutions in the country. However, as someone that 1) is interested in 18th century history, with a sub-interest in the Philadelphia region in that time, and 2) someone that is a stickler for being historically accurate, I always chuckle when I see Penn, or anyone speaking for or wearing clothes about, referencing their origin as 1740. I just don't think there is any legitimate basis for Penn's use of 1740 as their origin.
