Butler University - History

History

On January 15, 1850, the Indiana State legislature adopted Ovid Butler's proposed charter for a new Christian university in Indianapolis. After five years in development, Butler University opened on November 1, 1855, as North Western Christian University at 13th street and College Avenue on Indianapolis' near north-side at the eastern edge of the present Old Northside Historic District on land provided by attorney and university founder Ovid Butler.

In 1930, Butler merged with the Teacher's College of Indianapolis, founded by Eliza Blaker, creating the university's second college. The third college, the College of Business Administration, was established in 1937, and the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences was established in 1945, following a merger that absorbed the Indianapolis College of Pharmacy. The Jordan College of Fine Arts, the university's fifth college, was established in 1951, following a merger with the Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music. Butler's School of Religion, established in 1924, became independent in 1958 and is currently known as the Christian Theological Seminary.

Butler University was founded by members of the Disciples of Christ church, though it was never controlled by the church. The university charter called for "a non-sectarian institution free from the taint of slavery, offering instruction in every branch of liberal and professional education." The university was the first in Indiana and the third in the U.S. to admit both men and women. Butler was the first university in the United States to endow a chair designated specifically for a woman, the Demia Butler Chair (endowed in 1869). Catharine Merrill, the first person to hold the chair, became the second woman named to be a professor in an American university.

The university established the first professorship in English literature and the first Department of English in the state of Indiana.