History
Knox College was founded in 1837 by anti-slavery social reformers, led by George Washington Gale. Many of the founders, including the Rev. Samuel Wright, actively supported the Underground Railroad. The original name for the school was Knox Manual Labor College, but it has been known by its present name since 1857.
The college's name came about through a compromise among its founders. Though founded by a colony of Presbyterians and Congregationalists, the county in which the college is located was already named Knox County, after Henry Knox, the first United States Secretary of War. Arguments have been made that the college was named for Calvinist leader John Knox, but it is not certain for which Knox it was named (if not both). George Candee Gale, a great-great-grandson of two of the founders, explains that
"contrary to general belief, Knox was not named for either General Knox or the Scottish Presbyterian Knox, according to my father ... Some wanted the college named for one Knox, some for the other; so they compromised on KNOX. Certainly most of them were pious enough to want the churchman and fighters enough to want the soldier as well."
Knox was the site of the fifth debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in 1858. The Old Main building is the only site from the debates that stands today. Two years after the debates, and during his presidential campaign, Lincoln was awarded the first honorary doctorate ever conferred by Knox College—a Doctor of Laws degree, announced at the commencement exercises of 5 July 1860.
Read more about this topic: Knox College (Illinois)
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“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
—G.M. (George Macaulay)
“To summarize the contentions of this paper then. Firstly, the phrase ‘the meaning of a word’ is a spurious phrase. Secondly and consequently, a re-examination is needed of phrases like the two which I discuss, ‘being a part of the meaning of’ and ‘having the same meaning.’ On these matters, dogmatists require prodding: although history indeed suggests that it may sometimes be better to let sleeping dogmatists lie.”
—J.L. (John Langshaw)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)