Racine College

Racine College was an Episcopal preparatory school and college in Racine, Wisconsin, founded in 1852. Most boys enrolled at Racine College were secondary (or grammar) school students preparing for the Bachelor of Arts course.

Racine College's most notable warden was the Rev. Dr. James DeKoven. DeKoven was a major exponent of High Church and Anglo-Catholic views in the Episcopal Church. One of the best-known preachers and orators of his day, he died in 1879 at age 49.

Racine was directly influenced - especially after DeKoven was elected Warden in 1856 - by the Grammar School and College of Saint James in Maryland, which in turn was part of the "Church school" movement inaugurated by William Augustus Muhlenberg and his proteges in 1828. When the American Civil War drove Saint James out of business, several important teachers and professors joined DeKoven at Racine. Racine College was sometimes called "the Sewanee of the North", since both were Oxonian-like, church-operated institutions. The grammar school and college at Sewanee, Tennessee were closely linked to Racine in the postbellum era; the Chancellor of the University of the South, Bishop Charles Todd Quintard, served on the Racine Board of Trustees, and an early leader of Sewanee, Thomas F. Gailor, was prepared at Racine.

When DeKoven began to raise money for new buildings at Racine College, he looked to England for his inspiration. Most of the campus buildings were inspired by the architecture of St. Peter's College, a high-church public school founded at Radley in 1847.

Racine and the University of Michigan inaugurated college football in the Midwest with a match played on May 30, 1879. Michigan won, 1–0.