Editing Tulane University (section)

===Founding and early history – 19th century===
[[File:Paul Tulane engraved portrait.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Paul Tulane]], eponymous philanthropist of the school]]
The university was founded as the '''Medical College of Louisiana'''<ref name="facts"/> in 1834 partly as a response to the fears of [[smallpox]], [[yellow fever]], and [[cholera]] in the United States.<ref name="beginnings">{{cite news |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4200/is_20041004/ai_n10175884/ |title=Tulane University celebrates birthday No. 170 |year=2004 |publisher=New Orleans CityBusiness |access-date=May 30, 2009 |first=Richard A. |last=Webster |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016223503/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4200/is_20041004/ai_n10175884/ |archive-date=October 16, 2015 |url-status=live }}</ref> The university became the second medical school in the South, and the 15th in the United States at the time. In 1847, the state legislature established the school as the '''University of Louisiana''',<ref name="facts"/> a [[State university system|public university]], and the [[Tulane University Law School|law department]] was added to the university. Subsequently, in 1851, the university established its first academic department. The first president chosen for the new university was [[Francis Lister Hawks]], an Episcopal priest and prominent citizen of New Orleans at the time.

The university was closed from 1861 to 1865 during the [[American Civil War]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Varhola |first=Michael J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aBZjDwAAQBAJ |title=Life in Civil War America |date=2011-01-31 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-1-4403-1088-1 |language=en}}</ref> After reopening, it went through a period of financial challenges because of an extended agricultural depression in the South which affected the nation's economy. [[Paul Tulane]], owner of a prospering dry goods and clothing business, donated extensive real estate within New Orleans for the support of education. This donation led to the establishment of a Tulane Educational Fund (TEF), whose board of administrators sought to support the University of Louisiana instead of establishing a new university. In response, through the influence of former [[Confederate States Army|Confederate]] general [[Randall Lee Gibson]], the Louisiana state legislature transferred control of the University of Louisiana to the administrators of the TEF in 1884.<ref name="facts" /> This act created the '''Tulane University of Louisiana'''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/classifications/sub.asp?key=748&subkey=14527&start=782 |title=The Carnegie Foundation |access-date=June 21, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090114111825/http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/classifications/sub.asp?key=748&subkey=14527&start=782 |archive-date=January 14, 2009 }}</ref> The university was privatized, and is one of only a few American universities to be converted from a state public institution to a private one.<ref name="The American Presidency Project">{{cite web|url=http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=4859|title=Gerald R. Ford: Address at a Tulane University convocation|year=1975|publisher=The American Presidency Project|access-date=March 15, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071027103214/http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=4859|archive-date=October 27, 2007|url-status=live}}</ref>

Paul Tulane's endowment to the school specified that the institution could only admit white students, and Louisiana law passed in 1884 reiterated this condition.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|title=Tulane University Admits 5 Negroes, First in Its History|last=United Press International|date=January 26, 1963|work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref>

In 1884, [[William Preston Johnston]] became the first president of Tulane. He had succeeded [[Robert E. Lee]] as president of [[Washington and Lee University]] after Lee's death. He had moved to Louisiana and become president of [[Louisiana State University]] in 1880.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mayo |first=Amory Dwight |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I-8BAAAAYAAJ |title=William Preston Johnston's Work for a New South |date=1900 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |language=en}}</ref>

In 1885, the university established its graduate division, later becoming the Graduate School. One year later, gifts from [[Josephine Louise Newcomb]] totaling over $3.6 million, led to the establishment of the [[H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College]] within Tulane University. Newcomb was the first coordinate college for women in the United States and became a model for such institutions as [[Pembroke College in Brown University|Pembroke College]] and [[Barnard College]].<ref name="dates"/> In 1894 the College of Technology formed, which would later become the School of Engineering. In the same year, the university moved to its present-day uptown campus on historic [[St. Charles Avenue]], [[St. Charles Streetcar Line|five miles (8&nbsp;km) by streetcar]] from downtown New Orleans.<ref name="dates"/>