American University

A global outlook, practical idealism, a passion for public service: They’re part of American University today, and they were in the air in 1893, when AU was chartered by Congress. George Washington had dreamed of a “national university” in the nation’s capital. But it took John Fletcher Hurst to found a university that, in many ways, embodies that dream. Today’s students would find a kindred spirit in Hurst, who studied abroad in the 1850s and later ventured through the Middle East and South Asia, even writing a cultural history of Sri Lanka. By the time ground was broken in 1896, he was the respected Methodist bishop of Washington, D.C., with a vision of a university that would train public servants for the future. The land Bishop Hurst chose for AU was on the rural fringe of the nation’s capital, but it was already rich with Washington history. Abraham Lincoln had visited troops at Fort Gaines, which perched on the high ground now held by Ward Circle and the Katzen Arts Center. Presidential footsteps would continue to echo through AU history. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of a building, named for Hurst’s friend, President William McKinley. When the Methodist-affiliated university opened in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson gave the dedication.