What’s in a Name? Caldwell Hall

Victor David, Class of 2014
January 14, 2012
Filed under Quill

First of all, Happy New Year , all! Now, back through our journey through history. Let’s start with the very beginning: Caldwell Hall. The building was actually dedicated as Divinity Hall. However, within the first years, students called it after the university’s first donor: Mary Guendolyn Caldwell.

The idea of a Catholic institution for graduate studies was first proposed in the early 19th cetury; it wasn’t until the Archbishop of Baltimore, Martin Spalding, proposed the idea again that it was seriously discussed during the 1866 plenary council. Archbishop Spalding’s nephew, Rev. John Lancaster Spalding, continued the conversation. Though his work, the matter was added to the agenda of the Third Plenary Council of 1884. The idea was settled when then-Bishop John Spalding’s friend, the 21 year-old heiress Mary Caldwell, pledged $300,000 for a national Catholic university.

Though many challenged the idea of the university, those committed to the idea strove on. In 1885, a board of trustees, made up of churchmen and laymen, started on the magnum opus. Mary Caldwell’s gigantic donation was accepted, with a few conditions. The conditions included: that Mary Caldwell be known as founder of the school, the university never be under the control of a single religious order (like Georgetown or Notre Dame), and that once a site for the school was chosen, it never be changed; she would later be given the authority to decide the location.

Over a few years of hard work, some nail biting, and many prayers, Pope Leo XIII gave his consent by letter, dated April 10, 1887 (which we celebrate as Founders Day). The first building on campus was then dedicated on May 24, 1888 with President Grover Cleveland, Cardinal Gibbons, Mary Caldwell, Bishop Spalding, and others in attendance. The original letter from Leo XIII was sealed in the cornerstone.

Later on, Mary’s sister, Mary Elizabeth donated money for the construction of the chapel; she was married in the chapel in 1890. Though both eventually left the Catholic Church before their deaths in the early 1900s, Mary Caldwell is still considered the founder of the Catholic University of America.