Wittenberg University - History

History

Wittenberg was founded in 1845 by a group of pastors in the English Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Ohio. Reverend Ezra Keller was the principal founder and first president of the college. Its initial focus was to train clergy. One of its main missions was to "Americanize" Lutherans by teaching courses in English instead of German, unlike Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. The first class originally consisted of eight students at the beginning of the academic year, but grew to seventy-one by the end. With a faculty of one professor and two tutors, classes were held in Springfield, Ohio in a church on land that was donated. The city was selected for its location on the new National Road, was easily accessible by travelers once a chain of rocks to the west was successfully bridged, and had become a center for the railroads, with hundreds of trains each day. All of which was making Springfield an agricultural and industrial hub. In 1874, women were admitted, and, the following year, blacks were also admitted. The name came from Wittenberg University, located in Wittenberg, Germany, the town where Martin Luther posted his 95 theses.