Dreams of Our Founders
(Portrait of Trinity Founder Sr. Julia McGroarty, SND, original on the Marble Corridor in the Well)
Trinity’s Founders had big dreams. The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur — led by Provincial Superior Sr. Julia McGroarty (portrait above) and her able “woman on the scene” Sr. Mary Euphrasia Taylor — had a vision for a college for women equal in quality to the colleges for men at the end of the 19th Century. The SNDs were experienced educators; the Academy of Notre Dame on K Street in Washington (now the site of Gonzaga College High School) was one of several SND schools for girls in the U.S. But launching an institution of higher education was another whole level of complexity academically as well as financially and socially. How did they do it in an age without cell phones, email, computers, airplanes or personal cars?
In 1897, their preferred mode of communication was a handwritten letter delivered in person; their transportation depended on horse-drawn carriages, steam engines for trains, or perhaps a ride in one of the amazing new machines known as automobiles.
The dreams of the SNDs received great encouragement from the priests who ran then-new Catholic University. Catholic women were applying to that new university but women were rejected from admission because coeducation was forbidden in Catholic schools. The priests were concerned that the women barred from Catholic University were turning to “godless” colleges for their higher education. One such institution was then called Columbian College, now the liberal arts college of George Washington University.
With great zeal, a good deal of creativity, and amazing fortitude, Srs. Julia and Mary Euphrasia moved quickly in 1897 to lay the foundation for Trinity College. In just a few short months, they secure the articles of incorporation (left), bought land and developed building plans. Some conservative priests at Catholic University grew alarmed and tried to stop the project, spreading rumors that the idea for Trinity was simply a subversive effort to bring coeducation to the University.
The criticisms reached Pope Leo XIII (right); the critics claimed that the idea of Trinity was an example of the heresy of “Americanism” that the Pope was denouncing in those days. The SNDs responded with an audacious campaign of letter writing to papal representatives and even a one-day round-trip to Atlantic City to plead the case for Trinity to the papal nuncio, the Pope’s ambassador in the U.S.
The persistence of Srs. Julia and Mary Euphrasia won the day; Pope Leo indicated that the founding of Trinity could continue and the opposition died down.
Over the next three years, the SNDs bought the land, raised money, and started building the great Main Hall that became the heart of Trinity’s campus. The first students and faculty moved into Main in November 1900 and Trinity College opened with a grand celebration.
Today, Trinity College — now known as Trinity Washington University — remembers our Founders with much gratitude and joy. Those courageous women could not have imagined Trinity today in our glorious diversity of students and programs, but they surely would celebrate with us as this venerable institution looks to our future with the same zeal and confidence that inspired the Sisters of Notre Dame in 1897.
Let us give thanks to Julia, Mary Euphrasia, and all of those brilliant women who made our lives and work at Trinity possible today!
(Below, the first Trinity students, Class of 1904!)
