Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1831 as a men's college under the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the college was the first institution of higher education to be named after John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. It is now a secular institution.
Middletown is a city in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. Located along the Connecticut River, in the central part of the state, it is 16 miles south of Hartford. Middletown is the largest city in the Lower Connecticut River Valley Planning Region. In 1650, it was incorporated by English settlers as a town under its original Native American name, Mattabeseck, after the local indigenous people, also known as the Mattabesett. They were among the many tribes along the Atlantic coast who spoke Algonquian languages. The colonists renamed the settlement in 1653.
William North Rice (1845–1928) was an American geologist, educator, and Methodist minister and theologian concerned with reconciliation of science and religious faith.
Michael Scott Roth is an American academic and university administrator. He became the 16th president of Wesleyan University in 2007. Formerly, he was the 8th president of the California College of the Arts (2000–2007), associate director of the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, and Director of European Studies at Claremont Graduate University. He was also the H.B. Professor of Humanities at Scripps College, where he was the founding director of the Scripps College Humanities Institute.
Thomas Hart Seymour was an American lawyer and Democratic Party politician who served as the 36th governor of Connecticut from 1850 to 1853 and as minister to Russia from 1853 to 1858. He was the leader of the peace settlement in the Democratic Party, and narrowly lost the April 1863 gubernatorial election.
Charles Wilbert "Bill" Snow was an American poet, educator and politician. He served as the 75th Governor of Connecticut. He generally went by the name Wilbert or Bill Snow, or formally as C. Wilbert Snow.
John Monroe Van Vleck was an American mathematician and astronomer. He taught astronomy and mathematics at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut for more than 50 years (1853-1912), and served as acting university president twice. The Van Vleck Observatory and the crater Van Vleck on the Moon are named after him.
The New England state of Connecticut played an important role in the American Civil War, providing arms, equipment, technology, money, supplies, and manpower for the Union Army, as well as the Union Navy. Several Connecticut politicians played significant roles in the Federal government and helped shape its policies during the war and the subsequent Reconstruction.
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college and "little university" located in Middletown, Connecticut. The now secular and co-ed institution was founded in 1831 as an all-male Methodist college.
Edward Loranus Rice (1871-1960) was a biologist and educator who served as the acting president of Ohio Wesleyan University. He was best known for his 1924 debate with William Jennings Bryan on the topic of biological evolution and serving as a scientific consultant to Clarence Darrow before the 1925 Scopes trial.
Edgar Fauver was an American athlete, coach, university administrator and medical doctor. He played football and baseball for Oberlin College in the 1890s. He later served as the athletic director at Wesleyan University from 1911 to 1937. He was also a pioneer in college athletics for women, coaching basketball and introducing baseball at Barnard College in the 1900s.
Adrienne Lois Kaeppler was an American anthropologist, curator of oceanic ethnology at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. She served as the President of the International Council on Traditional Music between 2005 and 2013. Her research focused on the interrelationships between social structure and the arts, including dance, music, and the visual arts, especially in Tonga and Hawaii. She was considered to be an expert on Tongan dance, and the voyages of the 18th-century explorer James Cook.
David N. Lorenzen is a British–American historian, scholar of Religious studies, essayist, and emeritus professor of South Asian history at the Centre for Asian and African studies, El Colegio de México in Mexico City.
Charles Antoine Micaud was a sociologist, author and American professor. Born in France, he emigrated to the United States in 1936. He was a professor in the universities of Bowdoin College, Virginia and Denver. On 29 March 1941 he married Nancy Waddel.
Christina Crosby was an American scholar and writer, with particular interests in 19th-century British literature and disability studies. She is the author of The Ends of History: Victorians and "The Woman's Question", which considers the place of history and women in 19th-century British literature, and A Body, Undone, a memoir about her life after she was paralyzed in a cycling accident in 2003. She spent her career at Wesleyan University, where she was a professor of English and of feminist, gender, and sexuality studies.
Georg Gerson Iggers was an American historian of modern Europe, historiography, and European intellectual history.
Indian Hill Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery located at 383 Washington Street in Middletown, Connecticut on a hill adjacent to Wesleyan University.
James Mars was an American slave narrative author and political activist. Born into slavery in Canaan, Connecticut, he gained his freedom in 1811. In 1864, he published his memoir A Life of James Mars, a Slave Born and Sold in Connecticut, Written by Himself—a notable example of the slave narrative genre. His grave is a stop on the Connecticut Freedom Trail. In 2021, Governor Ned Lamont declared May 1 to be James Mars Day in Connecticut.
Horatio Theodore Strother was an American historian and educator who wrote an influential 1962 book on the Underground Railroad in Connecticut. His teaching career culminated in a professorship at the University of New Haven from the 1960s.
