Founders Week Talk

In 1850, Ovid Butler wrote and submitted a charter for a new institution of higher education to be created in Indianapolis. A lawyer by training, and the son of a minister, Butler and the men who signed the charter sought to create launch a new school to be called North Western Christian University. An upstart school, in a city that was hardly thirty years old, NWCU was defined by geography ("North Western" was an homage to the Northwest Territorial Ordinance), faith (Butler was a devoted member, as were many of those who signed, of the evangelical Protestant denomination the Disciples of Christ), and educational aspiration (named a "university" before a single student was enrolled or curriculum/majors/degrees drawn up).  But it was also shaped by political (Butler's charter was being written in the midst of debate over slavery and the Compromise of 1850), social (the charter made the new university open to both men and women), and denominational (the Disciples had a school in Virginia, Butler wanted a school in the north--away from slavery's influence.  But it was also to be a school that was open to those outside of the denomination as well).  Five years after the charter was written, in 1855, NWCU opened its doors to its first class.

It was members of its second entering class, however, that are the basis for my fifth book, Rebel Bulldog.  And 168 years after the charter was signed, and for the second time since I came to Butler, I got to be an official part of Founders Week and talk about the Davidsons, how their story was rediscovered, and how it all came about because of my decision to offer an honors class about Butler and the Civil War.  With an audience of over 50 people on Tuesday afternoon--most of whom were honors students, I took part in a conversation with the senior editor of the Indiana Historical Society Press, Ray Boomhower about the book, and the opportunity to autograph a few copies as well.  It was a great time (even if the Dawgs couldn't quite pull out the victory over in Hinkle later that day).