Georgetown College in the 18th Century

Use the following links to access exhibitions curated by University Archives staff which include items relevant to research on Georgetown College in the 18th century. Note that not every item in each of these exhibitions is relevant.

• Georgetown University: A Documentary History

  This exhibition was installed in the Library in 1989 to celebrate Georgetown’s 200th anniversary and charts the development of the school through that date. Its online version presents the exhibition captions but not images of the items the captions describe.

• The American Mission: Maryland Jesuits from Andrew White to John Carroll

  This exhibition was a collaboration between the University Archivist Jon K. Reynolds, the Head of Special Collections George M. Barringer and two members of the Georgetown faculty, Hubert J. Cloke and Rev. Emmett Curran, S.J. It charts the course of Jesuits in Maryland from Father Andrew White who arrived in Maryland with the Ark and the Dove in 1634 to Archbishop John Carroll who was born in Maryland in 1735 and who fulfilled his dream of establishing a Catholic college in the U.S. when he founded Georgetown College in 1789.

• Such a Plan of Education . . . . deserves public Encouragement: John Carroll's Proposals for Georgetown

  This exhibition considers what we can learn from close reading of the text of the Proposals For Establishing an Academy, at George-Town, Potowmack-River, Maryland. These Proposals were authored by John Carroll in 1786 or 1787 and circulated by him in the spring of 1787 in an attempt to raise money to open Georgetown College.

• Georgetown College Prospectuses, 1798-1848

  Georgetown College produced its first prospectus in 1798. The prospectuses were one to four page printed pamphlets which the College used to communicate the aims, curriculum, costs, and rules of the institution to parents of potential students. This exhibition includes images of that first prospectus accompanied by explanatory notes.

• Variations on a Theme: The Georgetown University Seal

  Financial accounts in the University Archives show that Georgetown College paid for the engraving of its seal on May 11, 1798 . The first item in this exhibition explains the design elements of that seal.