In the 1830's, George Washington Gale and other pious and strongly anti-slavery Congregationalists and Presbyterians came to the western prairie of Illinois to establish a town and a college. They described their intentions for the college in their Circular & Plan, which still hangs on the wall in Old Main at Knox College. They resolved to found a college that would educate young men to preach the Gospel.

Young women would be prepared to be school teachers and well-educated wives of the preachers. The founders' plan made clear that the College would be accessible to students regardless of their financial means and regardless of their race.

On February 15, 1837, the Illinois General Assembly, with Representative Abraham Lincoln voting in favor, authorized a charter for the Knox Manual Labor College. In those days, students worked on the College's farm to help pay for their educations.

Knox's founders opposed slavery in all its forms and believed deeply in the potential of every human being to learn, grow, and contribute to the greater good of the community. In 1849, Rev. Samuel G. Wright was made a trustee of the College. He was an active participant in the Underground Railroad, sheltering and aiding runaway slaves for more than a decade and kept a record of that activity in his diary, which is currently located in the archives of Seymour Library on the Knox campus.

Proving its egalitarian spirit, Knox has been open to women and people of color from its earliest days. That same spirit may have motivated Abraham Lincoln to use the occasion of his fifth debate with Stephen Douglas—held on a platform on the east side of Old Main—to make his strongest moral argument yet against slavery.

Knox's commitment to equality, tolerance and self-expression is alive and well today. You can see it in the cultural diversity of our campus, the free exchange of ideas, and the insistence of our students on having a place at the table when decisions are made.

Even today, there are Knox students who study Greek and the other disciplines necessary to prepare for religious service. However, the College's initial, singular focus on religious training was transformed long ago into a broad curriculum of liberal arts that now prepares students of both sexes for a range of callings in the information driven, global community of the 21st century.