Chicago ===
The first University of Chicago was founded by a small group of Baptist educators and incorporated in 1857 after a land endowment from Senator Stephen A. Douglas and a fundraising campaign directed by the first president of the institution, John C. Burroughs. It closed in 1886 after decades of financial struggle, exacerbated by the Great Chicago Fire and the Panic of 1873, when the university's property was foreclosed on by its creditors. In 1890, its trustees elected to change the university's name to the "Old University of Chicago" so that the new university could go by the name of the city; a year later, the new university voted to recognize the alumni of the old as alumni of the new.
=== Early years ===
In 1890, the American Baptist Education Society (ABES) incorporated a new University of Chicago as a coeducational institution, using $400,000 donated to the ABES to supplement a $600,000 donation from Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller and land donated by Marshall Field. The Hyde …
