Next spring, the George Washington University class of 2025 will take center stage at Commencement on the National Mall. But this midwinter week is a key anniversary in the history of the occasion: Dec. 15 will mark 200 years since Columbian College, which eventually became GW, held its first-ever Commencement.
This notice appeared in the Washington, D.C., daily press before the first Commencement. “Dr. Laurie’s Meeting House” refers to a Presbyterian church on F and 14th Streets, NW, a spot now occupied by the Willard Hotel. (“Bricks without Straw,” GW Special Collections Research Center [SCRC])
The change of seasons is not the only way in which Commencement has evolved in its two centuries of history. For one thing, in 1824, the list of graduates was considerably shorter, whiter and more male. While thousands of students from diverse backgrounds around the globe will receive diplomas in 2025, the class of 1824 comprised just three members from two East Coast states: Alexander Ewell and Albert Fairfax, both of Virginia, and valedictorian James D. Knowles of Rhode Island.
Program from Columbian College’s first Commencement. (Library of Congress [LOC])
With such a narrow roster, there was no call for the now-traditional student speaker competition. All three graduates were featured speakers, as were several sophomore and junior students, on topics including “Responsibilities of American Youth,” “The Influence of Mathematics on the Mind” and “The Superiority of Grecian over Roman Literature.”
The speakers gave these addresses before a distinguished audience that included soon-to-be President and longtime college patron John Quincy Adams, future Secretary of State Henry Clay, and—most thrillingly, as far as D.C. society was concerned—the guest of honor, visiting Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de Lafayette. A general under George Washington and major fundraiser in the fight for independence, Lafayette would have been an A-list celebrity to Americans at the time.
Lafayette’s celebrity enjoyed a minor renaissance in the mid-2010s, when audience favorite Daveed Diggs portrayed him in the megahit musical “Hamilton.” (YouTube)
From descriptions in the GW history “Bricks without Straw,” the 67-year-old Lafayette appears to have been fêted more elaborately than the graduates in whose honor the occasion nominally took place. After the ceremony, the general processed through a double line of students to the college chapel, where then-Columbian College President William Staughton introduced him to the graduates, delivered a reverent speech in his honor (“You have come, Sir…like the good old patriarch, Jacob, [having] formed the resolution, ‘I will go down and see my child, ere I die”) and finally hosted Lafayette and the other high-profile Commencement guests at his home for an extravagant dinner. Whether the three graduates were invited is unclear.
The first Commencement went swimmingly: The weather was fine, the audience fashionable and the reception rapturous. The Daily National Journal, quoted in "Bricks without Straw," said the ceremony was “one which, in the opinion of competent judges, would have done honor to any of our older universities…Every part of the performance evinced talents and mental cultivation of a high order.”
As Columbian College grew, so did its Commencement ceremonies and those of the individual schools it contained. The first modern Commencements—outdoor ceremonies at which the whole university community gathered—took place in the 1890s. These all-university gatherings would be held sporadically from then in a variety of outdoor and indoor locations, including DAR Constitution Hall, the National Theatre and various churches. Then, as now, individual schools held their own on-campus celebrations.
During the university’s first century, Commencement speakers were often educators or educational administrators but were sometimes guests from the worlds of politics or diplomacy. The librarian of Congress spoke in 1903, British Ambassador Auckland Campbell Geddes spoke in 1920 and French Ambassador J. J. Jusserand spoke at the Centennial of the first Commencement in 1924.
Final lines of an address delivered by physician and Columbian College Professor Thomas Sewall at Columbian’s Medical Commencement in 1827. Sewall delivered these high-minded remarks just eight years after having been convicted of body-snatching in his hometown of Ipswich, Mass. (UK Medical Heritage Library)
Some speakers were ahead of their time. In 1887, the National Medical College—now GW’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences—graduated its first female doctor, Clara Bliss Hinds. At that year’s Commencement, philosopher Elliott Coues paid tribute to Bliss Hinds’ achievement with an impassioned speech on women’s rights, “A Woman in the Case.” At the time, the address was controversial enough that the school chose not to publish it. Coues published it himself, and a copy made its way to the poet Walt Whitman, now among the poet’s possessions held in the Library of Congress.
Following John Quincy Adams in 1824, a number of American presidents and their families have attended Commencements over GW’s 200-year history. Some were Commencement speakers, including then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1994; the late George H. W. Bush and his wife Barbara Bush in 2006; and then-First Lady Michelle Obama in 2010. Others attended as proud family members.
In 1946, President Harry S. Truman received an honorary degree and gave remarks as his daughter Margaret graduated with her B.A. in history. Truman and Bush are among several presidents to have received honorary GW degrees, the highest honor the university can bestow. (Bricks Without Straw)
GW began holding regular outdoor Commencements in 1992. These took place on the Ellipse, the park south of the White House and north of Constitution Avenue and the National Mall, until ceremonies were moved to the National Mall in 2005.
South African archbishop, anti-apartheid crusader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu addressed graduates on the Ellipse in 1999. (GW SCRC)
Some distinguished Commencement visitors once called GW home. The late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, J.D. ’52, the first Japanese-American elected to the Senate, spoke at three GW Commencements: 1975, 1987 and 2008. Actor Kerry Washington, B.A. ’98, urged graduates to leave their comfort zones in 2013. In 2017, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), M.A. ’92, discussed resilience and the importance of failure. In 2022, Olympian Elana Meyers Taylor, B.S. ’06, M.T.A. ’11, shared her path to becoming the most decorated Black athlete in Winter Olympics history.
Kerry Washington
Tammy Duckworth
Elana Meyers Taylor
Maybe next spring, when members of the Class of 2025 take their place in GW Commencement’s 200-year legacy, the next inspiring alumnus will be among them.
Thanks to the GW Special Collections Research Center for assistance.
