2026’s Other Anniversaries at Drexel

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2026's Other Anniversaries at Drexel

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America's 250^th anniversary has come and gone, but 2026 still has two upcoming important anniversaries for Drexel University.

Both are related to the University's founder, Anthony J. Drexel, who happened to be born in the year of America's 50^th anniversary in 1826. His 200^th birthday is on Sept. 13, but 2026 also marks 135 years since the University's founding as the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry on Dec. 17, 1891.

Both important anniversaries are approaching in the next few months, but what's really the significance behind them?

A Bicentennial Birthday

Anthony Joseph Drexel (1826-1893) was born just a few blocks away from America's founding at Independence Hall, exactly 50 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed. He lived his whole life in Philadelphia: Anthony was born and raised in Old City and became an early resident and developer of the then-new West Philadelphia neighborhood with his wife Ellen Rozet Drexel and their children (some later lived on the same block as adults).

Anthony was the second-oldest son and third of six children born to Catherine Hookey Drexel (1795-1870) and Francis Martin Drexel (1792-1863). Both parents had strong ties to German ethnicity, language and culture: Catherine's grand-uncle was Pennsylvania's first governor of German descent and her father co-founded America's first German-language church, and Francis Martin left his native Dornbirn, Austria, to emigrate to America by himself at the age of 25 in 1817. As such, Anthony was raised to be fluent in English and German (and French).

He and his brothers (primarily his older brother Francis Anthony, but also younger brother Joseph Wilhelm) all joined the family business started by their father: Drexel & Company. Francis Martin opened the currency office in 1838 as a career pivot after honing his language and currency conversion skills during earlier travels as a painter in Europe, North America and South America. Anthony began working there as an office boy at 13, became a full partner at 21 and assumed control of the business with his older brother at age 37 after Francis Martin's 1863 death, leading the company until his own death 30 years later.

As the visionary leader of became one of the country's most influential financial firms, Anthony was a man of his time who also quietly helped make the events of his time happen. Shunning publicity during his life, he is no longer remembered as much as his junior partner and mentee, John Pierpont "J.P." Morgan; notable Drexel & Co. client Thomas Edison (yes, that Thomas Edison); and longtime family friend President Ulysses S. Grant (Anthony turned down his offer to be U.S. Secretary of the Treasury). But he and Drexel & Co. expanded their reach and capital over the decades to influence major geopolitical, technological and industrial events. Starting with the Mexican-American War, Drexel & Co. invented the now-standard practice of selling war bonds to raise money during conflicts, paid the salaries of the Union Army during the Civil War, financed the creation and expansion of the railroad industry and opened branches in financial hotspots like the frontier town of Chicago, the gold mine of San Francisco, the early days of New York City's Wall Street and the fashionable European capital of Paris.

Outside of work, Anthony was heavily involved in his church's community, engaged in civic groups and opportunities and promoted philanthropic efforts, often anonymously. For decades, he was the silent partner of Philadelphia's most influential newspaper, the Philadelphia Public Ledger, edited and co-owned by his close friend and business partner George W. Childs. Anthony led the Fairmount Park Art Association, the first nonprofit organization in the country dedicated to public art, for 22 years to beautify his city; he oversaw the group's installation of more than a dozen statues still standing today. He was very interested in music and the arts, like other members of his family; his art collection and Steinway piano were later bequeathed to the University.

Still, Anthony is best remembered today for a personal and professional achievement that came at the very end of his life: founding the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry in 1891.

135 Years of Educational Opportunities

Anthony's founding vision of the University filled a gap in the educational market. Drexel was open to students of all genders, races, religions and socio-economic classes. Functioning as a vocational school rather than a degree-granting academic university, it trained early students in some of the emerging industrial and professional fields of the day, from electrical engineering to library sciences to domestic arts to teaching. And its location next to a major transportation station made it accessible, even more so through the night classes offered to students who worked during the day.

This modern approach and mission to educate the workforce has been a guiding force for the University over 135 years, as the founder had wanted.

"I know the world is going to change, and therefore, the university must change with it," he is quoted as saying (updated to reflect Drexel's University status).

Drexel has changed. It has grown from one building (Main Building) to five campuses across the Greater Philadelphia area. The Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry became the Drexel Institute of Technology in 1936 and then Drexel University in 1970, all to reflect a change in academic focus and degree-granting capabilities. The official colors changed from silver and orange to blue and gold in the 1890s and today's dragon mascot and team names were born in 1928 (both for reasons unknown). Other Drexel traditions were created and upheld throughout the decades for generations of Dragons, from Homecoming to the rubbing the foot of a statue for good luck before exams.

Throughout the decades, Drexel's educational offerings were implemented and updated through the years while remaining true to the founding mission to educate the workforce. In 1914, Drexel updated its academic offerings to grant bachelor's degrees. In the aftermath of World War I, it created a unique R.O.T.C. program and developed academic-industry partnerships, particularly through its cooperative education, or co-op, program adding professional work opportunities into a student's schedule. Those strengths, enacted by president Hollis Godfrey, PhD, carried Drexel through World War II and into the post-war boom strengthened by two of Drexel's longest-serving presidents, James R. Creese and William W. Hagerty, PhD. It was under the latter that Drexel gained university status, granted its first doctoral degree and became the first university in the country to require all students to have access to personal computers, for which Drexel partnered with Apple and revamped its own curriculum to train students and faculty on the technology of the time. Its technological innovation continued into the 1990s as Drexel started one of the country's first fully online degree programs in 1996 (MS in information systems) and became the first to launch a mobile Web-portal service (DrexelOne Mobile) in 2002.

And in the 21^st century, the University began offering degrees in medical and health fields, first through new schools of medicine, public health and nursing and health professions in 2002, and more recently through a 2025 merger with Salus University.

Today, Drexel is a fully comprehensive R1 research university on the cusp of another chapter in its history. Its yearslong effort to update all curriculums and transition from terms to semester, as envisioned by the comprehensive Academic Transformation initiative, is set to ramp up this current year and be implemented in August 2027. And that work will be carried out under the new leadership of Antonio Merlo, PhD, who was officially inaugurated in April.

Seven months in, 2026 has already become an important year at Drexel. And with the founder's 200^th birthday in September and the University's 135^th anniversary in December, there's still plenty of time to keep making, and remembering, history.