Coffee Equity Lab

Vanderbilt University was founded in 1873 in Nashville during the post–Civil War Reconstruction era.

The university arose from a partnership between Cornelius Vanderbilt, one of the wealthiest figures of the Gilded Age, and Holland McTyeire, a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. McTyeire, who was related to Vanderbilt by marriage, persuaded him to donate $1 million—an enormous sum at the time—to establish a university that would help heal sectional divisions and strengthen education in the American South.

Originally affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the institution aimed to combine moral instruction with rigorous academic training. Classes began in 1875, and the university quickly became a leading center of higher learning in the region. Over time, Vanderbilt evolved into an independent, nonsectarian research university while retaining its founding emphasis on scholarship and service.