1880s: The Changing Face of America
St. Mary's Debating Society, 1884
As expansion and innovation became the focus of Western societies, the people of Chicago focused both on building an even greater city than they had lost in the fire. As the city expanded, immigrants poured into the city in the hopes of finding better lives than the ones they had left behind. This influx of people from various cultures required more than just a physical expansion; it required an expansion of the mind by way of tolerance, acceptance, and understanding. Like the city around them, and following Father Damen’s original mission, the Jesuits of St. Ignatius did their part for the young people of the city by continuing to provide a first-rate Catholic education to their students. While this was not a decade of great change at the college, it was a time in which they honed their educational approach and cultivated a positive reputation in the city by remaining true to the core principles and values upon which the school was founded.
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