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Renewal & Growth

1865-1880

"All the things of this world are to be used as you need them. They are not to be loved. Let them be like an Inn where you stop for a night; not a piece of land where you settle down. Refresh yourself and move on! You are on a journey."

St. Augustine
Sermon 167,2

During the decade and a half following the Civil War Villanova College underwent a program of expansion. In 1869 the college built its first gymnasium and two years later constructed its first waterworks. It was also in 1871 that Villanova published its first catalogue. In 1872 steam heat and gas lights appeared on campus and a college post office opened in a new Pennsylvania Railroad station. Then in 1874 Villanova completed the long anticipated center and west wings of the college Building (now Alumni Hall) and installed an assembly room (or Dramatic Hall) on the ground floor of the older east wing. The last construction project of this period came in 1879 when a fourth story was added to the former Belle-Air mansion, now the Augustinian Monastery.

Link to Exhibit Items

 

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