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"Over
to Overbrook"
With the
opening of classes in January 1919, Saint Joseph’s
College returned to its classical curriculum and familiar
student activities at Seventeenth and Stiles Streets.
Yet cramped quarters and a desire to attract greater
numbers of Catholic young men to a larger and better
Catholic college would convince Saint Joseph’s
administration that it should move for the fourth time
in its relatively short history. Supporting and facilitating
this move were an energetic college president armed
with a new mandate from the Society of Jesus, new leadership
in the archdiocese of Philadelphia, continuing prosperity
in the Philadelphia region, and certain pressures to
accord with general practices in American higher education.
The new campus location, situated at the very edge of
the city and surrounded by prosperous neighborhoods
both inside the municipal limits and at the entrance
to the famed Philadelphia Main Line, also did much to
boost its image and add to its success.
Philadelphia’s
economy had come through the war in good condition,
and most residents looked forward to some measure of
prosperity in the years ahead. Although the city’s
industrial base would begin to erode in the 1920s, this
was not apparent to most citizens at the time. Philadelphia’s
population continued to grow modestly, reaching nearly
2,000,000 at the end of the decade. It now ranked third
among American cities—behind Chicago—which
had surpassed Philadelphia around 1890.1
There were approximately 500,000 Catholics in the city
and surrounding counties.2
Leading the faithful was Dennis Cardinal Dougherty (1865-1951)....
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