Mary Gwendoline Caldwell
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Mary Gwendoline Caldwell (b. October 5, 1863, Louisville, Kentucky - d. 1905) bestowed the first donation to the Third Plenary Council of American Bishops that initiated the founding of The Catholic University of America.
Her family became Catholic converts in the 1870s. Her father, William Shakespeare Caldwell, was an active Catholic until his death in 1874, leaving both Mary Gwendoline and her younger sister, Mary Elizabeth, orphans in the care of Roman Catholic friends with an inheritance of several million dollars. In his will, William Shakespeare Caldwell stated that his daughters should use 1/3 of their inheritance to assist the Catholic Church in becoming a prominent part of American society. Mary Gwendoline Caldwell grew up in New York City, where she attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Manhattanville as a teenager.
When she heard that Bishop John Lancaster Spalding, a friend she had acquainted at Sacred Heart, was trying to open a Catholic university she donated $300,000 to fulfill her duties to her father’s will. Caldwell required that the university be founded within the United States, controlled by the U.S. Bishops, affiliated with other faculties, remain separate from all other institutions, educate only ecclesiastics intelligible in Philosophy and Theology, and never be controlled by one religious order, before she would provide the donation. She also requested that the donation only be used in its founding and Mary herself be considered the founder. She claimed $200,000 could be used for buildings and the surrounding grounds and $100,000 could endow professorships.
She was only 21 at the time of her donation and was awarded with many honors because of her charitable contribution. On May 24, 1888, at the cornerstone laying ceremony for Divinty Hall, the first building on campus which subsequently was renamed in her honor, Mary Gwendoline Caldwell received a gold medal from Pope Leo XIII. She also received the Laetare Medal of Notre Dame in 1899 for achieving such distinction for the Roman Catholic Church in the USA.
After a brief engagement to the European Prince Murat in 1889, she married German Marquis des Montiers-Mermville on October 19, 1896. She resided in Europe for the remainder of her life; she renounced the Church after spending time in Europe and no longer connected herself to the University. She died of Bright's disease in 1905.
Today, Caldwell Hall still stands as a reminder of her contribution to CUA.
