Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins (May 19, 1795 – December 24, 1873) was an American merchant, investor, and philanthropist best known for funding the establishment of Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Hospital, which have since become leading institutions for scientific research and medical advancements. At the time of his death, his donation was the largest philanthropic bequest ever made to an American educational institution.

Born on a plantation in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, Hopkins left his home to start a career at the age of seventeen, and settled in Baltimore, Maryland, where he remained for most of his life. He accumulated his fortune primarily through investing in the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), for which he later served as finance director. He was also president of Baltimore-based Merchants' National Bank.

A Quaker, Hopkins strongly backed Abraham Lincoln and the Union during the American Civil War and was described as holding "antislavery political views." In 2020, new archival research prompted renewed scholarly debate over Hopkins’s relationship to slavery and his long-standing reputation as a staunch abolitionist. Researchers affiliated with Johns Hopkins University reported evidence suggesting that he may have owned or employed enslaved people earlier in his life, while other scholars have disputed these findings and emphasized his documented opposition to slavery and philanthropic support for Black education and social welfare. Provided by Wikipedia