structural:expansion, information:classification, structural:summarization, quality:corruption
Philanthropic beginnings and foundation

On his death in 1873, Johns Hopkins, a Quaker entrepreneur and childless bachelor, bequeathed $7 million (approximately $ 175.7 million today adjusted for consumer price inflation) to fund a hospital and university in Baltimore.

At the time, this donation, generated primarily from the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, was the largest philanthropic gift in the history of the United States, and endowment was then the largest in America. Until 2020, Hopkins was assumed to be a fervent abolitionist, until research done by the school into his United States Census records revealed he claimed to own at least five household slaves in the 1840 and 1850 decennial censuses.

The first name of philanthropist Johns Hopkins comes from the surname of his great-grandmother, Margaret Johns, who married Gerard Hopkins. They named their son Johns Hopkins, who named his own son Samuel Hopkins. Samuel named one of his sons for his father, and that son became the university's benefactor. Milton Eisenhower, a former university president, once spoke at a convention in Pittsburgh where the master of ceremonies introduced him as "President of John Hopkins". Eisenhower retorted that he was "glad to be here in Pitt burgh".

The original board opted for an entirely novel university model dedicated to the discovery of knowledge at an advanced level, extending that of contemporary Germany. Building on the Humboldtian model of higher education, the German education model of Wilhelm von Humboldt, it became dedicated to research. It was especially Heidelberg University and its long academic research history on which the new institution tried to model itself. Johns Hopkins thereby became the model of the modern research university in the United States. Its success eventually shifted higher education in the United States from a focus on teaching revealed and/or applied knowledge to the scientific discovery of new knowledge.