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Delaware State University

university

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History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ1183967 ↗
Source-derived summary

Delaware State University (DSU or Del State) is a privately governed, state-assisted historically black land-grant research university in Dover, Delaware. DSU also has two satellite campuses: one in Wilmington and one in Georgetown. The university encompasses four colleges and a diverse population of undergraduate and advanced-degree students. Delaware State University is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".

History

19th century

The Delaware College for Colored Students was established on May 15, 1891, by the Delaware General Assembly. The name was changed to the State College for Colored Students by state legislative action in 1893 to eliminate confusion with Delaware College, which was attended by whites in Newark, Delaware. It first awarded degrees in 1898.

20th century

In 1945, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education awarded the college provisional accreditation. Three years later, the institution became Delaware State College by legislative action. Although its accreditation was revoked in 1949, it was regained in 1957.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Delaware State University” is university. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Delaware, State and University, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1891, 1893, 1898, 1945—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1891. For this dossier, Delaware, State and University is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “university” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1183967. VIAF identifies the subject as 131202133. The Library of Congress control number is no97025222. Authority coordinates are 39.186, -75.543. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1891, 1893, 1898 and 1945.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Delaware State University”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Delaware State University primary sources, Delaware State University archive and Delaware research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Delaware State University”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Delaware State University” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.