Webster University
university in Webster Groves, St. Louis
Webster University is a private university with its main campus in Webster Groves, Missouri, United States as well as campuses in Europe and Asia. The university has an alumni network of around 200,000 graduates worldwide.
History
The college was founded in 1915 by the Sisters of Loretto as Loretto College, a Catholic women's college, one of the first west of the Mississippi River. One of the early founders was Mother Praxedes Carty. Its name was changed to Webster College, after Senator Daniel Webster, in 1924. The first male students were admitted in 1962. The sisters transferred ownership of the college to a lay Board of Directors in 1967; it was the first Catholic college in the United States to be totally under lay control. In 1983, Webster College's name was changed to Webster University.
Webster was involved in the early racial integration battles in St. Louis.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Webster University” is university in Webster Groves, St. Louis. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Webster, University and university, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “university in Webster Groves, St. Louis” 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.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1465303. VIAF identifies the subject as 159544243. The Library of Congress control number is n87915581. Authority coordinates are 38.589, -90.346. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1915, 1924, 1962 and 1967.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. 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.
- Event chronology
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Webster University”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Webster University primary sources, Webster University archive and Webster research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Webster University”?
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- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Webster 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.