August 17, 2016

The Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry is officially dedicated on Dec. 17, 1891. Over 2,000 people attend the ceremony, including luminaries such as Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison and Tony’s longtime business partner J.P. Morgan. An article in The New York Times declares, “Today will go down in history as marking an epoch in the educational history of Philadelphia and the country.” The institute’s notoriously press-shy founder, still in mourning from his longtime wife’s death just three weeks earlier, excuses himself from the grand opening.