A Prehistory of the New Ulm College

Abstract

Martin Luther College is a private liberal arts college in New Ulm, Minnesota. It exists to educate and train students for the public ministry of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. This paper offers an early history of Martin Luther College based on its essential relationship to New Ulm. Assembling the geography, sociology, and history of the city, this prehistory interprets the circumstances that gave rise to Dr. Martin Luther College, the campus of which now hosts its successor, Martin Luther College. The Lutherans who established the New Ulm college were shaped by their environment, a city designed and led by freethinkers of the local Turnverein. New Ulm, the Turner colony, inspired and even challenged its Lutherans to develop institutions competitive in significance with those of the Turner. The college arose from a vision to give God’s Word a central, enduring place in New Ulm, the Turnerstadt.