Crozer Seminary

The Crozer Theological Seminary was a multi-denominational religious institution located in Upland, Pennsylvania. The school succeeded a Normal School established at the site and the building's use as a hospital during the American Civil War. The seminary mostly served as an American Baptist Church school, training seminarians for the entry into the Baptist ministry. After 1970, when the seminary merged with institutions in Rochester, New York, the Old Main building was used for Crozer Hospital (now part of Crozer-Chester Medical Center.) It is a three-story, "F"-shaped, stucco coated stone building. It has three pavilions connected by a corridor with flanking rooms. Each of the pavilions is topped by a gable roof and cupola, the largest cupola being on the central pavilion.[2] Most recently, it is used for medical offices associated with the center. The Old Main building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.[1] After completing his undergraduate work at Morehouse College in 1948, Martin Luther King attended Crozer Theological Seminary near Chester, Pennsylvania. King was drawn to the school’s unorthodox reputation and liberal theological leanings. It was at Crozer that King strengthened his commitment to the Christian social gospel, developed his initial interest in Gandhian ideas, was first exposed to pacifism, and developed his ideas about nonviolence as a method of social reform.