University of the Incarnate Word

University of the Incarnate Word was founded by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. The sisters originated in Lyons, France and was established in Galveston in 1866 by its founder Claude Marie Dubuis. Dubuis went back and forth to France recruiting priests and nuns to come to Texas. Bishop Dubuis made frequent trips back and forth to France to recruit nurses to make the migration to Texas. He held the hopes of building a hospital in San Antonio so he sent several nurses to San Antonio in March 1869. They opened the first hospital in San Antonio that December. The congregation continued to grow and in July 1881, The University of the Incarnate Word was charted as a Catholic college for women operated by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. The congregation purchased the site for the school from George W. Brackenridge’s estate in 1897 and in 1900 the school, then known as the Academy of the Incarnate Word, was located on a 230-acre tract as the headwaters of the San Antonio River adjacent to Brackenridge Park. The name was changed to College and Academy of the Incarnate Word in 1909, and the school affiliated with the Catholic University of America in Washington in 1912. The present buildings were occupied in 1922.