By the time Johns Hopkins died in 1873, he had accumulated a fortune that made him one of the wealthiest private citizens in the United States. However, he remained a notably private man, neither a politician nor a public personality. His influence emerged after his death, through institutions that changed how medicine is taught and practiced in America.
Born in 1795 in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, to a Quaker family, Hopkins was shaped by principles of discipline, modesty, and social conscientiousness. One of 11 children, Hopkins, still a boy, was pulled out of formal schooling to work. That early interruption to his education stayed with him, and helps explain his later interest in building institutions devoted to learning.
