Guilford College draws on Quaker and liberal arts traditions to prepare men and women for a lifetime of learning, work, and constructive action dedicated to the betterment of the world.
In the 1830s the majority of Quakers in North Carolina lived in and around Guilford County. They decided to establish a school on a coeducational basis that was chartered in 1834 and opened in 1837 as New Garden Boarding School. The campus later became a station on the Underground Railroad as well as a center of resistance to Confederate conscription and requisitioning efforts. The school never closed during the Civil War, and during Reconstruction, with support from Friends in the North and Great Britain, soon recouped its strength.
This led to the development of Guilford College, the fourth oldest degree-granting institution in North Carolina. The college remained largely isolated until the 1920s, when the old trail to Greensboro became The Friendly Road. The street name still symbolizes the longstanding friendship between town and gown. Today the campus is an area of greenery, quiet, and scholarship within Greensboro's city limits. It is one of the very few college campuses in the nation listed by the United States Department of the Interior as a National Historic District.
