Marquette University is a private Jesuit research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Established by the Society of Jesus as Marquette College on August 28, 1881, it was founded by John Martin Henni, the first Bishop of Milwaukee.
The university was named after 17th-century missionary and explorer Father Jacques Marquette, SJ, with the intention to provide an affordable Catholic education to the area's emerging German immigrant population. Initially an all-male institution, Marquette became the first coeducational Catholic university in the world in 1909 when it began admitting its first female students.