Delaware Valley University opened in 1896 as the National Farm School and offered a three-year curriculum teaching "science with practice" on the school's own farm in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Its founder and first president, Joseph Krauskopf, was an activist Reform rabbi who, inspired by discussions with Leo Tolstoy, hoped to train Jewish immigrants to the United States as farmers. In its early years the school's main private funder was the Federation of Jewish Charities of Philadelphia, but the institution also received funding from the state of Pennsylvania and was open to men from all ethnic and religious backgrounds; however it did not admit women until 1969.