Founded by Presbyterians, in Auburn, New York, in 1818, Auburn Theological Seminary first prepared clergy for the American frontier and foreign missions. Faculty participated in the great social movements of the time: the struggles against slavery and for women's suffrage, temperance, and reforms that uplifted the poor. By the beginning of the 20th century, Auburn had become a prominent seminary and a center of theological inquiry. In 1939 the Great Depression forced the seminary to move from Auburn, New York, to the campus of Union Theological Seminary on Manhattan's Upper West Side, where it has continued ever since as an independent seminary.