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History

Main article: History of the University of Chicago

An early convocation ceremony at the University of Chicago.

1856-1890

Further information: Old University of Chicago

The first institution named the University of Chicago was founded by a small group of Baptist educators in 1856 through a land endowment from Senator Stephen A. Douglas.^[28] It operated until it went bankrupt and had its property foreclosed in the 1880s; the university closed in 1886. [JB] Disparagingly called "Douglas College" by its detractors, the ten-acre campus was on the northwest corner of 35th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, a neighborhood now known as Bronzeville. Local Baptist congregations secured donations to help partially finance construction of the elaborate Gothic-style building, named Douglas Hall, in 1857 while loans collateralized against the Douglas land was used to secure the balance.

From the moment of its founding the school was marred in controversy due to Senator Douglas's support of slavery and his authorship of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.^[29] Early fundraising efforts were further hampered as Douglas came under heavy fire during the run-up to the 1860 presidential election for his ownership of 123 slaves and a 3000-acre cotton plantation in Lawrence County, Mississippi.^[30] In response, trustees further encumbered the land to fund the university's operations.

The Old University of Chicago had a lasting impact on the new University of Chicago, which was founded in 1890. The old university’s failure and closure — which Thomas W. Goodspeed called an “unmixed calamity” — made the founders of the new university more determined to build a solid foundation and draw from a wider pool of donors. [JB] The affinity for Gothic architecture first began in 1857 at the old university as did the University of Chicago's tradition of public debate as sport. ^[32] The current quarter system practiced at the University of Chicago was an innovation that began at the Bronzeville campus and continues uninterrupted to this day. ^[33] Alumni from the pre-1890 university are recognized as alumni of the University of Chicago today, while some of the university's post-1890 trustees and donors had supported the old university.^[34] The university's current mascot of a Phoenix rising from the ashes is believed to be partly a reference to the fire, foreclosure, and demolition of the original university, with the new university emerging triumphantly in its place.^[35] As an homage to this pre-1890 legacy a single stone from the rubble of the original Douglas Hall in Bronzeville was brought to the current Hyde Park location and set into the wall of the Classics Building. To honor Stephen A. Douglas, the University of Chicago’s graduating class of 1901 contributed a bronze plaque that depicts Douglas and says he “generously contributed to the founding of the first university established in Chicago.” In describing the decision to recognize alumni of the Old University of Chicago, Dean of the College and University of Chicago and Professor of History John Boyer concluded, “Thus did the new University gain, from an alumni relations perspective, a plausible genealogy as a pre– Civil War institution".^[36]

1890s-1910s

The University of Chicago was founded as a coeducational institution in 1890 by the American Baptist Education Society, using $400,000 donated to the ABES to match a $600,000 donation from Baptist oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, and including land donated by Marshall Field. While the Rockefeller donation provided money for academic operations and long-term endowment, it was stipulated that such money could not be used for buildings. The Hyde Park campus was financed by donations from wealthy Chicagoans like Silas B. Cobb who provided the funds for the campus' first building, Cobb Lecture Hall, and matched Marshall Field's pledge of $100,000. Other early benefactors included businessmen Charles L. Hutchinson (trustee, treasurer and donor of Hutchinson Commons), Martin A. Ryerson (president of the board of trustees and donor of the Ryerson Physical Laboratory) Adolphus Clay Bartlett and Leon Mandel, who funded the construction of the gymnasium and assembly hall, and George C. Walker of the Walker Museum, a relative of Cobb who encouraged his inaugural donation for facilities.

The new University of Chicago was permitted to take the name of the original Baptist university, which had closed in 1886 after its campus was foreclosed on. What became known as the Old University of Chicago had been founded by a small group of Baptist educators in 1856 through a land endowment from Senator Stephen A. Douglas. Alumni from the Old University of Chicago are recognized as alumni of the present University of Chicago. The university's depiction on its Coat of Arms of a Phoenix rising from the ashes is a reference to the fire, foreclosure, and demolition of the Old University of Chicago campus. As an homage to this pre-1890 legacy, a single stone from the rubble of the original Douglas Hall on 34th Place was brought to the current Hyde Park location and set into the wall of the Classics Building. These connections have led the Dean of the College and University of Chicago and Professor of History John Boyer to conclude that the University of Chicago has, "a plausible genealogy as a pre–Civil War institution".

William Rainey Harper became the university's president on July 1, 1891 and the Hyde Park campus opened for classes on October 1, 1892. Harper worked on building up the faculty and in two years he had a faculty of 120, including eight former university or college presidents. Harper was an accomplished scholar (Semiticist) and a member of the Baptist clergy who believed that a great university should maintain the study of faith as a central focus. To fulfill this commitment, he brought the Old University of Chicago's Seminary to Hyde Park. This became the Divinity School in 1891, the first professional school at the University of Chicago. The seminary originally had been located across the street from the old University of Chicago in Bronzeville, though it was not part of that institution. [JB]

The Coat of arms of the University of Chicago

Harper recruited acclaimed Yale baseball and football player Amos Alonzo Stagg from the Young Men's Christian Association training Shool at Springfield to coach the school's football program. Stagg was given a position on the faculty, the first such athletic position in the United States. While coaching at the University, Stagg invented the numbered football jersey, the huddle, and the lighted playing field. Stagg is the namesake of the university's Stagg Field.

The business school was founded thereafter in 1898 and the law school was founded in 1902. Harper died in 1906 and was replaced by a succession of three presidents whose tenures lasted until 1929. During this period, the Oriental Institute was founded to support and interpret archeological work in what was then called the Near East.

In the 1890s, the University of Chicago, fearful that its vast resources would injure smaller schools by drawing away good students, affiliated with several regional colleges and universities: Des Moines College, Kalamazoo College, Butler University, and Stetson University. In 1896, the university affiliated with Shimer College in Mount Carroll, Illinois. Under the terms of the affiliation, the schools were required to have courses of study comparable to those at the university, to notify the university early of any contemplated faculty appointments or dismissals, to make no faculty appointment without the university's approval, and to send copies of examinations for suggestions. The University of Chicago agreed to confer a degree on any graduating senior from an affiliated school who made a grade of A for all four years, and on any other graduate who took twelve weeks additional study at the University of Chicago. A student or faculty member of an affiliated school was entitled to free tuition at the University of Chicago, and Chicago students were eligible to attend an affiliated school on the same terms and receive credit for their work. The University of Chicago also agreed to provide affiliated schools with books and scientific apparatus and supplies at cost; special instructors and lecturers without cost except travel expenses; and a copy of every book and journal published by the University of Chicago Press at no cost. The agreement provided that either party could terminate the affiliation on proper notice. Several University of Chicago professors disliked the program, as it involved uncompensated additional labor on their part, and they believed it cheapened the academic reputation of the university. The program passed into history by 1910.