<p>1890, 1891 or 1892?</p>
<p>I have come across with different sources including news articles, blogs, UChicago apparels in the Bookstore and many other sources that have indicated the year when The University was founded or established with three aforementioned different numbers. Does anyone know why?
A curious and puzzled parent would like to know.</p>
<p>I believe that the University of Chicago was first incorporated and received its charter in 1890. It held its first classes in Autumn of 1892. I’m not sure where 1891 comes from though. Hope that helps!</p>
<p>Chicago was founded and incorporated in 1890 by the American Baptist Education Society/John D. Rockefeller but did not have a president until 1891 when William Rainey Harper was chosen and first classes started in 1892. So the date of the founding is usually used to date the University.</p>
<p>If you are interested in the historical aspects of Chicago (the city) and that period in particular try to read “Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson even though I don’t recall any mention of the university in the book. If you are not, it’s still a great book.</p>
<p>[U.S</a>. News Best Colleges Rankings 1983-2013 - The Airspace](<a href=“The Air Space - Play beyond Reality”>The Air Space - Play beyond Reality)</p>
<p>“Founded: 1891” can be seen if you scroll down from the link.</p>
<p><a href=“http://uchicago.bncollege.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/League_Rockland_Crew/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=15063&productId=400000127006&langId=-1&cm_sp=Homepage-_-+Bestsellers-_-League+Rockland+Crew[/url]”>http://uchicago.bncollege.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/League_Rockland_Crew/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=15063&productId=400000127006&langId=-1&cm_sp=Homepage-_-+Bestsellers-_-League+Rockland+Crew</a></p>
<p>The link is attached just for fun, but you can see the year “1892”.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the input. At the end, I take it Year 1890 was the official one as the year when The University was founded then.</p>
<p>Thanks luckystar. It is interesting to note that some of the most “influential” schools of the 20th century were founded around 1890 and 1891. Chicago (1890), Stanford (1891), Caltech (1891). Coincidence or is there a connection???</p>
<p>Moreover, for you Jeopardy buffs, all three schools utilize the academic quarter system invented by Chicago under President Harper with Caltech using a “quasi” quarter system (since they don’t have a summer quarter)…</p>
<p>The correspondence was not really a coincidence, although there was no real connection.</p>
<p>In the period from the 1850s to the beginning of the 20th Century, there was a fashion for establishing new universities on modern, basically secular principles modeled on the leading German universities of the time. Many, many public universities were established during those decades thanks to the federal land-grant legislation. At the beginning of the period, there were a number of public/private institutions established, like Cornell and MIT, that subsequently became mainly private, although other universities (Northwestern, WashU) were established on a private basis. As the Gilded Age advanced, however, there were a number of universities established by new-money plutocrats without significant governmental involvement, including Vanderbilt and Johns Hopkins in the early 1870s, Chicago and Stanford in the early 1890s, and Carnegie Institute of Technology a decade later. </p>
<p>The dates of founding were significantly influenced by big trends in the national economy. There was a huge depression that began in 1873, and another that began in 1893; it’s no accident that more universities were founded towards the end of long expansions than during or right after major depressions. </p>
<p>Caltech doesn’t really quite belong to this particular trend, since when it was founded in 1891 it was a secondary school, not a college or university, and it didn’t attract major funding or split off its high school for another generation, and it didn’t really hit the big time until the post-WWII period.</p>
<p>What made Chicago and Stanford special is that each of them was founded to be a world-class university from Day 1. There was really no notion of organic growth (as happened at Caltech and elsewhere). Eastern faculties were shamelessly raided for name-brand faculty, and PhD and professional-degree programs were part of the conception from the outset. Both were among the 14 founding members of the Association of American Universities in 1900, which pretty much defined the American educational elite of that time, and Chicago was actually one of the 5 convening institutions, as well as the place where the founding meeting was held. Not even a decade old, they were seen as full peers of much more established universities like Harvard, Yale, and Michigan.</p>
<p>The other thing that bound Chicago and Stanford was the perception that the American West was where the action was going to be in the coming century. Anyone who knows the words to “Hail To The Victors” knows that Michigan was the Great Western University for most of the 19th Century, but by the '90s it was clear that the West was a long way from Ann Arbor. Chicago, however, with its vast stockyards and railroad hub, was very much tied to the West, and of course California’s economy was growing rapidly. Chicago and Stanford were both intended to bring the educational best practices of the Eastern elite to the West. (Berkeley was already there, and already a great university, too, by that point, but there was clearly room for more.)</p>
<p>Thank you JHS for your, as usual, very informative post.</p>
<p>Indeed. Thank you JHS for your always informative and thoughtful posts.</p>
<p>While UChicago rose to the top from Day One, it took Stanford more than 50 years to find its way.</p>
<p>As the Stanford Magazine noted in 2002, “…Only 50 years ago, Stanford was considered a good regional school with beautiful grounds and architecturebut not a world-class center of innovative research and learning.”</p>
<p>[Stanford</a> Magazine - ‘The First Great American University’ - September/October 2002](<a href=“Stanford Magazine - Article”>Stanford Magazine - Article)</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/1358379-best-universities-1910-1925-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/1358379-best-universities-1910-1925-a.html</a></p>
<p>George Ellery Hale, a solar astronomer from the University of Chicago, played a major real in building Caltech into a lading research university:</p>
<p>[California</a> Institute of Technology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Institute_of_Technology]California”>California Institute of Technology - Wikipedia)</p>