— Ch. 1 · Founding And Early History —
University of Chicago.
~8 min read · Ch. 1 of 7
In 1890, a new University of Chicago opened its doors in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Illinois. This institution emerged from the ashes of an earlier Baptist school that had closed in 1886 after decades of financial struggle and foreclosure. The American Baptist Education Society incorporated the new university using $400,000 donated to supplement a massive $600,000 gift from Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. Land for the campus came from Marshall Field, while wealthy Chicagoans like Silas B. Cobb and Charles L. Hutchinson provided funds for specific buildings such as Cobb Lecture Hall and Hutchinson Commons. William Rainey Harper became president on the 1st of July 1891, and classes began the 1st of October 1892. Harper offered large salaries to attract senior faculty, quickly assembling a team of 120 professors including eight former college presidents. The undergraduate program was divided into two parts: the Academic College for preparation and the University College for advanced courses. The university operated on a quarter system requiring 36 courses to graduate. Harper also brought the Baptist seminary to the university, which became the Divinity School in 1891, the first graduate professional school at UChicago. During this period, the university adopted maroon as its official color and founded the University of Chicago Press. Rockefeller continued providing significant contributions after founding, covering annual deficits averaging $215,000 between 1894 and 1903. In 1898, trustees committed to using new gifts to eliminate the deficit rather than expand programs, though structural deficits remained until after Harper's presidency.
Academic Innovations And Curriculum
In 1931, Robert Maynard Hutchins implemented a new two-year general education curriculum called the New Plan alongside Chauncey Boucher. This plan formed the basis for what would become the university's core curriculum. By 1942, Hutchins transferred jurisdiction of the BA degree from graduate divisions to the college, removing divisional leverage to shape the curriculum. That same year, the college reformed the BA degree with four years of prescribed general education. Later in the 1930s, Hutchins pushed for further expansion to the general education curriculum beyond departmental influence. Since the 1999, 2000 school year, fifteen courses across seven subjects plus demonstrated proficiency in a foreign language are required under the core curriculum. The undergraduate college introduced a now-widespread model featuring the Socratic method in undergraduate contexts and the Great Books program. In 1957, Lawrence Kimpton reduced the general education curriculum from four years to two years to attract more students. Hanna Holborn Gray oversaw implementation of a unified twenty-one course core curriculum across all collegiate divisions in 1985. Hugo Sonnenschein backed a plan in 1997 to reduce required courses from twenty-one to fifteen through eighteen depending on how a student met the language requirement. After intense debate, both reforms were approved despite becoming focal points of national debates on education.