CUNY City College

Early 19th century Harris Hall The City College of New York was founded as the Free Academy of the City of New York in 1847 by wealthy businessman and president of the Board of Education Townsend Harris . [ 14 ] A combination prep school , high school / secondary school and college, it would provide children of immigrants and the poor access to free higher education based on academic merit alone. It was one of the early public high schools in the United States. The Free Academy was the first of what would become a system of municipally supported colleges – the second, Hunter College , was founded as a women's institution in 1870; and the third, Brooklyn College , was established as a coeducational institution in 1930. In 1847, New York State Governor John Young had given permission to the state Board of Education to found the Free Academy, which was ratified in a statewide referendum. Founder Townsend Harris proclaimed, "Open the doors to all… Let the children of the rich and the poor take their seats together and know of no distinction save that of industry, good conduct and intellect." [ 15 ] Horace Webster (1794–1871), a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point , was the first president of the Free Academy. At the Free Academy's formal opening on January 21, 1849, Webster said: The experiment is to be tried, whether the children of the people, the children of the whole people, can be educated; and whether an institution of the highest grade, can be successfully controlled by the popular will, not by the privileged few. [ 16 ] Original St. Nicholas Terrace entrance to Shepard Hall, the main building of CCNY, in the early 1900s, on its new campus in Hamilton Heights , looking up and westward from St. Nicholas Avenue In 1847, a curriculum was adopted that had nine main fields: mathematics, history, language, literature, drawing, natural philosophy, experimental philosophy, law, and political economy.

The academy's first graduation took place in 1853 in Niblo's Garden Theatre . [ 17 ] Even in its early years, the Free Academy had a framework of tolerance that extended beyond the admission of students from every social stratum. In 1854, Columbia University denied distinguished chemist and scientist Oliver Wolcott Gibbs a faculty position because of his Unitarian religious beliefs. Gibbs had been a professor at the Free Academy since 1848. [ 18 ] He later went on to an appointment at Harvard College . [ 19 ] [ 20 ] In 1849 the prep school Townsend Harris Hall Prep School opened on campus, launched as a one-year preparatory school for CCNY. [ 21 ] In the early 1900s, as more Jewish students were enrolling, President John H. Finley liberalized students' obligations by rescinding mandatory chapel attendance. [ 22 ]

View in 1876 In 1866, the Free Academy, a men's institution, was renamed the College of the City of New York . In 1929, the College of the City of New York became the City College of New York . [ 23 ] [ 24 ] [ 25 ] Finally, the institution became known as the City College of the City University of New York when the CUNY name was formally established as the umbrella institution for New York City's municipal-college system in 1961. The names City College of New York and City College, however, remain in general use. Statue of General Alexander S. Webb (1835–1911), second president of CCNY (1869–1903) With the name change in 1866, lavender was chosen as the college's color. In 1867, the academic senate, the first student government in the nation, was formed. [ 15 ] Having struggled over the issue for ten years, in 1895, the New York State Legislature voted to let the City College build a new campus. A four-square block site was chosen, located at West Harlem 's Manhattanville , within the area which was enclosed by the North Campus Arches ; the college, however, quickly expanded north of the Arches. Like President Webster, the second president of the newly renamed City College was a West Point graduate. The second president, General Alexander S. Webb (1835–1911), assumed office in 1869, serving for almost the next three decades. One of the Union Army 's heroes at Gettysburg , General Webb was the commander of the Philadelphia Brigade . In 1891, while still president of the City College, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism at Gettysburg. A full-length statue of Webb, in full military uniform, stands in his honor at the heart of the campus.

[ 26 ] College library bookplate with an early version of the college seal from the era when the institution was named the College of the City of New York, 1866–1929 The college's curriculum under Webster and Webb combined classical training in Latin and Greek with more practical subjects like chemistry , physics , and engineering . General Webb was succeeded by John Huston Finley (1863–1940), as third president in 1903. Finley relaxed some of the West Point-like discipline that characterized the college, including compulsory religious chapel attendance. [ 22 ] Phi Sigma Kappa placed its then-sixth chapter on the campus in 1896; alumni provided scholarships to new students entering the CCNY system for generations. [ 27 ] Delta Sigma Phi , founded at CCNY in 1899, claimed to be the first national organization of its type to accept members without regard to religion, race, color or creed. [ 10 ] Previously, fraternities at CCNY had excluded Jews. [ 28 ] The chapter flourished at the college until 1932 when it closed as a result of the Great Depression . The founding of Zeta Beta Tau at City College in 1898 was Richard Gottheil 's initiative to establish a Jewish fraternity with Zionist ideals. It is now defunct. [ 29 ]