CUNY Hunter College

Founding New York Normal College seen from Park Avenue (1874); drawing from a photo by George G. Rockwood Hunter College originates from the 19th-century movement for normal school training for teachers which swept across the United States. Hunter descends from the Female Normal and High School , a women's college established in New York City in 1870. It was founded by Thomas Hunter from Ardglass in County Down , Ireland, who was an exile over his nationalist beliefs. [ 8 ] The Normal School was one of several institutions occupying a site that the New York City government had reserved for "institutions serving a public purpose". [ 9 ] Hunter was president of the school during the first 37 years. The school was housed in an armory and saddle store at Broadway and East Fourth Street in Manhattan , was open to all qualified women, irrespective of race, religion or ethnic background, an exception in its day. Created by the New York State Legislature, Hunter was deemed the only approved institution for those seeking to teach in New York City. The school incorporated an elementary and high school for gifted children , where students practiced teaching. In 1887, a kindergarten was established as well. (Today, the elementary school and the high school still exist at a different location, and are now called the Hunter College Campus Schools.) Student Helen Campbell studying radio science in a program started at Hunter College in 1917 by the National League for Women's Service to train female radio operators during World War I . During Thomas Hunter's tenure as president of the school, Hunter became known for its impartiality regarding race, religion, ethnicity, financial or political favoritism; its pursuit of higher education for women; its high entry requirements; and its rigorous academics. The first female professor at the school, Helen Gray Cone , was elected to the position in 1899.

[ 10 ] The college's student population quickly expanded, and the college subsequently moved uptown, in 1873, into a new red brick Gothic structure facing Park Avenue between 68th and 69th Streets. [ 11 ] It was one of several public institutions built at the time on a Lenox Hill lot that had been set aside by the city for a park, before the creation of Central Park . [ 12 ] After the park in Lenox Hill was canceled, the plots were leased to institutions like Hunter College. [ 13 ] In 1888, the school was incorporated as a college under the statutes of New York State, taking on the name Normal College of the City of New York , with the power to confer Bachelor of Arts degrees. This led to the separation of the school into two "camps": the "Normals", who pursued a four-year course of study to become licensed teachers, and the "Academics", who sought non-teaching professions and the Bachelor of Arts degree. After 1902 when the "Normal" course of study was abolished, the "Academic" course became standard across the student body.

In 1913, the east end of the building, housing the elementary school, was replaced by Thomas Hunter Hall, a new limestone Tudor building facing Lexington Avenue and designed by C. B. J. Snyder . [ 9 ] The following year the Normal College became Hunter College in honor of its first president. At the same time, the college was experiencing a period of great expansion as increasing student enrollments necessitated more space. The college reacted by establishing branches in the boroughs of Brooklyn , Queens , and Staten Island . By 1920, Hunter College had the largest enrollment of women of any municipally financed college in the United States. In 1930, Hunter's Brooklyn campus merged with City College 's Brooklyn campus, and the two were spun off to form Brooklyn College . Opening of the Navy recruit camp for WAVES at Bronx Campus, February 8, 1943 In February 1936, a fire destroyed the 1873 Gothic building facing Park Avenue. [ 14 ] Plans for a new building were announced in 1937, [ 15 ] and by 1940 the Public Works Administration replaced it with the Modernist north building, designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon along with Harrison & Fouilhoux . [ 11 ] [ 16 ] The late 1930s saw the construction of Hunter College in the Bronx (later known as the Bronx Campus). During the Second World War , Hunter leased the Bronx Campus buildings to the United States Navy who used the facilities to train 95,000 women volunteers for military service as WAVES and SPARS . [ 17 ] When the Navy vacated the campus, the site was briefly occupied by the nascent United Nations, which held its first Security Council sessions at the Bronx Campus in 1946, giving the school an international profile. [ 18 ] In 1943, Eleanor Roosevelt dedicated a town house at 47–49 East 65th Street in Manhattan to the college. The house had been a home for Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt prior to the latter's presidency.

[ 19 ] The Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College opened at that location in fall 2010 as an academic center hosting prominent speakers.