The history of the University of California, Berkeley, begins on October 13, 1849, with the adoption of the Constitution of California, which provided for the creation of a public university. On Charter Day, March 23, 1868, the signing of the Organic Act established the University of California, with the new institution inheriting the land and facilities of the private College of California and the federal funding eligibility of a public agricultural, mining, and mechanical arts college.
19th century
Founding In 1866, the College of California, a private institution in Oakland founded by Andover and Yale alumnus Henry Durant, purchased the land that comprises the current Berkeley campus, and the State of California established an agricultural, mining, and mechanical arts college, which existed only as a legal entity to secure federal funds under the Morrill Act. Signed by President Lincoln in 1862, the Morrill Act provided for the capitalization of public universities by federal land grant. In 1867, through the good offices of then-governor Frederick Low, the financially struggling College of California agreed to a merger with the state college. On March 23, 1868, Governor Henry H. Haight signed the Organic Act, which established the University of California as the state's first land-grant university. Although the founding of the University of California is often mistaken for a merger, the Organic Act created a "completely new institution" and did not actually merge the two precursor entities into the new university.
The Organic Act — also known as the Dwinelle Bill, named after its principal author, Assemblyman John W. Dwinelle — stated that the "University shall have for its design, to provide instruction and thorough and complete education in all departments of science, literature and art, industrial and professional pursuits, and general education, and also special courses of instruction in preparation for the professions".Cal. Stats., 17th sess., 1867–1868, ch. 244, § 1.
Professor John LeConte was appointed interim president, serving until 1870, when the Board of Regents elected Henry Durant.
The university opened in September 1869, using the former College of California's buildings in Oakland as a temporary home while the new campus underwent construction.UC Berkeley - About UC Berkeley - History
Early development In 1871, the Board of Regents stated that women should be admitted on an equal basis with men.
On November 7, 1872, Daniel Coit Gilman was inaugurated as the second president of the university. Gilman proclaimed in his inaugural address: "The charter and the name declare that this is to be the 'University of California'. It is not the University of Berlin nor of New Haven which we are to copy ... it is the University of this State. It must be adapted to this people ... It is 'of the people and for the people'—not in any low or unworthy sense, but in the highest and noblest relations to their intellectual and moral well-being".
With the completion of North and South Halls in 1873, the university relocated to its Berkeley location with 167 male and 22 female students.
In 1874, the first woman graduated from the University of California; Rosa L. Scrivner earned a Ph.B in Agriculture.Ph.B in Agriculture Elizabeth Bragg, the first woman to receive a degree in Civil Engineering from an American university, earned her degree at Berkeley in 1876.
In 1881, Henry Douglas Bacon donated books and art work from his personal collection and funded the construction of Bacon Hall, a library and art museum.
Financed by a bequest from California land baron James Lick, the university's first research facility, an observatory on Mount Hamilton, began operations in 1888.
Starting in 1891, Phoebe Apperson Hearst made several large gifts to Berkeley, endowing a number of programs, sponsoring an international architectural competition, and funding the construction of Hearst Memorial Mining Building and Hearst Hall. Levi Strauss, another notable donor, endowed 28 scholarships in 1897. The following year, Cora Jane Flood gave the university some 540 acres in present-day Menlo Park and Atherton and a one-half interest in the Bear Creek Water Company, which supplied water to the donated property and its surrounds. The Flood donation would provide for the establishment of Berkeley's business school, then the College of Commerce and now the Haas School, in 1898. It would be the country's first business school at a public university.
20th century
The university came of age under the direction of Benjamin Ide Wheeler, who served as its president from 1899 to 1919.
In 1905, the "University Farm" was formed near Sacramento, ultimately becoming the University of California, Davis.
Berkeley's reputation grew as President Wheeler succeeded in attracting renowned faculty to the campus and procuring research and scholarship funds.
The campus began to take on the look of a proper university with the completion of several Beaux-Arts and neoclassical buildings, including California Memorial Stadium (1923), designed by architect John Galen Howard; these buildings form the core of Berkeley's present campus architecture.
In the 1910s, Berkeley played a significant role in the Indian Independence Movement. Beyond the reach of the British colonial police, Indian students studying at the university helped form the Ghadar Party and published its paper, the Hindustan Ghadar.
In 1928, John D. Rockefeller Jr. funded the International House Berkeley, which officially opened on August 18, 1930. One of three such residences in country dedicated to international students – the first was established at Columbia University in the City of New York and the second at the University of Chicago—it was the largest student housing complex in the Bay Area and the first coeducational residence west of the Mississippi.International House, International House Berkeley Historical Background
Robert Gordon Sproul became president in 1930, and during his 28-year tenure, Berkeley gained international recognition as a major research university. Prior to taking office, Sproul took a six-month tour of other universities and colleges to study their educational and administrative methods and to establish connections through which he could draw talented faculty in the future. The Great Depression and World War II led to funding cutbacks, but Sproul was able to maintain academic and research standards by campaigning for private funds. By 1942, the American Council on Education ranked Berkeley second only to Harvard University in the number of distinguished departments.
As a land-grant university subject to the Morrill Act of 1862, male undergraduates were required to serve two hours per week for four years being trained in tactics, dismounted drill, marksmanship, camp duty, military engineering, and fortifications. In exchange for California's share of , North Hall housed an armory. In 1904, the service requirement was reduced to two years, and in 1917, Berkeley's ROTC unit was established. The university president's report from 1902 states, "The University Cadets from last year numbered no less than 866. Appointments as second lieutenants in the regular army have been conferred upon several men who have distinguished themselves as officers in the University Cadets. It is very much to be hoped that the War Department will establish permanently the policy of offering such appointments to the graduates of each year who show the highest ability in military pursuits." Commander Chester W. Nimitz established the Naval ROTC at Berkeley in the fall of 1926. Transferred in June 1929, Captain Nimitz left a unit of 150 midshipmen with a staff of six commissioned and six petty officers. Berkeley has produced 36 general and flag officers of the United States Armed Forces.
World War II
During World War II, Ernest Orlando Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory in the hills above Berkeley began to contract with the U.S. Army to develop the atomic bomb, which would involve Berkeley's cutting-edge research in nuclear physics, including Glenn Seaborg's then-secret discovery of plutonium (Room 307 of Gilman Hall, where Seaborg discovered plutonium, would later be a National Historic Landmark). Berkeley physics professor J. Robert Oppenheimer was named scientific head of the Manhattan Project in 1942. Along with the descendant of the Radiation Lab, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of California originally managed and is now a partner in managing two other labs of similar age, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which were established in 1943 and 1952, respectively.
From 1943 to 1946, Berkeley was one of 131 colleges and universities that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program. The military increased its presence on campus to produce officers, with the army program commandeering Bowles Hall and the naval program taking control of the International House, the Student Co-op Barrington Hall, and several fraternities. By 1944, more than 1,000 navy personnel were studying at Cal, roughly one out of every four male Berkeley students. Former secretary of defense Robert McNamara and former Army chief of staff Frederick C. Weyand were both graduates of Berkeley's ROTC program. With the end of the war and the subsequent rise of student activism, the board of regents succumbed to pressure from the student government and ended compulsory military training at Berkeley in 1962.
1950s In 1949, the Board of Regents adopted an anti-communist loyalty oath to be signed by all University of California employees. Several faculty members, including eminent comparative psychologist Edward C. Tolman, objected to the oath requirement and were dismissed; ten years passed before they were reinstated with back pay.The Loyalty Oath Controversy, University of California, 1949-1951 An oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic" is still required of university employees who are American citizens.The Daily Californian
Prior to 1952, Berkeley was the University of California, and university locations outside of Berkeley were considered remote departments. However, in March 1951, the University of California began to reorganize itself into a university system, with each semi-autonomous campus having its own chief executive, a chancellor, who would, in turn, report to the university president. After the reorganization was formalized in 1952, Sproul remained in office as president, and Clark Kerr became Berkeley's first Chancellor. After Kerr became president in 1957, Berkeley, once simply the "University of California", officially became the "University of California, Berkeley", its name now often shortened to "Berkeley" in general reference or in an academic context (www.berkeley.edu, Berkeley Law, Berkeley Haas) or to "California" or "Cal", particularly when referring to its athletic teams (California Golden Bears).
In 1952, Joseph T. Gier was appointed associate professor of electrical engineering, and he is believed to be the first African-American faculty member.
In 1958, a faculty committee, first chaired by Professor Otto Struve and then by Professor Edward Teller, recommended the establishment of a laboratory dedicated to emerging rocket and satellite technology. The Regents, acting on the recommendation of Chancellor Glenn T. Seaborg and President Clark Kerr, authorized the formation of the Space Sciences Laboratory in 1959. Located in the Berkeley Hills overlooking the central campus, the Space Sciences Laboratory would go on to make important scientific contributions to many NASA programs.
1960s