Education

Wells College, founded in 1868 by businessman Henry Wells, boasts a storied history that spans over a century and a half. Using images and ephemera from the Wells College Archive and Special Collections, Tiffany Raymond, MLIS, and Daniel G. Renfrow, PhD, illustrate the college's rich history and the unique traditions that continue to inspire generations of students to pursue knowledge, leadership, and positive change in the world.

Established as a women’s college in Aurora, New York, Wells fulfilled the founder’s dream of making a “College Home” for students while simultaneously pioneering women’s education, providing opportunities for intellectual growth and leadership long before women’s rights were fully recognized. Throughout this history, the college has adapted to the evolving needs of the students and the wider society, including transitioning to coeducation in 2005 to better serve a diverse student body. Wells College’s commitment to academic excellence, social responsibility, and community engagement remains unwavering, making it a beacon of higher education in the picturesque Finger Lakes region.

Tiffany Raymond, MLIS, is director of the Louis Jefferson Long Library at Wells

College and a member of the class of 2010. Daniel G. Renfrow, PhD, is an associate professor of sociology and chair of the Social Science Division at Wells College. 

Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, was founded after the Civil War as a great experiment: a nonsectarian, coeducational institution where any person can find instruction in any study.

In the mid-19th century, there were only a handful of colleges that accepted women and even fewer that were nonsectarian. The university charter specifically states that persons of every religious denomination or of no religious denomination, shall be equally eligible to all offices and appointments. Today, with colleges of hotel management and labor relations added to the more traditional majors in liberal arts, engineering, business, agriculture, and architecture, Cornell - both an Ivy League university and state land-grant college - truly offers a diverse program of study for a diverse collection of students.

Syracuse University details the beginnings of this historic school, describing its rise to present day prestige.

Syracuse University was founded in 1870 as a private, coeducational university in Syracuse, New York. Classes began the following year in temporary quarters until the university moved to its current location on ""The Hill"" in 1873, occupying the Hall of Languages, which is still the iconic center of SU. Syracuse University provides a photographic journey from the late 1800s to the present, highlighting its growth from a small Methodist college to a university of national importance with more than 20,000 students and over 240,000 living alumni. Always committed to diversity, SU has embraced opportunity--be it with the Syracuse-in-China program in the 1920s, the enrollment of thousands of veterans after World War II, or cofounding the Say Yes to Education scholarship program for urban schools. Championship football, basketball, and lacrosse teams have also brought prestige to SU, and fans around the nation and world ""bleed orange"" along with those who work, teach, or study at the university.

Explore the history of the education in this cloistered community, both spiritual and cultural, offered at the Chautauqua Institution in NY State for over 125 years.

The Chautauqua Institution, located on Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York State, is both a cloistered community and a world-renowned educational establishment. Founded in 1874 as a summer camp for Methodist Sunday school teachers, Chautauqua is synonymous with the ideas of spiritual growth, educational study, and intellectual stimulation in conjunction with recreation in an outdoor setting. For over 125 years, Chautauqua has remained an educational and cultural mecca for the common man. Chautauqua Institution, 1874-1974 is a compendium of Chautauqua's growth from its inception at Fair Point to its centennial celebrations. Each chapter's brief introduction acquaints the reader with historic highlights followed by pages of fascinating facts and intriguing images, ranging from rudimentary tents to the grande dame of hotels, from Victorian cottages to Greek-pillared halls. This array of architecture forms the backdrop for countless individuals who were responsible for bringing the founders' vision to fruition and who were the backbone of the Chautauqua Movement.

First established in 1870 as a teaching college for women, Hunter College of the City of New York has provided exceptional education to all peoples for over a century.

Providing experiential learning opportunities from the very start, the college has successfully fostered many generations of students with its challenging and cutting-edge curriculum. Founder Dr. Thomas Hunter, an Irish immigrant, insisted that the school admit people of all races, religions, and ethnicities, despite segregation laws in the early years. In the 1920s, Hunter College began opening branch campuses in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. During World War II, the Bronx campus was used by the U.S. Navy as a training center for over 95,000 female volunteers for military service as WAVES and SPARS, and in 1946, it was the first site for the United Nations sessions. Over the years, alumni of Hunter have gone on to careers in politics, education, social work, medicine, media, and many other fields. Graduates have included Fulbright and Mellon Fellows and Nobel prizewinners. Here we can see for the first time hundreds of striking and nostalgic photographs that tell the story of Hunter College's development over its 150 year history.

Vassar College was founded in 1861, two miles from the banks of the Hudson River in Poughkeepsie by Matthew Vassar, a self-made businessman.

The college grew to confirm its founder's precedent-breaking vision that women would profit from intellectual opportunities in the liberal arts similar to those that Ivy League institutions had long offered the other gender. The college has grown and changed with the times, first countering Victorian prejudices that women were not suited for serious study, always leading the way as opportunities to broaden the spectrum of women's education developed. In the tumultuous decade of the 1960s, Vassar College again broke precedent, turning itself from a single-sex institution into one in which true coeducation exists. After 139 years, Vassar is poised for the changes under way and yet to come in the twenty-first century.

Everyone loves an underdog who succeeds against the odds. CCNY Made. Profiles in Grit is the story of City College of New York alumni who beat the odds to reach the pinnacle of their professions and in the process transformed our world. Here are just a few:lAndrew Grove, hearing impaired and a survivor of Nazi occupation and Communist rule became the visionary CEO of Intel Corporation, the manufacturer of the semiconductor chip found in most personal computers today.lYip Harburg, the son of immigrants, wrote the lyrics to countless music standards, including “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” one of the most celebrated songs of all times.

lJonas Salk, facing antisemitism and the rebuke of the scientific community, developed the Salk Vaccine that irradicated polio from the face of the earth.

lFelix Frankfurter, who came to America at 12 speaking no English, would be appointed a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and help write the unanimous opinion in Brown v. the Board of Education declaring school segregation in the United States illegal. In “CCNY Made. Profiles In Grit,” the stories of CCNY alumni are recounted who exemplify the promise of Townsend Harris, founder of CCNY and The Ephebic Oath affirmed by graduating students every year.

“We will strive unceasingly to quicken the public’s better, of civic duty; and thus, in all these ways we will strive to transmit this city not only not less, but greater, better and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.”