University History
Toward the University
During the late 1920s, there was increasing pressure from students and alumni to broaden the scope of the college beyond the study of scientific agriculture. In the spring of 1929, a group of students (one among them was Frederick S. Troy, later a founder of the Massachusetts Review) formed the Agitation Committee to persuade the Trustees that Mass Aggie should become a state college or even a university. The General Court responded to the growing pressure and, in 1931, passed a bill which changed the name of the institution to Massachusetts State College.
No major restructuring of the college occurred in the wake of the name change. M.S.C. was launched at the outset of the Great Depression and the college had to struggle just to hold its own. Led by the energetic Professor Marshall 0. Lanphear, the faculty pushed for the creation of strong divisions in humanities and the social sciences. Not until 1938, however, was the first A.B. degree awarded and a Division of Liberal Arts created. Increasing demand for admissions continued despite the Depression, but the campus facilities grew slowly. President Hugh Baker had to rely on the enterprise of alumni such as Alden Brett ('12) who created a private building association to underwrite the construction of dormitories. The college also received help from the Federal government. The much-needed Goodell Library was constructed primarily by funds obtained from the Public Works Administration.
Early in 1941, with an enrollment of 1700 and hundreds more clamoring for admission, President.Baker declared in his annual report that the responsibilities of Massachusetts State College went "beyond those who live on the land . . . to all the people of the state." The outbreak of World War II dramatically halted all plans for expansion, yet the impact of the war would profoundly alter the character of the college. M.S.C. became essentially a women's college during the war, and women began to move out of the School of Home Economics and into the curricular mainstream. As one alumna later recalled, "the girls didn't want Home Economics any more than the boys did." The greatest pressure for change at the old College, however, was generated by the passage of Congress of the "G.I. Bill" on June 22, 1944, opening the doors of college for thousands of young men.
The college tried desperately to respond to the new pressure for admissions. The campus soon became a maze of wooden classroom annexes and wooden residential units such as Commonwealth Circle and Federal Circle. Perhaps the most imaginative response was the decision to open a branch of the college at Fort Devens, a successful experiment which lasted from 1946 to 1949. Agitation for a university now came not only from students, but from organized labor, the Grange, the American Legion, and the V.F.W. Senator Ralph C. Mahar championed the cause in the General Court, and his bill creating the University of Massachusetts was passed and signed into law by Governor Robert Bradford on May 6, 1947.
Credits
The content of this Web page was adapted from a series of displays created for the 1988 celebration of the 125th anniversary of the founding of the University of Massachusetts. They were produced by the then Office of Humanities Programs in the Division of Continuing Education of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and were funded by a grant from the University President’s Office. Project Director: Kerry W. Buckley; Researcher: Robert J Wilson, III.
