page_title: University of California
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: University of California / History
caption_attribution_description: The Office of the President of the en:University of California is located on the top floor of this office building in en:downtown en:Oakland, California. The same building also houses many other important UC offices. Photographed from the top level of the Alcopark Garage on the morning of en:January 19, en:2006 by user Coolcaesar.
context_page_description: The University of California is a public research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz, along with numerous research centers and academic abroad centers.
  The University of California was founded on March 23, 1868, and operated in Oakland before moving to Berkeley in 1873. Over time, several branch locations and satellite programs were established. In March 1951, the University of California began to reorganize itself into something distinct from its campus in Berkeley, with UC President Robert Gordon Sproul staying in place as chief executive of the UC system, while Clark Kerr became the first chancellor of UC Berkeley and Raymond B. Allen became the first chancellor of UCLA. However, the 1951 reorganization was stalled by resistance from Sproul and his allies, and it was not until Kerr succeeded Sproul as UC President that UC was able to evolve into a university system from 1957 to 1960. At that time, chancellors were appointed for additional campuses and each was granted some degree of greater autonomy.
context_section_description: In 1849, the state of California ratified its first constitution, which contained the express objective of creating a complete educational system including a state university. Taking advantage of the Morrill Land-Grant Acts, the California Legislature established an Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College in 1866.  However, it existed only on paper, as a placeholder to secure federal land-grant funds.
  Meanwhile, Congregational minister Henry Durant, an alumnus of Yale, had established the private Contra Costa Academy, on June 20, 1853, in Oakland, California. The initial site was bounded by Twelfth and Fourteenth Streets and Harrison and Franklin Streets in downtown Oakland (and is marked today by State Historical Plaque No. 45 at the northeast corner of Thirteenth and Franklin). In turn, the Academy's trustees were granted a charter in 1855 for a College of California, though the College continued to operate as a college preparatory school until it added college-level courses in 1860.  The College's trustees, educators, and supporters believed in the importance of a liberal arts education (especially the study of the Greek and Roman classics), but ran into a lack of interest in liberal arts colleges on the American frontier (as a true college, the College was graduating only three or four students per year).
  In November 1857, the College's trustees began to acquire various parcels of land facing the Golden Gate in what is now Berkeley for a future planned campus outside of Oakland.  But first, they needed to secure the College's water rights by buying a large farm to the east.  In 1864, they organized the College Homestead Association, which borrowed $35,000 to purchase the land, plus another $33,000 to purchase 160 acres (650,000 m²) of land to the south of the future campus. The Association subdivided the latter parcel and started selling lots with the hope it could raise enough money to repay its lenders and also create a new college town.  But sales of new homesteads fell short.
  Governor Frederick Low favored the establishment of a state university based upon the University of Michigan plan, and thus in one sense may be regarded as the founder of the University of California. At the College of California's 1867 commencement exercises, where Low was present, Benjamin Silliman, Jr. criticized Californians for creating a state polytechnic school instead of a real university.  That same day, Low reportedly first suggested a merger of the already-functional College of California (which had land, buildings, faculty, and students, but not enough money) with the nonfunctional state college (which had money and nothing else), and went on to participate in the ensuing negotiations. On October 9, 1867, the College's trustees reluctantly agreed to join forces with the state college to their mutual advantage, but under one condition—that there not be simply an "Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College", but a complete university, within which the assets of the College of California would be used to create a College of Letters (now known as the College of Letters and Science). Accordingly, the Organic Act, establishing the University of California, was introduced as a bill by Assemblyman John W. Dwinelle on March 5, 1868, and after it was duly passed by both houses of the state legislature, it was signed into state law by Governor Henry H. Haight (Low's successor) on March 23, 1868. However, as legally constituted, the new University was not an actual merger of the two colleges, but was an entirely new institution which merely inherited certain objectives and assets from each of them. The University of California's second president, Daniel Coit Gilman, opened its new campus in Berkeley in September 1873. 
  Section 8 of the Organic Act authorized the Board of Regents to affiliate the University of California with independent self-sustaining professional colleges.  "Affiliation" meant UC and its affiliates would "share the risk in launching new endeavors in education." The affiliates shared the prestige of the sta
caption: Office of the President in Oakland
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