page_title: History of the Georgia Institute of Technology
section_title: Technological university (1922–1944)
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Georgia Institute of Technology / Technological university (1922–1944)
caption_attribution_description: English: Researcher Jim Hubbard using an EM200 Electron Microscope at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.
context_page_description: The history of the Georgia Institute of Technology can be traced back to Reconstruction-era plans to develop the industrial base of the Southern United States. Founded on October 13, 1885, in Atlanta as the Georgia School of Technology, the university opened in 1888 after the construction of Tech Tower and a shop building and only offered one degree in mechanical engineering. By 1901, degrees in electrical, civil, textile, and chemical engineering were also offered. In 1948, the name was changed to the Georgia Institute of Technology to reflect its evolution from an engineering school to a full technical institute and research university.
  The Georgia Institute of Technology is the birthplace of two other Georgia universities: Georgia State University and the former Southern Polytechnic State University. Georgia Tech's Evening School of Commerce, established in 1912 and moved to the University of Georgia in 1931, was independently established as Georgia State University in 1955. Although Georgia Tech did not officially allow women to enroll until 1952, the night school enrolled female students as early as the fall of 1917.
context_section_description: On August 1, 1922, Marion L. Brittain was elected as the school's president. He noted in the 1923 annual report that "there are more students in Georgia Tech than in any other two colleges in Georgia, and we have the smallest appropriation of them all." He was able to convince the state of Georgia to increase the school's funding during his tenure. Additionally, a $300,000 grant (equivalent to $4,591,400 in 2019) from the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics allowed Brittain to establish the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aeronautics. In 1930, Brittain's decision to use the money for a new school of aeronautics, headed by Montgomery Knight, was controversial; today, the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering boasts the second largest faculty in the United States behind MIT. Other accomplishments during Brittain's administration included a doubling of Georgia Tech's enrollment, accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and the creation of a new ceramic engineering department, building, and major that attracted the American Ceramics Society's national convention to Atlanta.
  In 1929, some Georgia Tech faculty members belonging to Sigma Xi started a research club that met once a month at Tech. One of the monthly subjects, proposed by ceramic engineering professor W. Harry Vaughan, was a collection of issues related to Tech, such as library development, and the development of a state engineering station. Such a station would theoretically assist local businesses with engineering problems via Georgia Tech's established faculty and resources. This group investigated the forty existing engineering experiments at universities around the country, and the report was compiled by Harold Bunger, Montgomery Knight, and Vaughan in December 1929.
  The Great Depression threatened the already tentative nature of Georgia Tech's funding. In a speech on April 27, 1930, Brittain proposed that the university system be reorganized under a central body, rather than having each university under its own board. As a result, the Georgia General Assembly and Governor Richard Russell Jr. passed an act in 1931 that established the University System of Georgia (USG) and the corresponding Georgia Board of Regents; unfortunately for Brittain and Georgia Tech, the board was composed almost entirely of graduates of the University of Georgia. In its final act on January 7, 1932, the Tech Board of Trustees sent a letter to the chairman of the Georgia Board of Regents outlining its priorities for the school. The Depression also affected enrollment, which dropped from 3,271 in 1931–1932 to a low of 2,482 in 1933–1934, and only gradually increased afterwards. It also caused a decrease in funding from the State of Georgia, which in turn caused a decrease in faculty salaries, firing of graduate student assistants, and a postponing of building renovations.
  As a cost-saving move, effective on July 1, 1934, the Georgia Board of Regents transferred control of the relatively large Evening School of Commerce to the University of Georgia and moved the small civil engineering program at UGA to Tech. The move was controversial, and both students and faculty protested against it, fearing that the Board of Regents would remove other programs from Georgia Tech and reduce it to an engineering department of the University of Georgia. Brittain suggested that the lack of Georgia Tech alumni on the Board of Regents contributed to their decision. Despite the pressure, the Board of Regents held its ground. The Depression also had a significant impact on the athletic program, as most athletes were in the commerce school, and resulted in the elimination of athletic scholarships, which were replaced by a loan program. Plans for an industrial management department to replace and supersede the Evening School of Commerce were first made in fall 1934. The department was established in 1935, and evolved into Tech's College of Management.
  In 1933, S. V. Sanford, president of the University of Georgia, proposed that a "technical research act
caption: EES Researcher Jim Hubbard with the EM200 electron microscope
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