page_title: History of Michigan State University
section_title: Coeducational college
hierarchical_section_title: History of Michigan State University / Coeducational college
context_page_description: The history of Michigan State University dates back to 1855, when the Michigan Legislature established the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan in East Lansing, with 3 buildings, 5 faculty members and 63 male students. As the first agricultural college in the United States, the school served as a prototype for future land-grant institutions under the Morrill Act enacted during Abraham Lincoln's presidency. The school's first class graduated in 1861 right after the onset of the American Civil War. That same year, the Michigan Legislature approved a plan to allow the school to adopt a four-year curriculum and grant degrees.
  In 1870, the College became co-educational and expanded its curriculum beyond agriculture into a broad array of coursework commencing with home economics for women students. The school admitted its first African American student in 1899. Not long before this, in 1885, the College had begun offering degrees in engineering and other applied sciences to students. The 26th U.S. President, Theodore Roosevelt, addressed the school at the 1907 commencement, an event coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the school's opening.
context_section_description: The College first admitted women in 1870 but the school's relative isolation and lack of women's living quarters tamped coeducational enrollment for decades. The few women who enrolled either boarded with faculty families or were locals who made the daily three-mile trek from Lansing by stagecoach over unpaved Michigan Avenue. The women were educated in the same scientific agriculture courses as men, excepting "practical agriculture." In 1896, the College became one of only fourteen other colleges and universities in America to adopt and meld a home economics curriculum within the liberal arts and sciences program, increasing female enrollment. That same year, the school relocated male students from the old Abbot Hall dormitory to allow for greater a number of women to enroll in the course.
  In 1885, in order to fill out its mandate as a Morrill Act college, the College established a Mechanics program which became the College's first full-fledged, degree-granting engineering program.
  In 1899, the State Agricultural College finally admitted its first African American student, William O. Thompson. After graduation, Thompson taught at what is now Tuskegee University, founded and headed by Booker T. Washington. Washington later delivered one of his most memorable addresses to the class of 1900 at commencement: in the 1900 commencement address, Booker T. Washington said "Without industrial development there can be no wealth; without wealth there can be no leisure; without leisure, no opportunity for thoughtful reflection and the cultivation of the higher arts."  MSU President Jonathan L. Snyder had invited Washington to be the College's Class of 1900 commencement speaker. A few years later, Myrtle Craig became the first African-American woman to enroll at the College. Graduating with the Class of 1907, she received her degree from U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, commencement speaker for the Semi-Centennial celebration of the College's opening.
  The City of East Lansing incorporated in 1907 as well.  Two years later, the college officially changed its name to Michigan Agricultural College (M.A.C.), since by this time there were many other agricultural colleges across the country. Even though the College had been around for over fifty years and was a widely recognized leader of the Land Grant Colleges, some within the state legislature opposed expansion. Despite the Morrill Act's original mandate that Land Grant Colleges teach engineering (then called "mechanic arts"), some in Michigan believed its agricultural college should not have engineering programs because these duplicated the University of Michigan's offerings. Nonetheless, M.A.C. had developed civil and electrical engineering programs to complement the original mechanical program of 1885. These separate disciplines were unified in a new Department of Engineering in 1908.
  When a 1916 fire destroyed M.A.C.'s nine-year-old engineering hall, there was a movement to have the entire program absorbed by the University of Michigan. Lansing automobile magnate Ransom E. Olds, however, solidified the program on the East Lansing campus with a gift of $100,000 in 1917 for a new engineering building to be erected directly upon the foundations of the burned hall. The donation, the College's first significant private gift for a building, resulted in Olds Hall.  The original building is still standing but now houses MSU's University Relations division as well as classroom space.
  
  In 1914, the United States Congress passed the Smith–Lever Act, which provided federal funding for a system of state cooperative extension service. Like T.C. Abbot's initial "Farmers' Institutes", these extension services spread college-based knowledge about agriculture and related issues to citizens around the state. Such extension services served as the third prong of the Land Grant college mission of education, research and public service. With this new mandate, the College moved to expand its curriculum beyond agriculture and engineering, including expanding liberal arts coursework, which has been central
caption: Morrill Hall in 1912, known at the time as the "Women's Building".[33] To the right are Horticulture, Bacteriology, Botany, and Administration (Library–Museum).
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