page_title: University of California, Los Angeles
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: University of California, Los Angeles / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Title: University of California At Los Angeles, Westwood Hills, Calif. Subjects: Universities &amp; colleges Places: California &gt; Los Angeles (county) &gt; Los Angeles Notes: Title from item. Extent: 1 print (postcard)&#160;: linen texture, color&#160;; 3 1/2 x 5 1/2 in. Accession #: 06_10_010292
context_page_description: The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA traces its early origins back to 1882 as the southern branch of the California State Normal School. It became the Southern Branch of the University of California in 1919, making it the second-oldest of the 10-campus University of California system.
  UCLA offers 337 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines, enrolling about 31,500 undergraduate and 12,800 graduate students. UCLA had 119,000 applicants for Fall 2016, including transfer applicants, making the school the most applied-to of any American university.
  The university is organized into six undergraduate colleges, seven professional schools, and four professional health science schools. The undergraduate colleges are the College of Letters and Science; Samueli School of Engineering; School of the Arts and Architecture; Herb Alpert School of Music; School of Theater, Film and Television; and School of Nursing.
  UCLA has been called a Public Ivy, and has been ranked the best public university in the United States by two major college and university rankings.
context_section_description: In March 1881, at the request of state senator Reginaldo Francisco del Valle, the California State Legislature authorized the creation of a southern branch of the California State Normal School (now San José State University) in downtown Los Angeles to train teachers for the growing population of Southern California. The Los Angeles branch of the California State Normal School opened on August 29, 1882, on what is now the site of the Central Library of the Los Angeles Public Library system. The facility included an elementary school where teachers-in-training could practice their technique with children. That elementary school is related to the present day UCLA Lab School. In 1887, the branch campus became independent and changed its name to Los Angeles State Normal School.
  In 1914, the school moved to a new campus on Vermont Avenue (now the site of Los Angeles City College) in East Hollywood. In 1917, UC Regent Edward Augustus Dickson, the only regent representing the Southland at the time, and Ernest Carroll Moore, Director of the Normal School, began to lobby the State Legislature to enable the school to become the second University of California campus, after UC Berkeley. They met resistance from UC Berkeley alumni, Northern California members of the state legislature, and Benjamin Ide Wheeler, President of the University of California from 1899 to 1919, who were all vigorously opposed to the idea of a southern campus. However, David Prescott Barrows, the new President of the University of California, did not share Wheeler's objections.
  On May 23, 1919, the Southern Californians' efforts were rewarded when Governor William D. Stephens signed Assembly Bill 626 into law, which acquired the land and buildings and transformed the Los Angeles Normal School into the Southern Branch of the University of California. The same legislation added its general undergraduate program, the College of Letters and Science. The Southern Branch campus opened on September 15 of that year, offering two-year undergraduate programs to 250 Letters and Science students and 1,250 students in the Teachers College, under Moore's continued direction.
  Under University of California President William Wallace Campbell, enrollment at the Southern Branch expanded so rapidly that by the mid-1920s the institution was outgrowing the 25 acre Vermont Avenue location. The Regents searched for a new location and announced their selection of the so-called "Beverly Site"—just west of Beverly Hills—on March 21, 1925, edging out the panoramic hills of the still-empty Palos Verdes Peninsula. After the athletic teams entered the Pacific Coast conference in 1926, the Southern Branch student council adopted the nickname "Bruins", a name offered by the student council at UC Berkeley. In 1927, the Regents renamed the Southern Branch the University of California at Los Angeles (the word "at" was officially replaced by a comma in 1958, in line with other UC campuses). In the same year, the state broke ground in Westwood on land sold for $1 million, less than one-third its value, by real estate developers Edwin and Harold Janss, for whom the Janss Steps are named. The campus in Westwood opened to students in 1929.
  The original four buildings were the College Library (now Powell Library), Royce Hall, the Physics-Biology Building (which became the Humanities Building and is now the Renee and David Kaplan Hall), and the Chemistry Building (now Haines Hall), arrayed around a quadrangular courtyard on the 400 acre (1.6 km²) campus. The first undergraduate classes on the new campus were held in 1929 with 5,500 students. After lobbying by alumni, faculty, administration and community leaders, UCLA was permitted to award the master's degree in 1933, and the doctorate in 1936, against continued resistance from UC Berkeley.
caption: Postcard circa 1930 to 1945 of the new Westwood campus.
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