The beginnings of the municipal college system began after the American Revolution, as the spread of democracy led to the secularization of higher education and the extension of opportunities to the newest immigrants in urban communities. However, even those colleges that were supported largely by public funds weren’t free for all, sometimes offering a limited number of scholarships for study in specific disciplines.

The College of Charleston, South Carolina was chartered in 1785 as a private college with state support, and it became a municipal institution in 1837. Even though the municipality controlled it, it continued to charge tuition, and it was not until 1920 that free tuition to Charleston residents was instituted.

The Free Academy was founded in New York City in 1847 and for the first time in America’s short history, higher education was made available “for the poor man’s children.” Townsend Harris, president of the New York City Board of Education from 1846, strongly believed that the city should support public higher education. He argued that “If the wealthy part of the community seek instruction to enlarge the minds of their children, why should not the opportunity be given to the sons of toil to give the same advantages to their children?” On June 7, 1847 a groundbreaking law was passed establishing the Free Academy, and a site was soon chosen on the southeast corner of Lexington Avenue and Twenty-third Street, where classes began on January 15, 1849.

Horace Webster
Copy from an original in the City College Archives.

Cover of the Bill Authorizing the Board to Establish the Free Academy
This is a reproduction of the original pamphlet. The original is from the City College Archives.

Free Academy 1849 Manual of the Corporation of The City of New York for the year 1849. By D.T. Valentine (1849) Durst Collection.

Free Academy 1849
Manual of the Corporation of The City of New York, for the Year 1849. By D.T. Valentine. (1849) Durst Collection

Although this was a momentous occasion for New Yorkers, it also proved to be a landmark for higher education. What was to follow in New York as well as throughout the country was a democratic equalizer, the opportunity for higher education, for the children of immigrants. Women as well as men, were invited into the circle of those offered advanced education–the Normal College, later Hunter College was founded in the City of New York in 1870. Outside New York City municipal colleges were founded with great zeal–many of them are the foundations of our great state university systems.

The Morrill Act was passed in 1862 providing for grants of federally owned land to the states to be used to help fund state colleges. Many states including Wisconsin, California, Missouri and Georgia established state schools, and like the Free Academy they too responded to the needs of their new citizenry. Agricultural or mechanical training was important to these communities, and the educational paths of their students were often limited. The Free Academy provided for practical studies as well as classical education, a paradigm that other institutions would not follow for decades. An 1850 article praising the Free Academy said that it would fulfill the “Reasonable expectations of its founders,” and that the Free Academy was an institution where “the rich and the poor will be upon an equality,” justification to use the academy as a “model” for American education. (“Dr. Webster and the New-York Free Academy,” 1850-51, p. 445-7)

That first class of 149 young men who entered the original building at 17 Lexington Avenue in 1849 had no way to know that the Free Academy was the seed from which other municipal colleges were to spring. These early students, sons of ship-joiners, carpenters, laborers and porters were to share the educational opportunities previously available to only a select few in society. What followed in New York was a demand for higher education that outgrew the building on Lexington Avenue. Campuses were added to the system and it became the City University of New York. Outside New York City a great State University of New York grew, and a college education became the hallmark of upward mobility in America. (Roff, Cucchiara and Dunlap)

The new campus of City College c. 1925
De Luxe Edition. New York Illustrated (N.Y. 1927). Durst Collection

The vision of Townsend Harris and his supporters, has been realized and millions of citizens have received an education that would have been unattainable had it not been for our great municipal system. Baruch College remains on the site of the original Free Academy, and as the legions of students pass this building each day, the legacy of their forebears echoes in its hall, and should not be forgotten.

Bibliography

“Dr. Webster and the New-York Free Academy,” The International Magazine of Literature ,Art, and Science (Vol.2, 1850-1), 445-7.

Sandra Roff, Anthony Cucchiara and Barbara Dunlap. From the Free Academy to CUNY: Illustrating Public Higher Education in New York City, 1847-1997. New York: Fordham University Press, 2000.

When we look back at the history of Baruch College and the beginnings of CUNY, we find that our origins are here on 23rd Street and Lexington Avenue, where the Free Academy was built in 1847 as an experiment in higher education. What was our neighborhood like when the academy opened? The neighborhood around the Free Academy was more residential than it is today, since there was little development north of 23rd Street. However, while the formidable Free Academy was nearing completion, Madison Square Park was also being prepared for its inaugural opening. A bill was passed to establish the Free Academy on May 7, 1847 and Madison Square Park opened three days later, on May 10th.

Known as the Parade Ground, it was built on land which had been a potter’s field, originally established in 1797. In 1814 it was named Madison Square after President James Madison. In 1845, Madison Square extended from 23rd to 26th streets between Fifth and Madison Avenues. (Berman, 9-12) In 1857, the park took on an important function of squares–to serve as a public gathering place. Thousands watched as a military procession carried the coffin of Major General William Jenkins Worth, who served in the War of 1812 and was a Mexican War hero, from City Hall to Madison Square, where he was buried. (Berman, 15-16)

This was not the only coffin which passed Madison Square Park during these early years. On May 1, 1866, the name of our college was changed by the act of the Legislature from the New-York Free Academy to the College of the City of New York. To celebrate the event, students organized a funeral procession the night before, marching from Reservoir Park (now Bryant Park) to the college in order to ceremonially bury the old Free Academy. (New York Times, May 1, 1866, p.2)

Baruch College Archive (copy), 1866

Madison Square Park Parade Commemorating the Centennial of Washington’s Inauguration, 1889
Museum of the City of New York

Eight blocks south of Madison Square was Union Square Park. Where Madison Square Park was a respite from city life, Union Square Park was from its early creation an outlet for protests, demonstrations, and celebrations. The function of the park as a venue for demonstrations has deep roots in the 19th century. After the fall of Fort Sumter, at the start of the Civil War, a mass meeting in support of the Union took place in Union Square on April 20, 1861. The New York Times published an article the next day with the headline: “-THE UNION FOREVER. Immense Demonstration in this city. THE ENTIRE POPULATION IN THE STREETS. Over One Hundred Thousand People at Union-square.” (April 21, 1861). The entire New York population was under a million at the time, meaning that this gathering marked a spectacular outpouring of civic fervor. Patriotic celebrations continued during the war years. After the war, the rights of workers became an ongoing theme of Union Square demonstrations. The parade at the Labor Day celebration on September 5, 1883, went by the reviewing stand at Union Square. Women’s suffrage was another cause for demonstrations and protest meetings. Once again, Union Square was the rallying place.

Union Square South from the Plaza c.1888
Illustrated New York (1888), p.59. Durst Collection, Baruch College Archives

American Memory–New York Historical Society repository, July 10, 1862

The Funeral of President Lincoln passing Union Square, April 25, 1865
Museum of the City of New York

By the 20th century, students  at the College of the City of New York were able to express their views by joining protests, and demonstrations in the vicinity of the college. Union Square was the venue for rallies against closing night schools, May Day protests, suffrage protests and anti-war demonstrations. Fifty years ago, in 1967, The Ticker looked back at the history of Union Square. “In the heyday of the International Workers of the World, anarchists and communists, the square was the Common Man’s Hyde Park. Its inhabitants then were the street-corner socialists, who embraced the radical doctrines of social security and minimum wage that are now the foundations of American labor law.” (Unger, Ticker, Dec. 12, 1967, p.3) In the 1930s, strong opposition to international involvement in armed conflicts was cause for student mobilization, and Madison Square Park became the site of a mass rally, in November 1935. “Three hundred determined students who wanted to further demonstrate their peace consciousness, massed in Madison Square Park after the assembly mobilization…Seven months ago, on April 12, on the same meeting ground, fourteen hundred School of Business students bolstered in numbers by eight hundred from Hunter, Washington Irving, and Townsend Harris repeated this same pledge. [Oxford Oath]” (Ticker, November 12, 1935, p.1)

Union Square, May 1, 1908
Museum of the City of New York

Women’s Suffrage Parade, Madison Square Park, 1917
Museum of the City of New York

Communists in Union Square, June 9, 1941
Museum of the City of New York

These two parks have a rich history and remain an integral part of the Baruch College community. It is noteworthy that citizens were able to mobilize large crowds even in the days before social media, to protest, support or celebrate special events or people. At a time when there is political and economic discontent these two parks may once again become destinations where the public comes together to peacefully protest.

Bibliography

Berman, Miriam. Madison Square: the Park and Its Celebrated Landmarks. Salt Lake City: Gibbs-Smith Publisher, 2001.

“Burial of the New-York Free Academy,” New York Times (May 1, 1866):2.

“In and about the city: labor unions in line, over six-thousand workman parade with significant banners,” New York Times (September 6, 1883): 8.