College of Science and Engineering: The Institute of Technology Years (1935–2010)

Abstract

The College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota is today one of the finest technological institutions in the country. It all began in 1851, when the Territorial Legislature founded the Minneapolis-based university as a preparatory school where, for the munificent sum of $4 a quarter, an elderly clergyman instructed a handful of local children in the three Rs. The technical subjects developed in fits and starts, spurred by the passage of the Morrill Act in 1862, which offered states (Minnesota had taken its first baby steps as a state in 1858) large grants of land in exchange for college-level work in agriculture and vocational training in engineering, industrial drawing, and other “mechanic arts” subjects. With the financial backing of state senator and flour magnate John Sargent Pillsbury, who joined the university’s board of trustees in 1863, school officials effectively shelved plans by the state’s agricultural interests to create a second campus elsewhere. Pillsbury Hall, a monument to his efforts to grow the university in Minneapolis, opened in 1890.