Introduction

In 1892 an exciting experiment in education began on a desolate prairie: The University of Chicago opened its doors and an academic era was born. William Rainey Harper, its first president, was an aggressive upstart who used persuasion, money, and promises of institutional power to lure prominent, but often young, scholars to the “wild” West. Although the university was located on an urban frontier, it wanted to rival the intellectually preeminent East. Largely eschewing the areas of established excellence, the early administrators sought out new disciplines and ambitious faculty. Both groups wanted to build a national and international reputation for the institution, and they did it with a pioneer spirit compatible with the surging city growing rapidly and haphazardly around them.