Roosevelt University

In 1945, faculty and students at Chicago's Central YMCA College walked out to protest admission quotas on race and religion and created one of the nation's first institutions to admit all qualified students. Despite having no endowment, library, or campus, Roosevelt College attracted more than 1,000 students in its first year. The next year, it purchased Chicago's famed Auditorium Building. By 1949, enrollment topped 6,000, and the Roosevelt story captured the nation's imagination. In 1954, Florence Ziegfeld's Chicago Musical College merged with Roosevelt, and five years later the college became a university. As it nears its 70th anniversary, Roosevelt has six colleges, two campuses, and over 85,000 alumni, including former Chicago mayor Harold Washington. This book celebrates a pioneering institution that helped shape the history of American higher education.