California State Normal School
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The California State Normal School was a teaching college founded in 1862 whose original campus later became San José State University. The statewide system of State Normal Schools that grew out of the original campus eventually became the modern day California State University system.
Although the California State Legislature act founding the school referred to the institution as the "Normal School of the State of California", the institution was commonly referred to as the California State Normal School. The 1870 Act that moved the school to San Jose formalized the California State Normal School name.
The school was created when the State of California took over a normal school that educated San Francisco teachers in association with that city's high school system. This school was generally known as either the San Francisco Normal School or Minns' Evening Normal School.
In 1871, the school moved to Washington Square Park at Fourth and San Carlos Streets in San José, where San José State University is still located. The original building at Washington Square Park was completed in 1872 but burned down on February 10, 1880. It was replaced by a second building in 1881, depicted in the lithograph above.
In 1881, the first branch campus was announced in Los Angeles, which later became the University of California, Los Angeles.
[edit] The State Normal School and "SNS" athletics
In 1887, the California legislature changed the name of the two normal schools, dropping the word "California". The San Jose campus was thereafter known as the "State Normal School at San Jose". The school's athletic teams played under the State Normal School (SNS) identity for decades, as evidenced by images of the SNS football and basketball squads from the campus' early years. Despite the SNS identity the school continued to be referred to as the "California State Normal School, San Jose" in official publications like the 1919 school bulletin at right.
[edit] Statewide Spread of the State Normal School
Other State Normal Schools were established in Chico in 1887, San Diego in 1897 and elsewhere throughout the State of California. With the exception of the Los Angeles campus, the system of State Normal Schools would later become the California State University system.
In 1919, the State Normal School at Los Angeles became the Southern Branch of the University of California, now the University of California, Los Angeles.
In 1921 the California State Legislature decreed that the remaining State Normal Schools would be known as State Teachers Colleges and that the original campus would be known as the State Teachers College at San Jose. In 1935, the State Teachers Colleges became the California State Colleges, administered from the State Department of Education in Sacramento. The new San Jose State College was no longer limited to educating teachers and later evolved into San José State University.
As indicated on the 1919 school catalog at right, the school recognized its 1862 year of creation by the State of California as its official date of establishment. In 1957, however, a committee planning a centennial celebration changed the official date of the school's establishment to reflect the founding of the San Francisco/Minns' Evening Normal School in 1857.
[edit] References
- Act to Establish and Maintain a State Normal School (May 2, 1862), The Statutes of California, pp. 472-473, Benj. P. Avery, State Printer, Sacramento, 1862.
- Historical Sketch of the State Normal School at San Jose - 1862 - 1889, State Office, Supt. of State Printing, 1889.
- Text of the Act Providing for the Selection of a Site for and Construction of the California State Normal School, http://www.sjsu.edu/sjsuhistory/act_providing_for_select.htm
- Washington Square 1857-1979: The History of San Jose State University, Gilbert & Burdick, San Jose State University, 1979.
