University
The University of Chicago
Gothic quadrangles built on Gilded Age fortunes, from an oil baron's seed money to a department-store magnate's donated land.
0:00≈ 2 min
Location
0:00≈ 2 min
About this audio guide
This guide to the University of Chicago traces the Gilded Age money behind its Hyde Park quadrangles, opening on the quiet morning in October 1892 when six hundred students filed into Cobb Hall. It follows John D. Rockefeller's condition that Chicago businessmen match his seed money or lose the deal, and the donors who scrambled to meet it: Marshall Field giving the land, Silas Cobb the hall, a banker and a lumber baron building alongside them. Rockefeller kept writing checks for three decades after that first shaky start.
This audio guide was created using AI.