Businessmen and Church Leaders Organize a University
During the 1870s, local people in Los Angeles began planning a university. Harris Newmark's memoir records that in May 1879 Judge Robert Maclay Widney discussed the proposal with the Reverend Marion McKinley Bovard and others and received their support. Many promoters were Methodists. Preparations began with a board of trustees, securing land, and raising funds.
Widney obtained land donations from nurseryman Ozro Childs, former California governor John Downey, and banker Isaias Hellman. They came respectively from Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish backgrounds, giving church leaders' educational plans support from local businessmen of different faiths.
How Land Became an Educational Foundation
In 1879, the three donors deeded 308 lots to the trustees. Part was reserved for campus buildings, while proceeds from the remaining lots would establish an endowment. The site lay in an area then called West Los Angeles, near today's intersection of Vermont Avenue and Exposition Boulevard.
The arrangement linked premises with finance: land was both a campus and a fundraising resource. On September 4, 1880, a cornerstone ceremony took place for the first building. The university catalog records that about one-tenth of the city's population braved late-summer heat and dust to attend, showing that the venture had become a publicly noticed local undertaking.
Fifty-Three Students and Ten Teachers
USC began teaching on October 6, 1880. Its 2014–2015 catalog records an initial enrollment of 53, and the 2003–2004 catalog also lists 10 teachers. Shortly after completion of the new building, preparations became everyday educational operations: students enrolled, teachers taught, and the institution assumed continuing responsibilities.
Bovard became the first president. His initial appointment agreement placed him in charge of the university's internal organization and educational program for five years. Trustees secured land and resources, while the president organized teaching and internal affairs, forming the original division of responsibilities at the small university.
Music and Medicine Are Added Gradually
Music education began in 1884, the year to which the Thornton School of Music's account in the 2014–2015 catalog traces its origins. In 1885, the university established a medical school, with physician Joseph Pomeroy Widney as its first dean.
Joseph was Robert Maclay Widney's younger brother; the brothers participated respectively in founding the university and developing medical education. Adding music and medicine let students pursue professional training alongside general university education, while creating new demands for teachers, premises, and funding.
A Medical School in Former Wine Merchants' Premises
Newmark records that the medical school opened in 1885 in a building on Aliso Street between Lyons and Center streets. It had formerly been occupied by the wine merchants Vaché Frères. The university used existing urban premises for professional education under Joseph Widney's medical leadership.
The 2003–2004 catalog records Joseph's tenure as medical dean from 1885 to 1896. His medical work overlapped with university management: when financial crisis later struck, the dean also assumed the presidency.
Financial Crisis after the Property Boom
Bovard's presidency encompassed early expansion followed by financial difficulty. After the property boom ended in 1887, the university entered a prolonged period of fiscal uncertainty, which he weathered until his death in December 1891. A school launched through land-based funding was also vulnerable to a turn in the property market.
Joseph Widney succeeded him as president, serving for three years without salary and paying most of his own working expenses. In 1895, he stepped down to resume medical practice. USC's early development thus proceeded through local donations, teaching by a small faculty to a small student body, expanding professional education, and the continuing struggle to fund operations.