“We must build our future primarily out of the past … and out of the people whose lives have been interwoven into our history.”
James A. Blaisdell in a letter to Harvey Mudd in 1927
scroll to start the story
CGU 100: Our Origin Story
Chapter 1
Introduction
CGU owes its existence to the resolve of a visionary founder, the support of a modest but renowned philanthropist, and the dealmaking of a lawyer who shunned the spotlight but became immortalized on campus. Its history is inseparable from the City of Claremont, whose trajectory would be far different if not for a vacant hotel, ample shrubland, and a train depot. It is steeped in tenacity, gamesmanship, constant reinvention, and world-changing success.
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The name and official seal have changed many times since CGU's founding as Claremont Colleges (not to be confused with The Claremont Colleges consortium). The Greek lamps represented the individual colleges. For the initial proposal in 1928, Blaisdell suggested, "The shield should be surmounted by one large lamp, which will represent the central organization … Claremont Colleges," with the two smaller lamps representing Pomona College and the newly formed Scripps College. The symbol atop the shield evolved to a torch, the flame of which symbolizes CGU today.
1928
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James A. Blaisdell envisioned a consortium of colleges with leaders working "in a spirit of democratic comradeship." His optimism soon proved ill-founded, however, in large part because the consortium lacked a formal, written agreement about who should do what. Claremont Colleges (so named because it administered the consortium's shared services and facilities) depended on faculty from Pomona and Scripps to teach its graduate courses, but there was continual friction over course assignments, priorities, and finance.
Over time, Claremont Colleges hired its own graduate faculty and thrived, reinventing itself as needed. The theme of reinvention can be seen through the multiple name changes attempting to reconcile the disparate functions of centralized services and graduate education. In 2000, these functions were formally divided into two institutions, Claremont Graduate University and The Claremont Colleges Services. Though Blaisdell later drew criticism for his credulous belief that college leaders would always be guided by goodwill, his ambition and vision were never questioned.
“[We] will need educational opportunities far beyond anything we now have. … Instead of one great, undifferentiated university, we might have a group of institutions divided into small colleges — somewhat on the Oxford type.”
James A. Blaisdell in a letter to Ellen Browning Scripps in 1923
James A. Blaisdell never shied away from big ideas. Not long after he arrived in 1910 to resuscitate a financially struggling Pomona College, he recognized an unprecedented yet fleeting opportunity. Claremont, a nascent college town in an undeveloped region, could become an intellectual powerhouse, shaping the West and beyond.
Just as New York served as a gateway to Europe, Blaisdell saw Los Angeles as a future bridge to Asia and Latin America. He envisioned Claremont Colleges as a "University of the Pacific" and dedicated his life to making Claremont a leading intellectual center where graduate work would be paramount to attracting and retaining top talent.
Blaisdell found a kindred spirit and perfect partner in Ellen Browning Scripps, a businesswoman and philanthropist — but more than that, a relentless seeker of knowledge and a champion of progress and empowerment. "I am deeply interested in what President Blaisdell is planning," she said. "It is a forward-looking project that I think means much for education." Together, they would make history.
“Nowhere else in this country had such an educational development been achieved or even contemplated.”
James A. Blaisdell, The Story of a Life
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Robert J. Bernard arrived at the Central Pacific Railroad passenger depot in Sacramento on October 14, 1925, to file the articles of incorporation for Claremont Colleges. [California State Railroad Museum Library]
“It was a beautiful day, with the gold dome of the Capitol shining beneficently.”
Robert J. Bernard, notes from the Board of Overseers meeting in 1965
Robert J. Bernard — James A. Blaisdell's protégé and a future CGU president — was on an urgent mission to Sacramento, one that required an overnight train trip to ensure he arrived on time.
He strode toward the secretary of state's office with documents that would officially give birth to Claremont Colleges. "The Group Plan, the first of its kind in the United States, struck fire," Bernard reflected years later.
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October 14
1925
Chapter 2
Early Claremont and Pomona College
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The Pomona Land and Water Company created stable water infrastructure in 1883, critical to the development of the area. H.A. Palmer, the co-founder and president, had a personal land investment in North Pomona and convinced the Santa Fe Railway to route their westward expansion through (surprise!) North Pomona and a rustic, unnamed "townsite" south of Indian Hill in which he and his family resided. [Honnold/Mudd Library Special Collections]
October 14, 1887
Leaders of the Congregational Church in Southern California spent the first half of the year putting the finishing touches on their plans for "a college of the New England type" that would be grounded in Christian values but non-sectarian and open to both men and women. After vetting numerous locations, they chose 120 acres in North Pomona, named Piedmont Mesa, donated by H.A. Palmer.
They drafted articles of incorporation for their fledgling college and took them to Sacramento, where they were approved on October 14 — 38 years to the day before Bernard's dash to incorporate Claremont Colleges. About the same time, the Pacific Land Improvement Company, a railroad subsidiary based in Boston, was putting the finishing touches on its Claremont Hotel, hoping to cash in on newcomers looking for a place to stay while they scouted the area's land boom.
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Train tracks are white noise in a modern cityscape, but in the 1800s they breathed life into the dreams of civic leaders, entrepreneurs, and land speculators. Tracks meant transportation, commerce, opportunity, and the chance for quick money. 1887 was a propitious time for Southern California's track-adjacent communities, but as the short-lived boom turned to bust, Pomona College's founders struggled with fundraising to build in Piedmont Mesa. They opened their doors in September 1888 at a makeshift rented cottage in Pomona.
In 1887, the Pacific Land Improvement Company purchased and subdivided 188 acres north of the tracks, and Sante Fe built a makeshift depot to attract buyers. The name Claremont came from the clear view of the mountains and honored one of the speculators who grew up near the New England community of Claremont, New Hampshire. [Honnold/Mudd Library Special Collections]
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January 1889
The sudden economic downturn might have shattered plans for the college if not for the perseverance of its founders and an amazing turn of events. Just hours after the college board laid the cornerstone for the new building at Piedmont Mesa—a symbolic act despite dwindling financial support—the Pacific Land Improvement Company made an unexpected offer:
The college could have the Claremont Hotel and more than 250 nearby lots if it agreed to return a share of the proceeds from the future sale of lots. The board accepted, but retained the name Pomona College because they believed their permanent home was to the west. After moving to Claremont during the Christmas holidays, classes resumed in January in the newly named Claremont Hall, later renamed Sumner Hall in honor of Mary L. Sumner, wife of founding trustee Charles B. Sumner.
Pomona in the foreground dwarfs Claremont and nearby citrus groves, with the San Gabriel Mountains looming over both. B.D. Jackson, who started as portrait photographer, captured many images of Southern California. "Views don't talk back," he said, explaining his new focus. [Honnold/Mudd Library Special Collections]
“In the new building ... centered the life of the College. Save for a few families who began to settle outside, the whole community life ran on under this one roof.”
M. E. Churchill, Pomona College — An Historical Sketch
E.C. Norton served as Pomona College Dean from 1893 to 1926. Among his many accomplishments, he is credited with attempting to grow the first lawn in Claremont. [Honnold/Mudd Library Special Collections.]
Norton was a Renaissance man. The professor of Greek built his own house on Seventh Street when it was barely a dirt road. The property served as a playground for faculty members' children, who would fill the yard and porch stairs. (He admonished them to stay off his lawn.) The house still stands, noticeably remodeled but with its porticos clearly visible. [Honnold/Mudd Library Special Collections]
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Sumner Hall
Claremont evolved as a college-centric town, with faculty, students, and families transforming the desert into a community. Citrus cultivation, beginning in 1888, also played a crucial role in Claremont's development. The town's growth revolved around Pomona College, establishing it as a "college with a town" rather than vice versa, fostering an environment conducive to intensive academic pursuits.
The Review of Reviews, a progressive magazine founded in the 1890s, highlighted the transformative potential of irrigation in the American West. It predicted small farms would foster a new civilization offering sustainable, community-oriented living that avoided both urban congestion and rural isolation. Small towns could grow around cultural institutions while retaining rural benefits. Claremont in its early years exemplified this vision of community-oriented living.
Pomona College Book Store then vs now
Duvall's on the northeast corner of Yale Avenue and First Street served as Pomona College's first bookstore and the community's general store and pharmacy. O.H. Duvall (Class of 1895) paid his way through school by selling books and stationery in a small room on campus. He later became Claremont's postmaster, a registered pharmacist, and director of the First National Bank of Claremont. [Honnold/Mudd Library Special Collections]
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This historic photo was taken from the west side of Holmes Hall, which was draped in the crimson of Harvard (Roosevelt's alma mater) along with Pomona's blue and white. Crimson bunting, emblazoned with the spirited "Rah Rah Harvard" yell, completed the display. [Honnold/Mudd Library Special Collections]
May 8, 1903
Based on the many breathless news stories about the event, May 8, 1903, was a momentous day for Claremont. President Theodore Roosevelt, honoring an invitation from Pomona College President George Gates, had come to the campus as part of his eight-week whistlestop tour of 25 states. Well over 6,000 locals, visitors, politicians, business icons, Civil War veterans, and Roughriders came in wagons and carriages, by horse and bicycle, and on foot to see the 26th president, who spoke passionately about education and its impact on life, politics, and humanity.
"It is such a pleasure to be in this college town today. … you are erecting the superstructure of intellectual, moral, and spiritual well-being," Roosevelt said from a platform in front of Parsons Hall. "It was certainly a great day, the most notable in point of importance and popular visitation in the history of Claremont to which all roads seem to lead for the time being," the Pomona Progress reported.
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“Pomona was also a phenomenon in the large proportion of graduates who continued on into graduate study. This last result seemed to me one of the finest testimonies to our educational success.”
James A. Blaisdell, The Story of a Life.
A Continuing Vision of Greatness, narrated by Ronald Reagan is a short film that highlights the growth of the consortium from its early years to the early 1960s, when it was made.
There is priceless footage of life at Pomona College that "aroused a good deal of interest, due to the humorous appearance of the styles of those days and the obvious development of the campus since that time. … although it was taken less than ten years ago," Secretary of the Faculty William S. Ament quipped in a letter to J.C. Harper in 1927.
Chapter 3
Blaisdell & Scripps Form a Partnership
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President George A. Gates is joined by dignitaries and most of the Pomona College community as the cornerstone for Carnegie Library is laid in 1907. Key funding came from the Carnegie Foundation, which also provided a substantial gift to support faculty pensions soon after James A. Blaisdell's arrival in 1910.
January 1909
George A. Gates was at a breaking point. A highly respected scholar and administrator, Gates was beloved by the students at Pomona College, where he had doubled enrollment, expanded the campus, and brought the institution to national prominence in his eight years as president. Jane Addams and Theodore Roosevelt came to speak "chiefly because of President Gates," and Ellen Browning Scripps, taken by his "good humor and charm," visited Pomona College by his invitation in 1908. But despite these accomplishments, one weakness would be his undoing: "I cannot raise money."
The burden of fundraising fell on Gates after Charles B. Sumner suffered a severe nervous breakdown in 1908, three months into leading a campaign to raise $250,000 to save Pomona College (again) from dire financial straits. Despite suffering burnout, in part from not taking a vacation in 20 years, Gates managed to reach almost half of the campaign goal before "broken health and discouragement" forced him to resign and take a six-month trip to Australia and New Zealand to quiet his "troubled nerves." The same kind of stress would almost break Blaisdell 15 years later.
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Summer 1909
Nobody knew Pomona College and what it needed in a president better than C.B. Sumner. After George A. Gates resigned, Sumner traveled to the Pacific Northwest, the Atlantic Seaboard, and the Midwest in search of a new breed of administrator with a higher level of financial acumen. A "superior president." James A. Blaisdell emerged as the standout candidate recommended by multiple sources, including trusted ally D.K. Pearsons, a Chicago real estate mogul who played a crucial philanthropic role in the early development of both Pomona College and Beloit.
Unfamiliar with Pomona College, Blaisdell offered a tepid response to Sumner's initial inquiry. Undeterred, and unbeknownst to Blaisdell, Sumner made a trip to Beloit speak with Blaisdell's professional and personal acquaintances. Convinced that he had found a perfect fit — someone who was a highly regarded educator but had also done a heroic job of raising funds to secure books for his new library — Sumner reached out again. Sensing the opportunity, Blaisdell agreed to make his first-ever trip to the West Coast to visit Claremont. He did some reconnaissance of his own at the University of California, where he was told, "Don't hesitate." His visit to Pomona College was a monumental success, culminating with a speech in which he "electrified the audience and shifted the campus atmosphere from uncertainty to optimism."
“He was basically a frontiersman like my grandfather. A chance to begin and to build … was his main interest.”
Allen Blaisdell, Reflections: family, youth and James Blaisdell
While Blaisdell the academic is revered, little has been written about Blaisdell the man. But his Beloit classmates and students had a lot to say about the friend they affectionately called Jimmie.
“All the Beloiters knew [him],” wrote Victor Marriott, one of many who followed Blaisdell to Pomona College. He still had “the same rare humor, the same friendly greeting,” and despite the heavy burden of his presidency, “there is nothing that he loves more than to sit down with a friend for a chat.”
Blaisdell was adept at navigating the administrative landscape and getting results at Beloit, where he forged an excellent relationship with President Edward Dwight Eaton. Professor Theodore R. Etecus praised Blaisdell's deft touch. “He is a pretty good man to have around when the faculty gets into a tangle. … He generally knows what he wants and [doesn't] hurt people's feelings to get it.” But perhaps the quality that Etecus found most endearing was, “He never talks as long as some of the faculty.”
Blaisdell was also a gifted public speaker who could both inspire and read an audience — skills he employed with great success throughout his time in Claremont. “He did it by understatement and by sometimes reaching with his hands and not talking at all,” recalled Caroline Bennett Fogle, a member of the first class to graduate from Scripps College and later a trustee. “We always felt he was half-fox and half-imagination.”
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Fall 1912
Blaisdell had requested that the inauguration be postponed after he and his family arrived in Claremont the previous year to allow him to focus on an urgent matter: The college was $150,000 in debt (nearly $5 million today). Blaisdell, who had no experience as a major fundraiser, got to work, launching a whirlwind effort that some called The Campaign of the Crisis. In three months, the debt had been erased. And he was just getting started.
A year after shoring up Pomona College's sagging finances, James A. Blaisdell turned to a much more ambitious project, the Million Dollar Campaign. (That would be $32 million today.) Things moved swiftly, fueled by Blaisdell's sometimes self-effacing, sometimes eloquent ability to inspire support. In addition to the Bridges' gift of $100,000, the citizens of Claremont provided nearly $100,000, alumni pledged over $40,000, Nathan V. Blanchard provided two $50,000 endowments, and George Marston pledged $50,000 to be used "as the trustees may deem fit." But a smaller gift that could have been a footnote had the greatest impact. The donor? Ellen Browning Scripps.
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December 1914
In his memoir, “The Story of a Life,” James A. Blaisdell reflects on the countless people who helped Pomona College grow into a renowned academic institution. He mentions faculty and colleagues, as well as “day laborers, gardeners, house mothers, janitors, [and] cooks” whose contributions were often overlooked. And, of course, he thanks the benefactors whose support proved pivotal. “Five of the great were rich both in spiritual and material things,” he says, but curiously he adds, “I shall not write their names here.”
There is little doubt that Ellen Browning Scripps topped the list. Blaisdell first met her in-person in 1914 at a Christmas concert at Bishop Joseph H. Johnson's school in La Jolla, where he asked her to fund a guest lectureship in Johnson's name thatwould supplement the college curriculum. She pledged $25,000 and later thanked Blaisdell for his letter, which “sank deeply into my heart and will serve for my encouragement for many days.” Their visit in La Jolla was one of the few times they met in person. Their relationship rested instead on their powerful correspondence.
“We have been able to bring to Pomona, representatives from Columbia, Yale, Harvard, and other notable institutions … making for the rapid growth of the College.”
James A. Blaisdell in a letter to Ellen Browning Scripps in 1919
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Ellen Browning Scripps would have transcended any era. As Professor Molly McClain shows in her excellent biography, Scripps was accomplished, influential, unpretentious, and almost painfully modest. She was devoted to family and friends and loved children. She finished college at a time few women did, though she had to settle for a certificate because women were not granted degrees. She also had a keen sense of the newspaper business, helping her older brother launch a publishing empire in Detroit and later doing the same for her younger brother in Cleveland, which led to her introduction to J.C Harper, who would become her lawyer and close advisor.
Though she left the church because it opposed female participation, she read the Bible and helped fund the building of several churches. In La Jolla, when her sister Virginia went on trips, Ellen let the maid go on vacation and took care of things herself. McClain writes, “She rarely slept in her bedroom, preferring an old wire-woven cot that she placed on the west porch for the sake of the stars.”
Ellen Browning Scripps lived on her own terms.
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February 22, 1921
By 1922-23, women would outnumber men at Pomona College, 432 to 346. Blaisdell asked Scripps to fund a new “Woman's Campus” to replace the "constant fire peril" of the wood-framed Sumner Hall. She provided $110,000 anonymously, while Trustee C.E. Harwood contributed $50,000. Harwood Court, which housed 135 students, opened in 1920.”
Scripps, then 85, traveled from La Jolla to Claremont to attend the 10th anniversary celebration of Blaisdell's presidency and dedicate Harwood Court. Blaisdell had suggested naming it Scripps Campus for Women, but J.C. Harper reminded Blaisdell that "publicity is distasteful to Miss Scripps."
Blaisdell had found a kindred spirit in Scripps through their shared dedication to advancing higher education, and he admired her unwavering commitment to fund ambitious projects. “You have made me believe that whatever it costs, you prize the cognizance of large undertakings,” he wrote. A few months later, Scripps would affirm their bond when Blaisdell shared his grand vision for the future.
“I am deeply interested in what President Blaisdell is planning.”
Ellen Browning Scripps in 1924 [Molly McClain, Ellen Browning Scripps: New Money and American Philanthropy]