Rice University photographic glass plate negatives, prints, and film negatives of campus, sports, and people

Although the formal opening of Rice University (originally Rice Institute), which is at the heart of this collection, did not occur until October 12, 1912, the true inception can be traced to the late spring of 1891, when William Marsh Rice told his attorney, Captain James A. Baker, that he had decided to use his substantial fortune to endow an establishment to be called the William M. Rice Institute for the Advancement of Literature, Science, and Art. A charter of incorporation was formally signed and witnessed on May 18. Rice instructed that nothing else was to be done with the intention until after his death. In the following year he gave the Institute several parcels of land. After his second wife’s death in 1896, Rice wrote a new will, which left the bulk of his estate to the Institute.

Rice’s death occurred on September 23, 1900, under circumstances that were found to be a murder planned and carried out by a New York lawyer who claimed that Rice had drawn up a new will on June 30, 1900, naming as legatee this person and Rice’s valet. Captain Baker, Rice’s Houston lawyer, reasoned that such a replacement of the earlier will was highly out of character for Rice, and with the help of the New York district attorney’s office, he began an investigation of how Rice’s death had occurred. The investigation yielded a confession to murder by chloroform from the valet.

Another complication in the carrying out of Rice’s wishes arose with the appearance of a second disputed will, this one of the second Mrs. Rice, but the matter was finally settled in 1904.

Finally it was possible for the six trustees named in the charter of incorporation to begin the work of creating the Institute. After studying other universities and visiting some East Coast institutions, the trustees set about identifying a person capable of leading the entire endeavor of planning what Rice’s Institute would offer and of hiring faculty. Following the recommendation of Princeton University President Woodrow Wilson, they offered the position of president to Dr. Edgar Odell Lovett, a classically educated mathematician teaching astronomy at Princeton. Lovett accepted the offer on January 18, 1908, and for nine months he, with his wife and private secretary, traveled to universities in England, Europe, and as far away as Japan, gathering ideas on which his vision for Rice Institute would be based.

Meanwhile land had been acquired, flat nearly treeless prairie at the southwestern edge of Houston. The next step was to design and build the physical facilities of the new Institute. Guided by the vision of newly appointed President Lovett, the trustees sought an architectural firm that had done work of the quality appropriate for the world class university Dr. Lovett had in mind. They chose the Boston firm of Cram, Goodhue, and Ferguson in 1909. After the firm’s campus plan was approved in 1910, construction began. The buildings planned for completion before the Institute was to open were a central academic building, whose cornerstone was laid March 2, 1911; an engineering laboratory and power plant; and two residential buildings. The photographs in this collection date from the final stages of completion of these buildings. There are shots that show how far the Cram, Goodhue, and Ferguson campus plan placed these buildings from one another, making clear the intention that other buildings would be added soon. These distance shots vividly document the initial near treelessness and flatness of the site. Thus this collection enables one to see the appearance of the entire campus when Rice Institute began. Information drawn from A University So Conceived: A Brief History of Rice University by John B. Boles, Fourth, Revised and Expanded Edition. Houston, 2012