| In 1851 civic-minded citizens in two provincial, commercial and industrial centers--Manchester, England and Chicago, Illinois--established institutions of higher education. In both cases, the founders aimed to create universities of the highest caliber, devoted to serving the needs of dynamic regions isolated from traditional sources of learning and culture. The early histories of the University of Manchester and Northwestern University thus share certain fundamental characteristics. Moreover, both matured into outstanding examples of elite urban educational institutions, of a type known in England as the civic university. Yet despite similarities in terms of location and mission, Manchester and Northwestern each developed within the context of a distinctive national system of higher education, which was in turn the product of a particular national culture. As a result, the experiences of the two institutions, though comparable, were hardly identical. The differences reveal much about the emergence of the modern university in England and America.;Operating within the context of America's diverse and highly competitive system of higher education, Northwestern by the 1930s succeeded in transforming itself from a provincial denominational college into a modern urban university. Manchester, on the other hand, although intending to establish an alternative model of higher education within England's smaller and more centralized system, succumbed instead to the dominating influence of Oxbridge. For Northwestern, the interwar years represented a period of optimism and a renewed sense of purpose after decades of caution and uncertainty. Manchester, in contrast, suffered from declining morale and a loss of identity, despite the many achievements of its past.;Weaving together the histories of the two institutions, the dissertation explains how these differences in outcome occurred, giving particular attention to interrelated developments affecting universities in both countries, including the transformation of the social functions of higher education, the professionalization of academic careers, the emergence of a national hierarchy of institutions, and the changing relationship between metropolis and province. Particular attention is also given to the history of women at Manchester and Northwestern, and to the institutions' architecture. Both topics serve to illuminate further the impact of national context on institutional development. |
