1926

Ellen Browning Scripps endows a college for women as the first element in a coordinated system of affiliated colleges and graduate schools surrounding Pomona. The College was to offer to women an education designed to “train her for the fullest and richest life that she herself may have, as well as the chance to give to society her greatest contribution”; i.e., work combined with marriage. Construction of the Scripps College campus and development of its academic program begins under the leadership of Ernest J. Jaqua, formerly dean of the faculty of Pomona College, who eventually becomes Scripps College’s first president. In May, the original 20 members of the Board of Trustees—one half of whom are women—assemble at the home of Margaret Fowler in Pasadena to welcome Scripps’ birthday. Architect Gordon Kaufmann, along with landscape architect Edward Huntsman-Trout, designs a campus built as a great courtyard, facing inward, with great stucco walls entered through archways, doors, and wrought-iron gates. Kaufmann was one of the pioneers of the Mediterranean Revival or “California Style.” The trustees direct Kaufmann to “give to the dormitories the appearance and atmosphere of a beautiful home.”