Illinois Institute of Technology

The Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT or Illinois Tech is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The university has programs in architecture, business, communications, design, engineering, industrial technology, information technology, law, psychology, and science. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".

The university's historic roots are in several 19th-century engineering and professional education institutions in the United States. In the mid 20th century, it became closely associated with trends in modernist architecture through the work of its Dean of Architecture Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who designed its campus. The Institute of Design, Chicago-Kent College of Law, and Midwest College of Engineering were also merged into Illinois Tech.

In 1890, when advanced education was often reserved for society's elite, Chicago minister Frank Wakely Gunsaulus delivered what came to be known as the "Million Dollar Sermon." From the pulpit of his South Side church, near the site Illinois Institute of Technology now occupies, Gunsaulus said that with a million dollars he could build a school where students can learn to think in practical and not theoretical terms; where they could be taught to "learn by doing."

Inspired by Gunsaulus' vision, Philip Danforth Armour, Sr. (1832–1901) gave $1 million to found the Armour Institute—and Armour, his wife, Malvina Belle Ogden Armour (1842–1927) and their son J. (Jonathan) Ogden Armour (1863–1927) continued to support the university in its early years. Armour claimed it was his best paying investment. When Armour Institute opened in 1893, it offered professional courses in engineering, chemistry, architecture and library science.

Illinois Tech was created in 1940 by the merger of Armour Institute and Lewis Institute. Located on the west side of Chicago, Lewis Institute, established in 1895 by the estate of hardware merchant and investor Allen C. Lewis, offered liberal arts as well as science and engineering courses for both men and women. At separate meetings held by their respective boards on October 26, 1939, the trustees of Armour and Lewis voted to merge the two colleges. A Cook County circuit court decision handed down on April 23, 1940, solidified the merger of the two schools into the Illinois Institute of Technology.

The Institute of Design (ID), founded in Chicago by László Moholy-Nagy in 1937, merged with Illinois Tech in 1949.

Chicago-Kent College of Law, founded in 1887, became part of the university in 1969, making Illinois Institute of Technology one of the few technology-based universities with a law school.

Also in 1969, the Stuart School of Management and Finance—now known as the Stuart School of Business – was established thanks to a gift from the estate of Lewis Institute alumnus and Chicago financier Harold Leonard Stuart. The program became the Stuart School of Business in 1999.