In the nineteenth century, transportation and industrialization required new technologies for procurement and production of metals, leading to the study of Mining Engineering and Metallurgy at MIT. Course III faculty led trips to mining towns in the West and consulted with investors and industrialists to build railroads and factories across the country. Following a preliminary session in the Spring of 1865, the "School of Industrial Science of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology" opened on October 22, 1865 for its first academic year. The activities of the School were carried on in rented quarters in the Mercantile Building on Summer Street in Boston while the School's first permanent building, later named the Rogers Building, was still under construction on Boylston Street between Berkeley and Clarendon Streets. The School moved into the new building in 1866. The original faculty consisted of ten professors, three of whom were involved to varying degrees with the fields of mining and metallurgy. About 70 students were registered as first- and second-year students in 1865-66. --Bever |