Rochester Athenaeum and Mechanics Institute records

In 1829, Colonel Nathaniel Rochester and other Rochester community leaders founded the Athenaeum, an association “for the purpose of cultivating and promoting literature, science, and the arts.” The Athenaeum was located in the Reynolds Arcade and housed a meeting room and a small reading room with a library, provided by Abelard Reynolds. The Rochester Athenaeum grew into a popular cultural center for Rochesterians. It offered public lectures and debates, and began establishing a substantial library.

In 1847, the Athenaeum merged with the Mechanics Literary Association, founded in 1836 by William A. Reynolds (son of Abelard Reynolds), to form the Rochester Athenaeum and Mechanics Association. It continued the tradition of public lectures, book reviews, and debates. The two groups merged their literary collections to create a singular library of more than 8,000 volumes covering a variety of subjects. Lectures were held at Corinthian Hall, which could hold 1,100 people, and distinguished speakers included Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Frederick Douglass.

The Mechanics Institute was founded in 1885. Captain Henry Lomb, Max Lowenthal, Ezra Andrews, Frank Ritter, William Peck, and other Rochester businessmen and influential citizens established a school to provide needed technical training for skilled workers in industry. Lomb was the first president of the Board of Trustees and guided the direction of the institute until his death in 1908. Eugene Colby was appointed first teacher and principal of the Mechanics Institute. All funds for running the school were donated by the citizens of Rochester and instruction was free for the first year. The first class offered at the newly formed Mechanics Institute was mechanical drawing, held in the evening on November 23, 1885. The community response is overwhelming. More than 400 students enrolled in the institute.

In 1891, the Rochester Athenaeum and Mechanics Institute merged, bringing under one roof cultural education and practical technical training. Enrollment reached 1,000 students, but by 1903, when the Mechanics Institute established its first five academic departments (Industrial Arts, Mechanic Arts and Sciences – language, mathematics, science, Manual Training, Science and Art – Mary Bliss, and the Department of Fine Arts) enrollment had increased to 3,000. By 1940, enrollment had increased to 4,565 students, and in 1944, the institute adopted the name Rochester Institute of Technology.