Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania - History

History

The Wharton School was the world's first collegiate business school, when it was founded in 1881 by Philadelphia industrialist and philanthropist Joseph Wharton. A native Philadelphian, Wharton became a leader in industrial metallurgy and built a fortune through his American Nickel Company and Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

The anvil, a school symbol, reflects Wharton's pioneering work in the metal industry. Wharton envisioned creating a new foundation in order to produce educated leaders of business and government. From the founding of the school, he defined that the goal of the Wharton School of Finance and Economy was "to provide for young men special means of training and of correct instruction in the knowledge and in the arts of modern Finance and Economy, both public and private, in order that, being well informed and free from delusions upon these important subjects, they may either serve the community skillfully as well as faithfully in offices of trust, or, remaining in private life, may prudently manage their own affairs and aid in maintaining sound financial morality: in short, to establish means for imparting a liberal education in all matters concerning Finance and Economy."

As Wharton's business grew, he recognized that business knowledge in the United States was only taught through an apprenticeship system, and such a system was not viable for creating a wider economy during the Industrial Revolution. After two years of planning, Wharton in 1881 founded the Wharton School through a $100,000 initial pledge. In his intentions the school would have been named the "School of Finance and Economy". The school was meant to train future leaders to conduct corporations and public organizations in a rapidly evolving industrial era. Wharton was quoted as saying that the school was mean to "instill a sense of the coming strife : of the immense swings upward or downward that await the competent or the incompetent soldier in this modern strife."

Early on, the Wharton School faculty was tightly connected to an influential group of businessmen, bankers and lawyers that made up the larger Philadelphia School of Political Economy. The faculty incorporated social sciences into the Wharton curriculum, as the field of business was still under development.