The New School was founded a century ago in New York City by a small group of prominent American intellectuals and educators who were frustrated by the intellectual timidity of traditional colleges. The founders,
among them Charles Beard, John Dewey, James Harvey Robinson, and Thorstein Veblen, set out to create a new kind of academic institution, one where faculty and students would be free to honestly and directly address the problems facing societies in
the 20th century. Their vision was to bring together scholars and citizens interested in questioning, debating, and discussing the most important issues of the day.
In 1919, they founded the New School for Social Research. Now formally named The New School, the university has grown to include five colleges, with courses that reflect the founders' interest in the emerging social sciences, international affairs, liberal
arts, history, and philosophy, as well as art, design, management, and performing arts.
Over the decades, some of the finest minds of the 20th century have pioneered courses in new areas of social sciences and liberal arts at The New School. Faculty members and visiting scholars have included Harold Laski, Franz Boas, and John Maynard Keynes.
In the late 1940s, Karen Horney and Erich Fromm introduced their new approaches to psychoanalysis. From 1954 to 1978, Margaret Mead taught courses in anthropology. The New School's groundbreaking courses attracted students from around the world, including
the young Shimon Peres. In 1962, Gerda Lerner offered the first university-level course in women's history.
The New School also became known for courses in the creative arts taught by innovative 20th-century artists, including Martha Graham, Frank Lloyd Wright, Aaron Copland, and W. H. Auden. In 1926, The New School became the first American university to teach
the history of film, and it was one of the first to offer college-level courses in photography and jazz.
Dissenting opinions, radical ideas, and progressive solutions have always had a home at The New School. Through the years, each of The New School's innovative colleges carries forward this legacy while evolving to provide students with a challenging and
relevant education.