UW-Oshkosh campus, Oshkosh, Winnebago County 

Opening its doors in 1871, the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh was then the third normal school founded by the state. Pioneering in curricular innovations, the school also established the first kindergarten at an American public normal school in 1880, and it initiated summer study in Wisconsin's teacher training system in 1893. Advancing in status, the institution attained degree-granting privileges effec­tive in 1926 and merged with the University of Wisconsin system in its centennial year. As a school in transition, the university has enlarged upon its historic function of teacher education with broad offerings in letters and science, graduate study, business administration, nursing, and continuing education. At the threshold of its second century of service in 1972, the university continues to prepare students for the work defined by its first president, George S. Albee, as dedicated to "lifting humanity to a higher, noble life."

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Dictionary of Wisconsin History

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[Source: McBride, Sarah Davis. History Just Ahead (Madison:WHS, 1999).]