Timeline – 1945-1958 – “The G.I. Invasion”

The end of the Second World War and the G.I. Bill of Rights, which granted military veterans an array of benefits, including tuition assistance, brought a transformation of the UW. Following a plunge in enrollments during the war, the immediate post-war challenge was to accomodate a surge in class sizes.

Enrollments in History 3a, European Civilization, 800-1660, for example, doubled from 350-500 in the pre-war years to 975 in the fall of 1945. In the spring of 1946, enrollment in the class was capped at 1,030 and it was split into three sections, one taught by a professor and two by graduate students.

In little more than a decade, the size of History faculty nearly doubled, expanding from eleven in 1944-1946 to twenty by 1956-1958.

Sources: UWH-4, 20; UW course catalogs, 1944-1946 (pdf), 127, and 1956-1958 (pdf), 153.