New Bedford Institute of Technology newspaper clippings

The New Bedford Textile School was chartered in 1895, to provide “instruction in the theory and practical art of textile and kindred branches of industry.” 1 The first building was completed in 1899 at 1213 Purchase Street in downtown New Bedford. The city of New Bedford matched construction funds with those provided by the state. Classroom instruction emphasized both the theory and practice of all phases of manufacturing, finishing and distribution of textiles, and was intended to refine the skills of local mill workers by offering both day and evening classes. At the time the school opened, textile workers were being imported from England to handle the more skilled jobs within the industry and the school was seen as a way of correcting this situation. The first course offered was the “General Cotton Course”. The curriculum later expanded to include knitting technology, chemistry of textiles, dyeing and finishing and fashion and textile design. After World War II the school began offering degrees in engineering, chemistry, and business administration, in response to a growing need for broader technological educational opportunities in southeastern Massachusetts. The name of the school was changed briefly to the New Bedford Textile Institute (1949-1955), the New Bedford Institute of Textiles and Technology (1955-1957) and later to the New Bedford Institute of Technology (1957-1964) to reflect the change in curriculum. Physical facilities continually expanded beginning in 1902 and ending with the construction of a science building across from the main building on Purchase Street in 1956 (for a more detailed chronology of structures, see URC 12).

In 1960 the New Bedford Institute of Technology merged with the Bradford Durfee Institute of Technology to form SMTI (Southeastern Massachusetts Technological Institute), which in 1970 was renamed SMU (Southeastern Massachusetts University). The trustees of both schools maintained separate campuses in New Bedford and Fall River until the first phase of the present campus in North Dartmouth was completed in 1964.