objections of MIT faculty, students, and alumni. The merger plan collapsed in 1905 when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that MIT could not sell its Back Bay land.
In 1912, MIT acquired its current campus by purchasing a one-mile (1.6 km) tract of filled lands along the Cambridge side of the Charles River. The neoclassical "New Technology" campus was designed by William W. Bosworth and had been funded largely by anonymous donations from a mysterious "Mr. Smith", starting in 1912. In January 1920, the donor was revealed to be the industrialist George Eastman, an inventor of film production methods and founder of Eastman Kodak. Between 1912 and 1920, Eastman donated $20 million ($304.2 million in 2024 dollars) in cash and Kodak stock to MIT. In 1916, with the first academic buildings complete, the MIT administration and the MIT charter crossed the Charles River on the ceremonial barge Bucentaur built for the occasion.
Needing funds to match Eastman's gift and cover retreating state support, President …
