Published shortly after...| Expanding Campus Boundaries | Illinois Institute of Technology

Published shortly after the United States entered WWII when the new college was still hopeful of beginning its building project immediately, the Blue Print solicited both individuals and businesses to help build the college which would provide the city and the country with engineers as the U.S. continues to move forward in the post-Depression era.

Rationing of construction materials during the War quickly put the building project on hold. At the invitation of the federal government, IIT became a training center where thousands of military and civilian war workers entered the Engineering, Science, and Management War Training program. This is War! urged Chicagoans to see their donations to IIT's building fund as an investment in victory--a way to help educate the engineers and train the soldiers who would win the war for the Allies.

Exceptions were made to the rationing of building materials for construction of research facilities where scientists conducted war-related experiments and developed products for miliary use. Two such buildings--the first two Mies-designed additions to campus--were constructed in 1943 and 1944 financed by some of the donated funds. Readers of From the Record: The Story of Four Years of Progress were told that "approximately $2,000,000 [had] come in direct gifts to the Institute as a result of the Development Program."