Emerson College is a private college in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as a school of oratory.
- Venue
- Emerson College
- Address
- 120 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, 02116-4624
- Town
- Massachusetts, US
Emerson College is a private college in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as a school of oratory. The school offers more than 30 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, as well as professional training, primarily focused on the arts and communication, grounded in a liberal arts framework. Emerson is a founding member of the ProArts Consortium, a collaborative association of six neighboring Boston-based institutions dedicated to collegiate-level arts education. Originally based in Boston's Pemberton Square, the college moved neighborhoods several times and is now located in the Theater District along the south side of the Boston Common. It maintains campuses in Los Angeles and in the Netherlands. Emerson is also notable for the college's namesake public opinion poll, Emerson College Polling. Charles Wesley Emerson founded the Boston Conservatory of Elocution, Oratory, and Dramatic Art in 1880, a year after Boston University closed its School of Oratory. Classes were held at Pemberton Square in Boston, where ten students enrolled in the conservatory's first class. The following year, the institution changed its name to the Monroe Conservatory of Oratory, in honor of Charles Emerson's teacher at Boston University's School of Oratory, Professor Lewis B. Monroe. In 1890, the name changed again to Emerson College of Oratory and was later shortened to Emerson College in 1939. The college expanded and rented space at 36 Bromfield Street, and moved to Odd Fellows Hall on Berkeley and Tremont Streets in the South End of Boston. With the new location, the college's first library was established in 1892. Henry Lawrence Southwick, a faculty member and alumnus, became a financial partner for the college with Charles Wesley Emerson in 1889. This financial partnership led to the acquisition of the Boston School of Oratory from Moses T. Brown in 1894. At the turn of the century, faculty members Henry and Jessie Eldridge Southw