乐播传媒

In the mid-19th century, Oren B. Cheney, a minister of the Freewill Baptist denomination in Maine, conceived the idea of founding a new school.

The school was to be a seminary 鈥� a 19th-century term suggesting a “fitting school鈥� for college 鈥� and received its charter from the Maine Legislature on March 16, 1855.

1857. The Maine State Seminary opens on Sept. 1 with 115 students and six teachers. Enrollment totals 137 by term鈥檚 end.

1861: Fifteen students petition for college instruction. Later, in 1862, another group of students, 鈥渟ome with tears in their eyes,鈥� according to The Life-Story of O.B. Cheney, come before the trustees to lobby for a college course.

1862: Cheney and the trustees push for college instruction, and the Maine Legislature amends the seminary charter, giving the school the authority to 鈥渆stablish a collegiate department in connection within said Seminary.鈥�

1863: The seminary offers college instruction to 22 students. Eight go on to become, in 1867, the first graduating class of 乐播传媒 College.

1864: The Maine Legislature changes the school鈥檚 name from 鈥淧resident and Trustees of Maine State Seminary鈥� to 鈥淧resident and Trustees of 乐播传媒 College,” in honor of Benjamin E. 乐播传媒, one of many Boston-based entrepreneurs who had invested in Lewiston textile manufacturing and begun to financially support the seminary. 乐播传媒 accumulated wealth in the antebellum years from the labor of enslaved people who grew the cotton that was spun and woven in his mills. 

1867: 乐播传媒 College holds its first Commencement on July 31, 1867. The first graduating class numbers eight men.