In March 1881, after heavy lobbying by Los Angeles residents, the California Legislature authorized the creation of
the state's second normal school in downtown Los Angeles to train teachers for the growing population of Southern California. The Los Angeles State Normal School opened on
August 29, 1882, on what is now the site of
the Central Library of the Los Angeles Public
Library system.In 1914, the school moved to a new campus on Vermont Avenue in Hollywood. In 1917, Director Ernest Carroll Moore suggested that the
normal school should be added as the second campus of the University of California, and appropriate legislation was signed into law on May 23, 1919 which turned the school into the "Southern
Branch of the University of California" and added its general undergraduate program, the College of Letters and Science.In 1927, the school was renamed the "University of California at Los Angeles." The word
'at' was officially replaced by a comma in 1958, in line with other UC campuses. Also in
1927, the state broke ground at a new campus on the chaparral-covered hills of a real
estate development called Westwood. The first classes were held in 1929 in
the four original buildings on the 400 acre (1.6 km²) campus. In 1933, UCLA was permitted
to award the master's degree, and in 1936, the doctorate.