Columbia College Chicago is one of the largest art colleges in the United States with nearly 12,000 students pursuing degrees within 120 undergraduate and graduate programs. Founded in 1890, the school is located in the South Loop of Chicago. It is organized into three schools: It also is home to many research centers as well as to the Garment Collection and the Center for Book and Paper Arts. Columbia College Chicago is not affiliated with Columbia University, Columbia College Hollywood, or any other Columbia College in the United States. Columbia College Chicago was founded in 1890 as the Columbia School of Oratory by Mary A. Blood and Ida Morey Riley, both graduates of the Monroe Conservatory of Oratory (now Emerson College), in Boston, Massachusetts. Mary Blood became the College’s first president, serving in this capacity until her death in 1927. The women established a co-educational school that “should stand for high ideals, for the teaching of expression by methods truly educational, for the gospel of good cheer, and for the building of sterling good character” in the Stevens’ Art Gallery Building, 24 E. Adams Street.