The California State Normal School was a teaching college founded on May 2, 1862, whose original campus later became both the California State University

California State University

The California State University is a public university system in the state of California. It is one of three public higher education systems in the state, the other two being the University of California system and the California Community College system. It is incorporated as The Trustees of the...

 and its San Jose State University

San José State University

San Jose State University is a public university located in San Jose, California, United States...

 campus.

Although the California State Legislature

California State Legislature

The California State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of California. It is a bicameral body consisting of the lower house, the California State Assembly, with 80 members, and the upper house, the California State Senate, with 40 members...

 act founding the school referred to the institution as the "Normal School of the State of California", the institution was commonly referred to as the California State Normal School. The 1870 Act that moved the school to San Jose formalized the California State Normal School name.

The school was created when the State of California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 took over a normal school

Normal school

A normal school is a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers. Its purpose is to establish teaching standards or norms, hence its name...

 that educated San Francisco teachers in association with that city's high school

High school

High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

 system. This school was generally known as either the San Francisco Normal School or Minns'

George W. Minns

George Washington Minns was an American teacher, notable for running the Minns Evening Normal School, which was established in San Francisco, California, in 1857 in order to train teachers for the city's public school system...

 Evening Normal School.

In 1871, the school moved to Washington Square Park at Fourth and San Carlos Streets in San José

San Jose, California

San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...

, where San José State University

San José State University

San Jose State University is a public university located in San Jose, California, United States...

 is still located. The original building at Washington Square Park was completed in 1872 but burned down on February 10, 1880. It was replaced by a second building in 1881, depicted in the lithograph above.

In 1881, the first branch campus was announced in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, which later became the University of California, Los Angeles

University of California, Los Angeles

The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

. In 1887, the California legislature changed the name of the two normal schools, dropping the word "California" and designating them simply as "State Normal Schools".

The State Normal School and "SNS" athletics

After 1887 the official name of the San Jose campus was the "State Normal School at San Jose". The school's athletic teams initially played under the "Normal" identity as indicated in the photo at left. But they gradually shifted to the State Normal School identity, as evidenced by images of the SNS football and basketball squads from this era. Despite the SNS identity the school continued to be referred to as the "California State Normal School, San Jose" in official publications like the 1919 school bulletin at right. A recent historical display in the The Martin Luther King Library on the San Jose State campus featured a number of pieces of State Normal School memorabilia, including an "SNS" pennant.

Statewide spread of the State Normal School

Other State Normal Schools were established in Chico

Chico, California

Chico is the most populous city in Butte County, California, United States. The population was 86,187 at the 2010 census, up from 59,954 at the time of the 2000 census...

 in 1887, San Diego

San Diego, California

San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...

 in 1897 and elsewhere throughout the State of California. With the exception of the Los Angeles campus, the system of State Normal Schools would later become the California State University

California State University

The California State University is a public university system in the state of California. It is one of three public higher education systems in the state, the other two being the University of California system and the California Community College system. It is incorporated as The Trustees of the...

 system.

In 1919, the State Normal School at Los Angeles became the Southern Branch of the University of California

University of California

The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

, now the University of California, Los Angeles.

In 1921 the California State Legislature decreed that the remaining State Normal Schools would be known as State Teachers Colleges and that the original campus would be known as the State Teachers College at San Jose. In 1935, the State Teachers Colleges became the California State Colleges, administered from the State Department of Education in Sacramento. The new San Jose State College was no longer limited to educating teachers and later evolved into San José State University

San José State University

San Jose State University is a public university located in San Jose, California, United States...

.