In 1965, Chicago philanthropist Helen Ascher Regenstein and the Regenstein family agreed to make the decisive major gift needed for construction, providing $10 million from the Joseph and Helen Regenstein Foundation. In 1964, through the generosity of Florence Lowden Miller, granddaughter of Chicago railroad car manufacturer George Pullman, the Harriet Pullman Schermerhorn Charitable Trust provided $500,000 to fund the architectural planning of the new main library building.
Levi, who had been appointed the University’s first Provost, took the key role in identifying donors in the next stage of development. Planning quickened decisively in 1962 when the University Board of Trustees authorized development of a new research library to house collections in the humanities and social sciences, with separate libraries projected for law and the sciences. Unfortunately, none of these was able to attract the necessary funding, and each fell short of providing capacity to house the significant growth in book collections that was now being projected. Through the late 1940s and 1950s, under Fussler’s direction, various proposals were reviewed to expand Harper Library or construct an entirely new library building. But the appointment of Herman Fussler as Library Director in 1948 brought new impetus to the Library and a fresh vision for addressing the University’s unmet library needs. During the Depression and World War II, nothing could be done to address these challenges.
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