Retrospective celebrates 100 years of campus 'living room'

Updated 3:00 PM December 7, 2005

Retrospective celebrates 100 years of campus 'living room'

By Kevin Bergquist

As students prepare to take final exams and sell back their books at the Michigan Union bookstore, they may not realize that 40 years ago they had no such option.

Two female students exit the Union through the front doors in this 1950s photo. That may not seem like such a feat, but for the first 20-plus years of the Union's existence, women had to enter through the side door. (Photo by U-M News Service)

In 1969, the Student Government Council pushed the regents to establish a student-run bookstore in the Union. The board had ruled against such a move several times previously, on the grounds that it would be against policy "to encourage or approve the establishment of co-operative mercantile organizations within University buildings."

In protest, several students decided to occupy the LSA Building and worked to organize a strike before President Robben W. Fleming met with representatives and reached a compromise.

"The two sides managed to reach an agreement: the bookstore would be set up as non-profit corporation, thus relieving the University from financial liability, and the board of directors would be controlled by a student majority."

That passage from a new book, "The Michigan Union 1904-2004: 100 Years of Student Life," illustrates how students and administration together helped make the Union one of the premier student gathering places on campus.

Penned by Jeff Rowe, an administrative assistant for University Unions, the 146-page publication caps a year of celebration of the establishment of the Union.

"Throughout its rich and sometimes tumultuous history, the Michigan Union has ever strived to be a unifying force in the lives of University of Michigan students," Rowe writes in the introduction. "As the self-appointed 'living room' of campus the Union has been most successful when it has embraced the notion that textbook learning, as vital as it may be to a student's later success, is not the sum of the collegiate experience."

"Cultural, educational, social and recreational programs all work in tandem to help define who we are and offer a glimpse of who we might become," adds Rowe, a 1993 LSA alumnus.

Although the current Michigan Union building has yet to reach the 100-year mark—it was completed in 1919—the Union as a social organization was conceived by members of the class of 1904, who shared "the desire for a common bond of friendship and a sense of being 'Michigan Men' working toward a similar goal."

President James B. Angell helped further the idea of a Union building in a letter dated Oct. 27, 1910: "'...I beg to express my deep interest in the effort of the Union to obtain funds for the erection of a suitable building for its work.'"

The Union found its first home when it purchased the residence of former Michigan Supreme Court judge and University law professor Thomas M. Cooley and remodeled it into a clubhouse. Yearly membership dues were $2.50.

The current Union building for many years remained a facility predominantly for 'Michigan Men.' George Johnson, hired as Michigan Union doorman in 1920, occupied the east entrance and told all females attempting to enter the facility, "'please use the side door, ma'am.'"

In 1932, a female student disguised herself as a reporter and entered through the east doors. She was quickly apprehended and taken to the police station for "violation of the city ordinance forbidding masquerading in the attire of the opposite sex."

The rule was lightened the next year when the Union board of directors voted to allow female visitors and guests to use the building—but only on football Saturdays.

After Johnson died in 1946, the Union's east entrance stood unmanned and the front door rule, like many of the old traditions, gradually faded away.

Retrospective celebrates 100 years of campus 'living room'

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