Historic Photos of University of Michigan
Buy the Book:Amazon
Barnes & Noble
IndieBound
Published by: Turner
Release Date: November 2, 2007
Pages: 216
ISBN13: 978-1596524019
Overview
Historic Photos of the University of Michigan depicts the unfolding history of the college in Ann Arbor from its early stages in the 1850s to its more modern self of the late 1970s. Exceptional black and white images of the campus and surrounding area, selected from the Bentley Historical Library’s extensive collection, provide a taste of campus life while taking readers through the evolution of buildings, the beginning of an athletic legend, and the historic events that united the campus with a community.
Excerpt
A Great University is Built
(1850-1899)
The roots of the University of Michigan date to 1817 in the city of Detroit, when Governor of the Michigan Territory Lewis Cass signed a bill authorizing the building of Catholepistemiad (University) of Michigania. “Catholepistemiad” was a word created by former territorial Supreme Court Judge Augustus Woodward, who led the drive for a university. The name was changed to University of Michigan in 1821. In 1837, the same year Michigan became the twenty-sixth state in the Union, the school moved to Ann Arbor. There, the college began anew as a forty-acre parcel land grant upon with four buildings were erected; the structures took four years to complete.
in September of 1841, the doors of the university opened to its first class, which consisted of only seven students instructed by two professors. The students utilized the space of what was knowns as the Main University Building, later named Mason Hall in honor of the first governor of the State of Michigan, Stevens T. Mason. The building consisted of a chapel, a museum, students’ quarters, and recitation rooms.