History
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February 19, 2018
Freedom Writer
Heralded as “one of the most important studies ever made of the rise and fall of chattel slavery in the United States,” U-M historian Dwight Lowell Dumond’s progressive “Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America” made waves in 1961 for speaking candidly about slavery.
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February 12, 2018
Negro-Caucasian Club
Formed in 1925, the Negro-Caucasian Club was inspired after a pair of friends, one black and one white, were deliberately given dirty dishes instead of service at a local restaurant.
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February 5, 2018
Unicorn in the Garden
On the morning of April 27, 1954, University of Michigan students reported numerous sightings of a unicorn in the central courtyard of the Law Quad.
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January 29, 2018
Cap Night
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, an early June ritual known as Cap Night saw U-M freshmen toss their distinctive gray caps, worn throughout the year under threat of hazing, into a bonfire in the area then known as Sleepy Hollow.
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January 22, 2018
Called by the bell
Beginning in the 1840s, a bell was used to rouse students for class and chapel, a ritual they despised. There were various student efforts to silence the bell and its successor. Eventually, a peal of five bells played from a tower in the newly designed library, and later the Baird Carillon became a fixture in Burton Memorial Tower.
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January 15, 2018
Michigan hockey’s heritage
When Canadian World War I veteran Joseph Barss came to U-M to study medicine, he sought out athletic director Fielding Yost and pitched the idea of a varsity hockey team. Yost agreed, with a caveat — that Barss serve as the program’s first coach.
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January 8, 2018
Ben Franklin statue’s demise
The Class of 1870 purchased what they believed was a bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin to display on campus near the Law School. However, it was discovered to be much-more-brittle pewter in 1899 when a student shoved a bottle in Ben’s “pocket,” creating a hole.
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December 11, 2017
Exemplar of Michigan music
As the oldest musical group and student organization on campus, the Men’s Glee Club has had a strong influence both within and without the university.
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December 4, 2017
Albert H. Wheeler
Albert H. Wheeler was the first African-American professor to earn tenure at U-M and was an advocate for civil rights, culminating in his election as Ann Arbor’s first black mayor.
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November 20, 2017
Winning with wings
The U-M football team’s iconic winged helmet made its debut in a 1938 game against Michigan State University, which the Wolverines won 14-0.
