History

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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. 

  6. November 13, 2017

    Great War campus life

    World War I provoked a campus facelift. Despite the space and scheduling difficulties that came with a population influx of military student training groups, non-college draftees and humanitarian relief organizations, the university community worked together to support the war effort and maintain U-M’s academic excellence.

  7. November 6, 2017

    First athletic championship

    In 1901, football coach Fielding H. Yost and his “Point-a-Minute” Wolverines outscored opponents 501-0. Finishing the season undefeated, untied and unscored upon, the team went on to triumph over Stanford 49-0 in the first college football bowl game ever played, the Rose Bowl.

  8. October 30, 2017

    Breaking boundaries

    In 1955, Rhoda Reddig Russell became the university’s first female academic dean when she was named to lead the School of Nursing.

  9. October 20, 2017

    Crossing the medical frontier

    In 1869, the University of Michigan turned a former professor’s house into a hospital.

  10. October 16, 2017

    A branch of connection

    Two trees on the University of Michigan campus have ties to the tree under which Greek physician Hippocrates allegedly sat centuries ago.