In August 1932, during the Great Depression, the first cooperative house at the University of Michigan was organized by graduate students in the Student Socialist Club. In return for four to five hours of work and two dollars every week, each of the founding eighteen members received room, board, barber, canning, and laundry service. The first house was a rental house located at 335 East Ann Street. The house was run collectively with all members having an equal vote on decisions. 

With the assistance of the Reverend Henry Lynn Pickerell, the student pastor of the Ann Arbor Disciples Church, and his wife Katheryn, two additional cooperative houses were formed in 1936 and 1937. The Pickerells welcomed students to live in their house in exchange for performing household chores. By 1936, eight students were living in the Pickerells’ attic. With the help of a $700 loan from Reverend Pickerell, the students rented a house on Thompson Street, first named the Student Cooperative House and then the Rochdale House. Since the University did not allow men and women to live together, the women who often visited the Rochdale House sought a cooperative house for themselves. The women rented a house at 517 East Ann Street and opened the Girls’ Cooperative House. In 1939, they had to move to 1511 Washtenaw Street, and took on a new name, the Alice Freeman House, named for the women’s rights activist.

The three independent houses, joining together to allow the purchase of items in quantity, formed the Inter-Cooperative Council in 1937. The houses were organized by the Rochdale principles: open membership; democratic control; political neutrality; opposition to discrimination by race or religion; and the promotion of education.

As the number of cooperative houses continued to expand in the late 1930s and early 1940s, the ICC became responsible for the houses’ financing and assignment of personnel to the houses. By 1941, eight men’s and three women’s cooperatives were operating in rented houses. During this expansion, all the houses were rented until 1943, when the A. K. Stevens House was purchased. Professor A. K. Stevens (the father of Ann Arbor’s late city historian, Wystan Stevens) served as a faculty advisor to the ICC and agreed to co-sign the loan to buy the house.

During World War II, many of the male students enlisted in the armed services. The cost of rental housing was increased by an influx of war factory workers. These two factors caused many of the cooperative houses to close. By 1946, only three cooperatives continued in operation. In 1944, during the war, the ICC voted to buy rather than rent property. After the war, the ICC centralized some functions to meet legal requirements and to limit the liability of the members. The titles to the houses were held in common and the charges at the different cooperatives were equalized through the centralization of finances.

In 1951, despite concerns from some students that paid leadership was at odds with cooperative values, the first ICC employee was hired when the cooperative students voted to approve the hiring of a full-time executive secretary. Luther H. Buchele was hired and continued to work for the ICC for nearly thirty-four years. The Korean War, as in World War II, led to a reduction in the number of male students. College students were not exempt from the draft. 

Over the ensuing years, there has been considerable growth in the number of cooperative houses and the number of students living in the houses. The Baby Boom following World War II created additional demand. Between 1967 and 1972, the ICC tripled in size from roughly 200 to 600 members. The number of cooperative houses grew from nine to twenty-two (this number includes the nine “houses”, now called suites, in the Escher house on North Campus). The number of full-time staff increased from one (Luther Buchele) to three and then four. It would be thirteen years before the ICC purchased another property.

In subsequent years, houses were bought, sold, renamed, renamed again, changed from men’s houses to women’s houses, from women’s houses to men’s houses, houses became co-ed houses, some houses became vegetarian. After a long period of planning and contention with the University, a large cooperative housing complex was built on North Campus, one cooperative became substance free, another focused on QTBIPOC (Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous People of Color), one house burned, and some houses combined. Ruth Bluck, who lived in three of the cooperative houses (Rochdale, Owen, and Osterweil) was the first woman to become ICC President, serving from 1946-1947. Forty-two years later, Jennifer Skwiertz (Minnie’s House) was the second woman elected as president of the ICC, 1978-1979.

The Inter-Cooperative Council now has a house at 337 E. William St. (above) that serves as its headquarters, an education center, and sixteen houses. Additional information on the Inter-Cooperative Council is available at the University of Michigan's Bentley Historical Library. The Bentley Library has an extensive archive of materials donated by the Inter-Cooperative Council covering the period of 1932-2015 and the Inter-Cooperative Council at Ann Arbor website includes A Brief History of the Inter-Cooperative Council.
 

Co-op houses north of Central Campus (north of East Huron Street)

Co-op houses south of Central Campus (mostly south of Hill Street)

Co-op house west of Central Campus

Co-op house on North Campus

Three University of Michigan students, Alex Deighton, Curtis Hunt, and Paul Rizik, as part of the course Understanding Records and Archives: Principles and Practices (UMSI 580), in the University of Michigan’s School of Information, created a house-by-house history of each of the houses in the Inter-Cooperative Council at Ann Arbor. Some of that information helped in the writing of the descriptions of each of the houses.

For more information about the Inter-Cooperative Council at Ann Arbor, consult the 1994 book published by the council: In Our Own Hands: a History of Student Housing Cooperatives at the University of Michigan, by Amy Mericle, Suzanne Wilson, and James Jones.

The following excerpt is from the book's Afterword, "How This Book Came to Be," by Jim Jones:

“Until now, this history has largely been hidden away in filing cabinets, basements, and libraries. Of course, the current members are not totally ignorant of the past. Past written histories, stories of past exploits, and oral traditions – some of them apocryphal – have all given members a sense of how the co-ops came to be. This book, however, is the first attempt to exhaustively research and compile that rich heritage.”

Introduction

The Ann Arbor Public Library traces its origins from two strands, public and private: the high school library started in 1856, and the Ladies Library Association founded in 1866. But both of these groups had predecessors, the high school library in the township district libraries and the Ladies Library Association in four earlier book lending groups.

Early Library History

Once upon a time, Ann Arbor had an annual season of professional theater featuring new, classic, and experimental plays. Along with the directors, designers, and opening night galas came the Broadway, Hollywood, and television stars. Between 1930 and 1973, actors who trod the boards in Ann Arbor included Jimmy Stewart, Ethel Waters, Charlton Heston, Grace Kelly, Gloria Graham, Lillian Gish, Ruby Dee, Edward Everett Horton, Sylvia Sydney, Burgess Meredith, Constance Bennett, Rosemary Harris, Gloria Swanson, Jose Ferrer, Christopher Plummer, Billie Burke, Louis Calhern, Joan Blondell, Mercedes McCambridge, Edmund Gwenn, Barbara Bel Geddes, June Lockhart, Conrad Nagel, Ossie Davis, Cedric Hardwicke, Andy Devine, Cornel Wilde, Ann B. Davis, Hume Cronin, Jessica Tandy, and Don Ameche. Will Geer, Helen Hayes, and Basil Rathbone appeared on several occasions. This star-studded period of Ann Arbor’s history lasted just over four decades -- with a hiatus during and after World War II -- until organizational changes and cutbacks led to the decline of the once-vibrant annual festival season.

Act One: Drama Season (1930-1966)

Ann Arbor's first foray into professional theater was the Ann Arbor Drama Season, later referred to simply as Drama Season. It began in 1929 as the Ann Arbor Dramatic Season Committee, a civic project by Mary B. Henderson, with her son Robert Henderson serving as its first director. Drama Season's mission -- the first of its kind in the country -- was to bring professional-level theater to Ann Arbor. Letters from Mr. Henderson at the Bentley Historical Library reveal that by 1931 he was acting on Broadway, making connections with both New York and international actors, and simultaneously attempting to wrap up a master's degree at the University of Michigan. Correspondence between Henderson and J.M. O’Neill, Chairman of the University Committee on Theater Policy and Practice, illustrates early tensions between town and gown -- a theme that would recur over the years. The Committee insisted that Henderson make it clear during his negotiations with actors that Drama Season was not affiliated with the University. Yet the Committee nevertheless felt it was within its purview to weigh in on Henderson's choice of plays and actors in exchange for Drama Season's use of its new campus theater, the Lydia Mendelssohn -- or the “little Lydia” as it was fondly called.

Also among Drama Season's original group was the "First Lady" of Ann Arbor Theatre, Lucille W. Upham, who earned her nickname due to her enthusiastic involvement in a variety of the city's theatrical endeavors. Upham would serve as Drama Season's first treasurer and, later, as manager for over a decade. Henderson served as director for eight years then left Ann Arbor to act and direct in Hollywood and on Broadway (where he would meet and influence the career of a young Sean Connery during a production of Richard Rogers & Oscar Hammerstein's "South Pacific"). But he left behind the seeds for a long-running program. Other Drama Season directors included Charles Hohman, John O'Shaughnessy, Helen Arthur, Agnes Morgan, and the highly influential Valentine Windt. In 1928, just before Drama Season's inception, Windt had assumed the chair of U-M Theater Department. He encouraged University of Michigan student participation both on and off the stage and expanded the summer season, directing over 250 shows, while also overseeing the completion of the Lydia Mendelssohn theater.

Drama Season would run annually from 1930 through 1966, with a six-year hiatus from 1943 through the post-World War II years, picking up again in 1949. Initially, the spring "season" lasted just one week, but by the mid-1930s Drama Season was a five-week festival featuring several plays each with a handful of stars. Actors arrived for two weeks -- one week for rehearsals, and one week for performances. By 1960, the budget for the five-week season was $59,000, with income from sales projected at $61,000 and actors' salaries and contracts with Actors Equity amounting to $15,000 -- approximately $159,000 today. With Drama Season’s offices, rehearsal, and performance spaces -- even living accommodations -- all at the Michigan League, Ann Arbor News photographers frequently caught actors posing in the League’s interior rooms and hallways or outside in its garden. Actors, directors, and playwrights could be seen eating in the League cafeteria with faculty and students. Other actors and crew members were housed off campus. In 1951, an unknown actress named Grace Kelly appeared as a ballet dancer in the comedy “Ring Round the Moon." During her stay, the future Princess of Monaco was relegated to a boarding house overlooking the coal pile that fed the University’s power plant.

Through the years, Drama Season saw its share of hits (in 1941, Ruth Gordon thrilled audiences as a murderess in "Ladies in Retirement"); and misses (in 1953, playwright Tennessee Williams dropped by to catch the opening of his play, "In The Summer House," which was not an audience favorite); and controversy: In June 1951, Hungarian-born actor J. Edward Bromberg, while scheduled to appear in a production titled “The Royal Family,” was served with a subpoena to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Letters to the University of Michigan from individuals and organizations expressing concern over Bromberg’s appearance amidst allegations of his membership in the American Communist Party led Drama Season leaders to issue a statement that appeared in the June 9, 1951 issue of the Ann Arbor News. The group affirmed its intention to honor the actor’s contract, further stating that “it would be entirely out of accord with the principles of justice and the liberal tradition to which this country is committed to deprive Mr. Bromberg of his livelihood and contractual rights.” Bromberg was defiant in his refusal to answer questions during his HUAC hearing and died during a performance in London later that same year from a weak heart, and, according to friends, stress over his ordeal with HUAC. Bromberg wasn't the only victim of the Red Scare. In June 1950, Langston Hughes' visit to campus to see "The Barrier," a musical drama inspired by his poetry, was met with flyers protesting his purported communist sympathies.

Toward the end of its long run, Drama Season was struggling with both critics and audiences. Ann Arborites were particularly tough on the 1964 Drama Season, with one critic noting the lackluster performances and poor play choices in a May 6 review. The reviewer also noted the decline in quality compared with Drama Seasons past. This inspired a change in the procedure for choosing and casting plays. Before 1964, producers chose big-name stars and then picked plays they felt best matched the actors’ skills. But in 1964, President John P. Kokales and Vice President Ted Heusel -- who both served as Drama Season producers for several years -- decided instead to pick quality plays before casting them. Ted Heusel, along with his wife Nancy, would continue to be active in Ann Arbor’s local theater scene for several decades.

Act Two: The Arts Theater Club, Dramatic Arts Center, and Tyrone Guthrie (1951-1967)

The 1950s saw other attempts to establish professional theater in Ann Arbor. Local theater aficionado and businessman Eugene Power was involved in all of them. The first two were The Arts Theatre Club (1951-1954) and The Dramatic Arts Center (1954-1967). During its brief run, the Arts Theater Club brought highbrow playbills and arena-style theater productions to its rooms at 209 ½ E. Washington. The venue sat 150 people and the Club sought support through a subscription membership. But its business model wasn't sustainable and on January 19, 1954, the Ann Arbor News reported that the city’s first (and only) professional theater went bankrupt. Backers of the Arts Theater Club picked up the pieces -- including props and sets -- to form a new group, the Dramatic

Arts Center (DAC), led by Eugene Power, Burnette Staebler, and Richard Mann, who each would serve as president. Like the Arts Theater Club, the DAC relied on a subscription membership, but it added children's theater, dance, music, and art exhibits to its roster of offerings. The group renovated the Masonic Temple’s auditorium for theatrical productions and auditioned New York actors to make up the core of its company. The DAC lasted several years and brought theater talent to town. James Coco was here for a season, and the Temple was also the venue for the Chet Baker Quartet, which made a legendary appearance and recording there on May 9, 1954.

In 1957, the DAC was forced to find other venues when the Bendix Corporation took over its spaces in the Masonic Temple. Venues were a perennial issue for Ann Arbor's theater groups, especially as competition for space increased. Even Drama Season's primary venue, the Lydia Mendelssohn Theater, had limitations. The Lydia was a well-appointed theater (actress Lillian Gish remarked that it had perfect acoustics), but its size limited the number of ticket sales and revenue the group could expect to bring in at the gate. Additional performances were a possibility, but that meant a longer residency for casts and crews.

Other area venues presented different problems: The Masonic Temple's acoustics weren’t ideal and local theater-goers felt the Temple, located downtown on Fourth Avenue, was too far from campus. The Trueblood Theatre in the Frieze building was also too small, though it would serve as an additional performance space for years. And while the city’s lauded Hill Auditorium was perfect for musical performances, it wasn’t built for the more complex staging required of major theatrical productions. In 1967, the DAC even tried Ann Arbor's newest rock club, the Fifth Dimension, as a venue. But by this time both the DAC and Drama Season were overshadowed by the new star on the block, the Professional Theater Program (PTP).

In 1959, yet another professional theater opportunity arose: Ann Arbor was in the running as a location for a major new professional theater currently under development by notable director Tyrone Guthrie, who had helped establish the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Canada. A steering committee was appointed with plans to bring the University and the greater Ann Arbor community together to raise support and funding should Ann Arbor be picked. Guthrie and his producers came to visit, and within a few months, the choice had been narrowed down to three cities -- Ann Arbor, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis. Despite considerable effort among local theater fans, by the spring of 1960 they learned Minneapolis had upstaged Tree Town. Still, enough work had gone into the concept of bringing a professional theater program to Ann Arbor that the University of Michigan decided it was time to raise the curtain on Act Three.

Act Three: The Professional Theatre Program (PTP): 1961-1985

On the heels of losing the Guthrie bid, Ann Arbor ushered in the Professional Theatre Program (PTP). At the invitation of U-M president Harlan Hatcher in 1961, husband and wife Robert C. Schnitzer and Marcella Cisney came to Ann Arbor to pioneer a professional theatre pilot project at the University of Michigan, with Schnitzer serving as executive director and Cisney as artistic director. The two had previously negotiated overseas theatrical productions for the State Department and were encouraged by actress Helen Hayes to accept the U-M offer. This time, the University would be directly involved and the PTP program would be integrated into the University of Michigan theater program. In short order, the PTP was a hit with both town and gown, Ann Arbor became a major regional theatre center, and the Schnitzers became national leaders, sparking dozens of similar programs nationwide.

Early on, Ann Arbor’s PTP hosted Ellis Rabb’s highly touted nonprofit repertory theater, the Association of Producing Artists (APA). At its heyday during the mid-1960s, the APA was hailed by the New York Times critic Walter Kerr as “the best repertory company we possess." The APA began a three-year residency in Ann Arbor in 1962 that would extend over the next decade. During PTP’s decade-plus run, Ann Arbor hosted the APA and five other major theater companies -- the American Conservatory Theatre, the Phoenix, the Julliard, the Actors Company, and the Stratford Canada Festival. New works were produced for the PTP and many went on to Broadway and national tours. Gifted graduate students across the nation received fellowships to participate in the PTP and then proceeded to fill prominent positions within the industry as directors, actors, and designers.

Over its run, the PTP would introduce Ann Arborites to several noteworthy productions. In 1966, Ann Arbor premiered the controversial "Wedding Band,” the second full-length play by novelist, actress, and playwright Alice Childress. It starred actress Ruby Dee in a stark portrayal of a forbidden interracial love affair. Because of its plot and strong themes of working-class life and Black female empowerment, Childress was unable to persuade any theater in New York to stage it. In fact, “Wedding Band” would not appear on a New York stage until 1972.

Other notable performances included the 1967 American premiere of Eugene Ionesco’s absurdist drama, “Exit the King"; and in 1970, the PTP's production of “Harvey” with Jimmy Stewart and Helen Hayes -- a benefit for the Power Center for the Performing Arts -- topped all previous PTP box office records. Eugene Power, who had served on the Drama Season board and had been instrumental with both the short-lived Arts Theater Club and the recently defunct Dramatic Arts Club, felt Ann Arbor needed a much larger performing arts center near campus. Toward that end, Power spearheaded a fundraising effort at a regent’s dinner during U-M’s 150th-anniversary celebration that eventually led to the building of the Power Center, which was completed in 1971.

By 1971, however, the APA had largely dissolved. Robert Schnitzer continued to negotiate with other professional acting companies, including John Houseman's Acting Company and the Stratford Festival in Ontario, but by the end of the 1972-73 season, both Schnitzer and Cisney would leave Ann Arbor for the East Coast so that Schnitzer could work full-time for the University Theatre Foundation he’d headed since 1969. In the late 1970s, local theater enthusiast Jim Packard embarked on a two-year study to build momentum for a substantial summer arts festival along the lines of Stratford, Ontario. With the newly built Power Center and several decades of professional theater programming under their belt, the idea didn't seem all that far-fetched. But efforts fell short, due in part to continuing differences between university and community leaders as well as a statewide recession. The result is the abridged Summer Arts Festival as we know it today.

After Schnitzer and Cisney's departure, efforts to bring professional theater to town would persist: In the late 1970s, Richard Meyer, head of the U-M theater department, ushered in the Artist-in-Residence program which, along with a Best of Broadway and Showcase series, continued to bring in professional theater. In the 1980s, a newly formed BADA (British-American Drama Academy) came to Ann Arbor to perform Shakespeare, and U-M department chairs John Russell Brown and Walter Eysselinck both established short-lived professional theater programs -- Project Theater and Michigan Ensemble Theater -- with both simultaneously serving as artistic directors. But placing the PTP under the direction of U-M's theater department chair was "a move that further weakened the once maverick organization," as Leslie Stainton wrote in 2015.

Bringing professional theater to town would prove to be an increasingly expensive enterprise to sustain on an annual basis, certainly at the level it enjoyed during the glory days of Drama Season and the PTP. Ann Arbor has embraced theater in its many guises -- professional, amateur, student, civic, children's, alternative, classic, and experimental -- and the list of local theater organizations throughout the city's history is lengthy. The University of Michigan, the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, and the University Musical Society (most notably in the 2000s with the Royal Shakespeare Company's residency) would continue to bring professional theater to Tree Town in the decades since the 1980s. But nothing would quite match the star-studded run of shows produced annually between 1930 and 1973 by the Ann Arbor Drama Season and the Professional Theater Program.

AADL has many articles, photos, and advertisements on both Drama Season and the Professional Theater Program.

Starting in the late 1940s, the editors of the Ann Arbor News realized that one of the best ways to illustrate how the city was growing and changing was via aerial photography.  Images were often taken to illustrate specific projects: the building of the new Washtenaw County Courthouse around the old, a view of University of Michigan graduation ceremonies, a newly-completed major construction project.  Some of them may have had a specific purpose that is lost to us now, or perhaps were just additional photos taken while the photographer was a few thousand feet in the air.  The AADL Archives has digitized hundreds of these photos from the Ann Arbor News photographic negative collection.  Regardless of the reasons they were taken, today they offer a glimpse of Ann Arbor's past very different from others, taking in both the fascinating and the mundane.  

Some of AADL Archives's favorite aerials are presented here along with matching aerials we had taken over the past year.  Some pairs represent little change, others a large enough shift that only the street layouts or a few key buildings signify to us that what we are viewing are the same locations.

Aerial View Of North Central Ann Arbor, March 1956, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of North Central Ann Arbor, April 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - This view looking northwest has Detroit Street cutting across the street grid up to Broadway Bridge with the Ann Arbor Railroad bridge near Argo Dam in the background.

Aerial View Of Stadium Boulevard Between Liberty Street & Jackson Avenue, March 1951, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of Stadium Boulevard Between Liberty Street & Jackson Avenue, April 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - In the lower righthand corner of each photo is the intersection of Stadium & Liberty.  The 1951 photo shows Sportsman's Park, now long-gone, and the 2023 photo has Westgate and Maple Village Plazas where there used to be fields.

Aerial View Of New Courthouse Surrounding Old Courthouse, January 1955, Photographer Dale Fisher, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of Washtenaw County Courthouse, April 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - The Washtenaw County Courthouse under construction and a view of the completed building today.

Aerial View Of Intersection Of Washtenaw Ave, Carpenter Rd, And Hogback Rd, May 1975, Photographer Cecil Lockard, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of Intersection Of Washtenaw Ave, Carpenter Rd, And Hogback Rd, April 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - The cloverleaf of US-23 and Washtenaw Ave dominates this view, but the upper righthand corner shows Arborland as was and as is.

Aerial View Of Arborview Subdivision Near Mack School, Winter 1952, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of Arborview Subdivision Near Mack School, Spring 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - Miller Ave cuts diagonally across these images and Arborview Blvd heads straight away from the camera.

Aerial View Of South Quadrangle Dormitory, Looking Northwest, March 1951, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View of South Quadrangle Dormitory, Looking Northwest, Spring 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - Two images showing the steady westward march of the U-M campus.

Aerial View Of University Hospital Outpatient Construction, April 1951, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of University Of Michigan Medical Center, April 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - It's a surprise to see actual landform in the 1951 image here where today there are just the many buildings of the gigantic Michigan Medicine campus.

Aerial View With Parking Structure On Washington St & 1st St, April 1950, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of Washington St From 5th Ave To 3rd St, April 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - The anchors of these two images are carparks: Ann Arbor's first parking structure in 1950 and Ann Arbor's entire block of a parking lot today.  It is just as notable that apart from these blocks, much of this area is little changed.

Aerial View Of Stadium Blvd And Washtenaw Ave Intersection, 1950, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of Stadium Blvd And Washtenaw Ave Intersection, April 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - Stadium Blvd heads left and Washtenaw Ave heads right through what once was fields and now is businesses, churches, and housing.

Aerial View Of University Of Michigan Graduation At Ferry Field, June 1949, Photographer Maiteland Robert La Motte, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of University Of Michigan Athletic Buildings, Summer 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - Both mostly images of fields, though what in 1949 was farmland is today the U-M sports-industrial complex.

Aerial View Of University Of Michigan Graduation At Michigan Stadium, June 1950, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of University Of Michigan Stadium, Summer 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - The Big House separated by 73 years and a few renovations.

Aerial View Of The University Of Michigan Campus At 5,000 ft., June 1949, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of The University Of Michigan Campus And Downtown Ann Arbor, Summer 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - Most of downtown and the U-M campus is visible in these photos, with the growth of the hospital campus quite noticeable in the lower lefthand corner.

Aerial View Of Ann Arbor Art Fair, July 1989, Photographer Robert Chase, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of Ann Arbor Art Fair, July 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - Art Fair and West Engineering Hall along South University Ave, though significantly easier to see in 1989 before the explosion in South University high-rises.

Aerial View Of The Widening Of West Stadium Blvd, July 1957, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of Pioneer High School On West Stadium Blvd, Summer 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - A few building additions, more sports fields, and more parking, but Pioneer High School is still largely recognizable across 66 years.

Aerial View Of Ann Arbor Looking Northeast Toward New Veterans Hospital, September 1952, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of Ann Arbor Looking Northeast Toward Veterans Hospital, October 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - Both photos show some of central campus along with the U-M hospitals (with many more medical buildings in 2023).

Aerial View Of Barton Pond And Dam, September 1963, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of Barton Pond And Dam, October 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - Barton Pond and Dam, one of the few largely-unchanged areas (though city growth is definitely visible along the top of the image).

Aerial View Of Geddes Pond & Concordia College, September 1963, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of Geddes Pond & Concordia College, Fall 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - Visible in 2023 is a much-busier US-23 and what is now called Old Dixboro Road replaced by its contemporary version.

Aerial View Of Angell Hall Addition Construction, October 1951, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of Angell Hall & Central Campus, Fall 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - We see the same buildings in most of central campus, though notable additions include the Rackham Building, the Biological Sciences Building, and towering Weiser Hall.

Aerial View Of Tappan Junior High School & St. Francis Catholic School Construction, October 1951, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of Tappan Middle School & St. Francis Catholic School, Fall 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - The field in the foreground of the 1951 image has given way to the St. Francis of Assisi Church & School by 2023.

Aerial View Of Newly Completed North Main Street, October 1951, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of North Main Street, Fall 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - Far away housing developments are harder to see in 2023 as their tree canopies have grown in, but a new development site is visible along the Huron River in 2023.

Aerial View Of South Ann Arbor, October 1951, Ann Arbor News / Aerial View Of South Ann Arbor, Fall 2023, Aerial Associates Photography - The southern edge of town--visible about halfway up in the 1951 photo--is no longer discernible from this vantage point by 2023.

Origins: From J-Hop Raffle to Functional Memorial

It was December 1946 -- just over a year after the end of World War II -- and University of Michigan students were excited to bring back the highly popular Junior Hop (J-Hop), a glittering three-day student formal started by fraternities in the 1860s that included dancing, morning-after breakfasts, hayrides, and house parties. This year's lineup featured big band leader and saxophonist Jimmie Lunceford, and former star trumpeter with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Ziggy Ellman. However, many students were concerned that such frivolity clashed with the tenor of a world so recently ravaged by war. As a result, the J-Hop Committee persuaded the Student Legislature to turn its traditional J-Hop raffle into a fundraiser for a living memorial, and a student committee urged the University regents to adopt a resolution to pursue the idea of such a functional memorial.

Functional - or living - memorials were becoming increasingly popular after World War II as a more palatable alternative to the traditional statue or obelisk associated with memorials of earlier generations. The J-Hop committee’s initial idea was to build a chapel or recreation building in the Arboretum.

By January 1947, there was considerable enthusiasm for the project -- especially among the burgeoning World War II student veterans taking advantage of the G.I. Bill (of the 18,000 U-M students at the time, 12,000 were WWII veterans) -- and this prompted the creation of a significantly larger joint student-faculty-alumni fundraiser and the J-Hop raffle funds were turned over to this effort. An executive committee was formed that included a central committee of all student organizations; a sub-committee of the student legislature; and a faculty-alumni advisory group.

Thus began the University’s first major fundraising effort to date.

The Board of Regents unanimously approved this yet-to-be-named project upon the recommendation of U-M President Alexander Ruthven. Ralph Sawyer, Dean of the Rackham Graduate School, took up the initiative by appointing a War Memorial Committee. Among this committee's members were three WWII veterans: Arthur DerDerian, an aviation cadet; Arthur Rude, a first lieutenant in the Army; and E. Virginia Smith, a nurse in the Pacific Theater.

Harnessing Atomic Energy for the Greater Good

But what would this memorial look like and how would it function? What would it be called?

War Memorial Committee chair and Dean of Students, Erich A. Walter, approached several friends and former alumni. The University also sent letters to world leaders, authors, and stars -- figures such as Winston Churchill, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, E. B. White, and Orson Welles -- seeking advice and input.

But it was Fred Smith, a 39-year-old U-M alumnus and New York publishing executive, whose proposal for the memorial most engaged U-M’s student body and administrative leadership. His idea? To harness the power of the atom for the greater good. He wrote, “As vital to the future of mankind as the continuation of religion; and the devotion of the people involved in it should be no less unstinted... We have named the memorial The Phoenix Project because the whole concept is one of giving birth to a new enlightenment, a conversion of ashes into life and beauty.” 

The Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project (MMPP) would be "a living, continuous memorial" - a unique endeavor dedicated to exploring ways that the atom could aid mankind rather than destroy it. The MMPP was created by action of the U-M Board of Regents on May 1, 1948, and in his Memorial Day address that year, U-M President Alexander Ruthven called it “A memorial that would eliminate future war memorials.” 

The idealism was matched only by its danger: To bring such a destructive force to a college campus with the intent of harnessing its power for the benefit of mankind was a radical idea requiring a radical approach.

"The most important undertaking in our University's history." 

Under the leadership of National Executive Chairman Chester Lang, the Phoenix Campaign grew into a national effort that would be the first significant fundraising campaign initiated by the University -- at the time "the most important undertaking in our University's history," according to Ruthven. The Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project Laboratory would eventually be funded by over 30,000 alumni and corporate donors. By 1953, the campaign raised $7.3 million for a research building and endowment eventually amounting to over $20 million.

The project would mark many firsts:

* The first fundraising effort in U-M history
* The first set of laboratory buildings on the new U-M North Campus
* The first university in the world to explore the peaceful uses of atomic energy
* And it would initiate the U-M’s new Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences, the first such university program in the world

“M Glow Blue!” Henry Ford Donates a Nuclear Reactor

The Ford Motor Company alone donated $1 million to build the Ford Nuclear Reactor (FNR) as part of the Laboratory.

In February 1955, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) licensed the Ford Nuclear Reactor (FNR) and construction on the reactor began later that summer. The reactor would be built in a special unit at the north end of the Laboratory and it was the first reactor ever requested for construction by an agency other than the AEC. The FNR was dedicated on November 16, 1956, reaching its first critical mass on September 19, 1957, and level 1 megawatt on August 11, 1958. Eventually operating at two megawatts of power, the “icy blue glow” of the more than 55,000-gallon reactor pool inspired the motto of the reactor workers: “M-Glow Blue!”

Moreover, the Department of Energy would fabricate, transport, and dispose of the fuel at no cost to the University.

U-M professor of electrical engineering Henry Gomberg was the first director of the Phoenix Project. And the College of Engineering was responsible for developing its instructional and research program. The FNR would operate 24 hours per day for the next 50 years. 

Bubble Chambers and Mummies: Research at the Phoenix Laboratory

Research at the Laboratory took place across multiple disciplines, helping to fund studies on the applications of nuclear technology in fields as diverse as medicine, chemistry, physics, mineralogy, archeology, engineering, zoology, anthropology, and law. It saw uses for cancer treatment, bone grafts, medieval coins, and even an Egyptian mummy.

Former MMPP director David Wehe remembers, “I recall lively lunchroom discussions with engine researchers from GM and Ford discussing measurement techniques with the nuclear chemists inventing new diagnostic pharmaceuticals and archeologists testing the authenticity of ancient relics -- all of them working within the Phoenix Memorial Laboratory.” 

Project highlights include Gamma ray sterilization; carbon-14 dating; radioactive iodine for cancer treatment and detection; gravitationally-induced quantum interference, as well as the bubble chamber design allowing rapid, easily interpreted photographs of rare atomic interactions that won Donald Glaser a 1960 Nobel Prize in Physics. The laboratory also included a greenhouse and saw foundational research on the effects of radiation on plant life.

The FNR was also used to train utility workers in nuclear instrumentation and reactor operation and was visited over the years by world leaders and distinguished scientists such as Robert Oppenheimer and Hans Bethe. MMPP leadership was also instrumental in founding the International Cooperation Administration (ICA) arm of the AEC.

By June 1997, however, the Ford Nuclear Reactor Review Committee estimated the reactor was costing the university an average of $1 million a year and requested input from university departments, as well as organizations outside the university community, on continued use of the facility. Although many groups actively campaigned to keep the reactor operational, the decision was made to close it. The reactor took nearly a decade to dismantle and was officially decommissioned in 2003.  

Rededicating the MMPP 

After extensive renovations, the former Phoenix Memorial Laboratory in 2013 became the home of the U-M Energy Institute, which continued to support the Project’s unique memorial mission. In spring 2017, after a decade of dismantling the FNR and clearing the building of radiation, the building was rededicated as the Nuclear Engineering Laboratory with a focus on advancing nuclear security, nonproliferation, safety, and energy. In 2021, the Energy Institute was disbanded and the Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences (NERS) program regained proprietorship. In April 2019, the department launched the Fastest Path to Zero Initiative, with the mission of “identifying, innovating, and pursuing the fastest path to zero emissions by optimizing clean energy deployment through energy innovation, interdisciplinary analysis, and evidence-driven approaches to community engagement.” The Fastest Path offices are now housed within the MMPP. 

A rededication of the MMPP took place in 2022. The labs and offices are occupied by two groups: NERS and the Materials Research Institute (MRI).

According to former MMPP director David Wehe, “Today, the MMPP continues its legacy of honoring WWII veterans by providing seed funding to researchers seeking to harness the atom for the public good. While the building also serves other purposes now, the hall still echoes those exciting discoveries that came from the MMPP.”

Historical photos and articles about the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project

Rick Cocco's then-and-now compositions offer a unique look at our city's ever-changing landscape over the past one hundred years. Between 2018 and 2021, Cocco carefully composed his "now" photographs to match their historical counterparts, largely drawn from AADL's online collection of Ann Arbor News negatives.

A heroic rescue saved the owner, but this historic home may be doomed.

In October, Ann Arbor fire chief Mike Kennedy presented commendations to five people who'd rescued an elderly man from a burning house in September. The "civilian lifesaving awards" recognized three young men touring the town after a U-M football game, and a father and daughter on their way to the airport. Both groups spotted the fire on S. Main and stopped to help.

For years, people who pass by the former Washtenaw County Road Commission site across from the Ann Arbor Y have wondered why something hasn't been done to what is universally agreed is an eyesore. The buildings haven't been touched since 2007, when the city departments located there moved out. The grounds are a mix of broken cement and dirt.

The city would like to see something built there, but there are a number of ob­stacles. For starters, after more than eighty years of housing trucks and fuel, the soil and water table are contaminated.

Foreward