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In honor of the Class of 2025, we’re taking a look back at U-M’s 1925 commencement! 🎓

According to the Michigan Alumnus magazine, graduating students paraded down the sidewalks of Ann Arbor, making their way down State Street, to Ferry Field, which was the football field at the time.

Michigan Stadium didn’t exist yet; it would open just two years later!

Many of the people watching the long parade of graduates had umbrellas with them, as the sky looked like it might rain; in fact, the weather was so worrying that the Field House had been prepared, just in case graduation had to move indoors.

However, although there was a mild drizzle, according to the Alumnus magazine, “the elements relented,” and the graduates got to have their commencement procession outside after all!

Students crossed the stage on Ferry Field class by class. After the ceremony, there was a performance of the song “The Yellow and Blue,” and triumphant bugle music!

100 years later, we’re excited to share our congratulations to the Class of 2025! 🎉 We know you’ll make all kinds of amazing history!

You can find these photos, and others like them, in historical editions of the Michigan Alumnus magazine in the archives.

#MGoGrad #UMich #StudentLife #MichiganHistory #100YearsAgo #1920s #Commencement

Throwback to over 100 years ago, when Tomo Inouye attended U-M!

She enrolled in 1899 as a medical student, attending classes in U-M’s very first Medical School building, which used to stand on Central Campus where U-M’s Randall Laboratory stands today.

That early medical building was razed in 1914, and now only survives in places like these historical photos from the archives!

When Inouye first started attending, U-M had just begun to require all medical students to do clinical rotations to gain hands-on experience in U-M's hospitals.

Tomo Inouye earned her medical degree at U-M in 1901, becoming the first Japanese woman known to have graduated from the University of Michigan!

This year, U-M’s Medical School is celebrating its 175th anniversary; you can learn more about early medical students, and U-M’s long history of medical education, on the Michigan Medicine website! 🎉

📸: University of Michigan student portraits collection, U-M Photo Vertical Files, Sam Sturgis photo collection

#TBT #UMich #StudentLife #AAPIHeritageMonth #TomoInouye #History #MedicalSchool

A beautiful spring moment in Ann Arbor: the trees outside the Bentley Historical Library are in bloom! 🌸

This is one of the most wonderful times of year to visit the archives at U-M!

In addition to these flowering trees, we have daffodils, irises, and lilacs growing in our garden courtyard, just outside of our reading room windows.

If you want to visit to see these flowers in person, and have the chance to explore things like historical U-M yearbooks, our reading room is open from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, on U-M’s North Campus, and we’re open to the public!

Stop by and say hi! 🌼

#Spring #FloweringTrees #UMich #NorthCampus #AnnArbor #Archives #SupportYourLocalLibrary

Spring Commencement is coming up! 🌸 If you’re planning your graduation photos, here are some pose ideas from U-M history!

Click through to see:

👞 A “clogging” pose by two U-M student dancers in the 1920s

🎹 The 1960s Glee Club posing with a piano

💃 A medieval-inspired dance group in the 1940s

🏀 Women’s Basketball poses from the 1900s

🏈 A "Touchdown!" pose from a 1980s student football game in the Law Quad

🎓 A 1910s U-M friend group posing for an actual graduation photo!

We’re wishing you the very best, Wolverines! Good luck on your finals, and congratulations to everyone graduating this Spring; you’re almost at the finish line!

Sources: News & Information photographs, U-M Vertical File, Department of Physical Education for Women records, Frances Green student scrapbook

#UMich #MichiganHistory #Humor #Graduation #PhotoPoses #Wolverines #WeBelieveInYou

A month before the first Earth Day in 1970, U-M held a four-day Teach-In on the environment! 🌿

This Teach-In on U-M’s campus drew incredibly large crowds, and was organized by a group of students that called themselves “Environmental Action for Survival,” or “ENACT!”

According to the Michigan Daily at the time, the event featured over 125 “workshops, seminars, speeches, and exhibits,” with a kickoff rally in Crisler Arena themed around the motto: “Give Earth a Chance.”

There were talks on environmental law, pesticides, and the future of the Great Lakes, an “environmental scream-out,” and a car was even “put on trial” and found guilty of pollution!

There was entertainment, too, including music by the Chicago cast of the musical “Hair,” and by Michigan singer Gordon Lightfoot.

Putting the Teach-In’s ideals into action, they also held a clean-up walk along the banks of the Huron River, where participants picked up litter and debris.

A month later, “Earth Day” was officially created by Senator Nelson, one of the very people who had spoken at U-M’s Teach-In!

Happy Earth Day! 🌎

#EarthDay #UMich #TeachIn #Environment #MichiganHistory #DidYouKnow

On this day in 1924, this is what the Law Quad looked like under construction! 🔨

With its Gothic Revival buildings, the Law Quad is an iconic part of U-M’s campus in Ann Arbor, and it has been a home to many students over the years!

Construction on the Law Quad started in 1923, replacing “almost an entire block of fraternity houses,” according to the Michigan Daily.

The Law Quad’s first building, the Lawyers Club, opened to students in the fall of 1924, just a handful of months after these photos were taken!

“No description can possibly convey the beauty and distinction which the buildings have added,” the Michigan Alumnus magazine wrote about the Law Quad in 1925.

Built in a “collegiate Gothic style,” the earliest buildings on the Law Quad were described as “solid masonry construction of the most permanent character,” with stone walls, oak trusses, and large windows filled with cathedral glass, to give “a very pleasing soft sunlight effect.”

You can learn more about the history of how the Law Quadrangle was built with the Law School records, and books like “Giving it all away: the story of William W. Cook & his Michigan Law Quadrangle” by U-M Librarian Emerita Margaret Leary!

📸: Law School records

#TBT #UMich #OTD #LawQuad #1920s #HistoricBuildings

Flashback to Detroit’s Woodward Avenue over 100 years ago! 🕑

Here, you can see horse-drawn carriages, people walking, and even a woman pushing a baby carriage. (As you can see, the baby did not want to stay still for the photograph!)

This photo shows the east side of Woodward Avenue, which was lined with shops that sold hats, dry goods, and jewelry.

Some of the buildings you can spot here include the Roehm & Wright jewelers on the corner, Nall’s dry goods store, and Finney House, a hotel that was well known in the area at the time.

Early photos like this one, which was taken circa 1890-1920, really show how much cities like Detroit can change over the years!

If you’re interested in seeing more historical photos of early Detroit, you can find them in the George Washington Merrill photograph collection, which anyone is welcome to view in our reading room, as well as in the online Image Bank!

#Detroit #MichiganHistory #Flashback #Over100YearsAgo #HorseDrawnCarriages

TBT to a snowy day on campus in the spring of 1922! ❄️

The historical storm you see here, which also included sleet, was much more intense than today’s spring snowfall!

"Ann Arbor is the scene upon which nature has enacted an appealing tragedy, and now is strewn with fallen trees and the choicest of their branches," the Michigan Daily announced in 1922, describing the “lofty and majestic trees, scintillating with their icy jackets."

After that 1922 springtime storm, trains ran off schedule, telephone service was impacted, and traffic was slow due to the fallen branches!

Thankfully, the snow that fell on U-M’s modern Ann Arbor campus looks more like powdered sugar than sleet, and seems to be melting quickly.

Click through to see a photo of the snow in our library courtyard today (as well as a deer that stopped by to visit!)

📸: 1922 photo from the Mabel Warner scrapbook

#TBT #Snow #UMich #ThenVsNow #1920s #AnnArbor

⭐ We’re so excited to welcome the new director of the historic Detroit Observatory at U-M, Gregory Parker!

“It’s an incredible honor to work here. There are very few historical observatories in the world,” Gregory says. “And fewer still that have the original telescopes.”

A division of the Bentley Historical Library, the Detroit Observatory hosts many history-related events, as well as astronomy nights, which are one of Gregory's favorite parts of working there!

“When you come to an astronomy night, and the sky is clear, you can climb up to the Observatory’s dome and look through the Fitz telescope,” he says. “It dates to 1857, so you’re using the same instrument that James Craig Watson used to discover comets and asteroids during the Civil War era... That’s amazing to me.”

Gregory Parker has a great deal of experience in public history programming thanks to his previous work in the U-M History Department, and as the manager of the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies.

He's excited to share the Observatory's long history at U-M with visitors!

Click through to learn what he wishes more people knew about the Detroit Observatory, and his favorite part of the Observatory’s history!

#Welcome #UMich #DetroitObservatory #NewDirector #MichiganHistory #AstronomyHistory

Happy National Library Week! 📖

We’re celebrating by sharing some behind-the-scenes photos of the archives!

The archives are bigger than most people assume, and actually fill up multiple floors at the Bentley, with several rooms on each floor!

When a visitor asks to see something in the reading room, whether it’s a box of papers, a scrapbook, or a folder of early Michigan Stadium photos, our staff often retrieve it from shelves just like these.

The Bentley is home to the official archives of U-M, including early campus photos, yearbooks, and more, as well as much State of Michigan history, from governors’ papers to historical maps!

You’re welcome to visit our reading room during our open hours to explore whatever interests you in Michigan history, whether that’s learning about your family tree, researching early football uniforms, or looking for photos of your dorm 100 years ago.

We’re here to help!

#NationalLibraryWeek #Archives #BentleyHistoricalLibrary #UMich #AboutUs #BehindTheScenes #SupportYourLocalLibrary

Meet Isabel Planton, our new Archivist for Reference! 🎉

Isabel is looking forward to learning more about the archives at the Bentley, and meeting the researchers who visit our reading room!

“I love working in libraries and archives, because I find helping people with their research rewarding. I think archival research is full of fascinating stories,” Isabel says.

Outside of the archives, Isabel was a skeeball league champion in 2017, and she also loves creating art based on historical illustrations.

Click through to learn more fun facts about Archivist Isabel Planton, and about her two cats, Sassafras and Rhubarb, also known as Sassy and Ruby! 🐱

Welcome, Isabel!

#Archivist #StaffFeature #Welcome #Cats #BentleyHistoricalLibrary #OurStaffAreAwesome

Here’s what the Michigan Union looked like on this day in 1917, while it was still being built!

In the mid-1910s, U-M quickly outgrew its first Union building, which was the former house of Michigan Supreme Court Justice Thomas M. Cooley, who also served as U-M’s Law Dean!

It became clear that the number of students was rising fast enough that a new Michigan Union would need to be built, so alumni raised funds to build the Michigan Union you know and love.

You can see what construction looked like, here, in this photo from Ann Arbor’s early years!

However, everything changed when, only a few days after this picture was taken in 1917, the U.S. joined World War I.

The Students’ Army Training Corps (or SATC) actually used the partly-finished Michigan Union building as a dormitory and mess hall during the war!

“Owing to wartime difficulties, the building was not ready for use by the students until 1919,” the Bentley’s online Historical Tour of Campus notes. By then, it was largely in the form you can see on campus today!

You can learn more about the Michigan Union’s history through the article “How the Michigan Union Came to Be” by James Tobin from the U-M Heritage Project, and through the “Historical Tour of the University of Michigan Campus” on the Bentley’s website.

Today, the Michigan Union building serves as an important hub for students on campus!

📸: Pond family papers

#OTD #TBT #UMich #MichiganUnion #CampusHistory

April Fools Day according to U-M students 100 years ago! 🕑

In 1925, the student humor magazine “The Gargoyle” published a short article titled: “Complete Day of an April Fooler.”

It included a list of pranks that an “April Fooler” would pull—ranging from relatively harmless (like replacing salt with sugar at the breakfast table) to decidedly not harmless (like creating fake candy, which was often made of soap: please don’t eat soap.)

It also included some pranks people wouldn’t ever think of today (like filling a fountain pen with water!)

Click through to see a few examples of what students in 1925 thought an April Fools' Day prankster would do, from U-M history!

You can explore historical issues of “The Gargoyle” from the archives in our reading room, and you can also find digitized versions of some early “Gargoyle” editions in the online Hathitrust Library.

“The Gargoyle,” also known affectionately as “The Garg,” is a long-running student publication, established in 1909, which is still ongoing today.

#AprilFoolsDay #100YearsAgo #UMich #StudentLife

We loved sharing the history of the Martha Cook building at this recent pop-up exhibit! 💙

Bringing the archives directly to campus, Bentley Archivist Meghan Courtney and a team of student docents stopped by during afternoon tea at Martha Cook, and shared scrapbooks, photos, and more, with current students!

Students got the chance to ask questions about history, learn about the lives of historical students at Martha Cook, and even make their own scrapbooks using copies of old photos, sheet music, and newspaper clippings.

We really loved seeing how interested these students were in the history of their community, and it was so wonderful to get to share all of these materials with them!

Click through to see more photos of this pop-up event, and some snapshots of Martha Cook’s early years, from the archives.

Curious to learn more? History from the Martha Cook building can also be explored in the Bentley Historical Library's reading room, using the Martha Cook Building records, and student history records like the A. Grace Edmonds scrapbooks!

📸: Photos of event by Austin Edmister, featuring a pop-up exhibit at Martha Cook, and the Bentley team, including student docents from the Detroit Observatory, and Associate Director for Public Engagement Meghan Courtney, alongside Bentley Director Alexis Antracoli

📸: Photos of Martha Cook history sourced from the A. Grace Edmonds scrapbooks, the U-M Photo Vertical Files, and the Martha Cook Building records

#UMich #MarthaCook #StudentLife #CampusHistory #PopUp #HistoryExhibit

Did you know that U-M had a historical tradition called “Lantern Night?”

U-M’s Lantern Night traces its origins to the very first Field Day held by women at U-M, in honor of the new women’s athletic field in 1910!

That Field Day featured a picnic, an archery tournament, folk dancing, field hockey, tennis, “fancy marching” where women formed the shape of a block “M,” as well as singing, and a crackling bonfire. It was a success, according to the Michigan Daily, and quickly became an annual event!

By 1912, it also included a “grand lantern march” where women at U-M gathered to carry lanterns across Palmer Field in the evening.

Many of these aspects of Field Day appear to have stopped during World War I, but the lantern march was revived in 1919 as U-M’s official “Lantern Night,” during which women in U-M’s senior class would pass lighted lanterns to women in the junior class, symbolically “passing on the torch.”

(Women in the junior class would then pass flower-covered hoops to the sophomore class, in turn!)

Over time, Lantern Night grew to include things like a dance pageant featuring the myth of Persephone, athletic awards, and a singing competition! It was an important yearly celebration for women at U-M for many years.

The tradition of Lantern Night stopped in the 1960s, but records of it live on in the archives, and you can find out more by exploring the Michigan Daily Digital Archives, the Women’s League records, and the Michigan Alumnus magazine collection!

📸: Dept. of Physical Education for Women records, and the Snow Family papers

#WomensHistoryMonth #UMich #StudentLife #LanternNight #DidYouKnow

Did you know that our Athletics Archivist was recently featured on the trivia TV show “The Floor” with Rob Lowe?

“An interest in trivia and a career in librarianship really support each other,” Athletics Archivist jay winkler says. “I’ve always had a brain that picks up on and remembers small details, and I think that in the type of work that we do, that attention to detail is really important.”

On the show, jay specialized in trivia questions about Congress, as a political science major. But he also loves trivia about U-M athletics–especially U-M Olympic history, which is one of his favorite topics!

His time on “The Floor” was filmed in Ireland, and his favorite takeaways from the experience were all of the friendships he made with other trivia experts, including several Michigan alums.

“A lot of us are in a trivia league,” he says. “We all talk about trivia basically every day. That’s been the coolest part.”

#UMich #StaffHighlight #Trivia #Archivist #TheFloor

Help protect U-M athletics history! 🏈

U-M’s athletic past is a critical part of the university’s story.

This includes the sports you love, like football, basketball, and so many other men’s and women’s varsity sports at U-M!

By supporting the Bentley’s Athletics Archive fund, you can help keep this history available for generations to come!

Together, we can provide access to one-of-a-kind historical materials, and preserve early football films, hockey programs, basketball photos, rosters, statistics, and more.

For Giving Blueday, help support the Athletics Archive fund at the link in our Instagram story!

Help us spread the word by sharing this with a friend or relative who loves Michigan athletics, giving this post a heart, or letting us know about your favorite piece of U-M athletics history in the comments below.

Thank you for supporting Michigan history! 💙💛

📸: Photos from the historical postcard collection, the Athletic Department records, the Rentschler's Studio photographs, and the Wilfred B. Shaw Papers

#UMich #GoBlue #GivingBlueday #Wolverines #SportsHistory #SupportWhatYouLove

In honor of the Michigan Women’s Basketball Team’s upcoming game on Friday, here is one of the earliest pictures we know of that shows women playing basketball on campus!

Women began playing basketball at U-M in the early 1900s, with mentions of women’s basketball found as early as 1902 in U-M’s yearbook.

"The athletic spirit has taken possession of the young ladies of the University, and has manifested itself in the form of basketball," the Michigan Daily wrote in 1903.

The basketball game shown here was held circa 1904 in Barbour Gymnasium, which was the U-M women’s gym for many years!

The varsity Michigan Women’s Basketball Team was started about 70 years after this photo was taken, and they’re still going strong today!

Click through to see the full photo from circa 1904, sourced from the Wilfred B. Shaw Papers.

#Umich #Wolverines #WomensBasketball #BasketballHistory #WomensHistoryMonth #GoBlue

Recreating a U-M football uniform from 1904! 🏈

When fashion student Adam Denzler reached out to learn about the uniforms of the 1904 Wolverines for this project, we were excited to help!

Inspired by the U-M alumni in his family, Adam decided to make a replica of this historical U-M football uniform as part of his studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, while learning about fashion history. 🪡

He used all kinds of items from the archives for this project, including:

📷 A photo of early U-M football star Willie Heston in his uniform
✉️ A letter about football uniforms ordered by U-M in 1904
📖 An illustrated catalog of historical athletic equipment
🎨 Early postcards and posters, as references for the fabric colors!

Details from the archives at the Bentley, combined with his hard work, resulted in this incredible replica of a historical U-M football uniform!

Click through to see photos of the replica U-M football uniform that Adam created, as well as the photo of 1900s football star Willie Heston that helped inspire him.

📸: Photos by Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp fashion student Adam Denzler (at untitled.perfect.lovers), used with permission, and Willie Heston from the Athletic Department records

#UMich #Wolverines #FootballHistory #1900s #GoBlue #HistoricalCostuming #HistoricalRecreation

TBT to this beautiful Ann Arbor photo from circa 1930/1940!

Here, you can see the corner of North University Avenue and State Street, in a snapshot from the collection of local photographer Melvin Ivory.

This corner has been a key area in campus life ever since the University of Michigan first moved to Ann Arbor in 1837!

This intersection marks the corner of the Diag, home of U-M’s very first Ann Arbor buildings. The Diag contained the whole campus during U-M’s earliest years here.

U-M has grown since then, but this corner is still one that you’ve probably walked across, and one that many students see every day, although it looks different than it used to!

Scanned photos of Ann Arbor history from the Ivory Photograph collection at the Bentley are available to be explored online, if you are interested in seeing more images like this one!

#TBT #AnnArbor #StateStreet #UMich #Diag #MichiganHistory

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