Protecting Michigan State's Material Culture
While cataloguing artifacts from Service Road, we stumbled across an intriguing piece of a milk glass jar featuring an applied color label with bright red and blue hues. I say it was intriguing because many of the artifacts we have left from Service Road are …
It has been nearly 167 years since Michigan State University first opened its doors in 1855. Starting with only three buildings, five faculty members, and 63 male students, it has grown to encompass 5,192 acres and has over 50,000 students enrolled, making it the state’s …
Here at Campus Archaeology, we love outreach – just this past week, we presented at both Michigan Archaeology Day and at our annual Apparitions and Archaeology Tour! (Thank you to those who stopped by!) We love outreach so much because we are passionate about archaeology and MSU’s history that we can’t help but find ways to connect with our local community here so we can all understand and learn about our history together.
However, over the past year and a half, we’ve had to adjust our events – some were cancelled while others were transitioned to an online setting. In fact, we have only started back in person this semester and still have certain protocols in place to protect us and those that come to our events. And this has been a different experience for us, as we usually love the opportunity to answer questions and listen to stories from our participants. But during this process, we learned a lot more about tools available for online learning and how we can engage with all of you in a new way!
I (Rhian) got to work with our Campus Archaeologist, Jeff Burnett, last year to create the Virtual Haunted Tour twine. I had never encountered Twine before, but loved how we could create an interactive exhibit that provides more information than we are able to do in person! Plus, we could incorporate more primary sources of photos and information available through the university archives! I personally learned a lot making the Twine and I’m hopeful that others felt the same way when reading it.
Based on this experience, I started to think about how we could use digital outreach again this year as an educational tool for those who are interested in learning more about the process of archaeology. I am in the forensic anthropology program here at MSU and while I knew the methodology for forensic archaeology, I joined CAP specifically to get more experience with traditional archaeological methods – both in the field and in the lab. Now that I’m getting more familiar with the nuances of archaeology, I wanted to create a tool to help others out there like me, who also want to learn about archaeology!
So I am teaming up with another CAP Fellow, Aubree Marshall, to create a new Twine tool for learning archaeology! We will be creating two different Twines:
The first Twine will guide our users through one of our more famous excavations: Saints’ Rest! While many of you may be familiar with this site, as we found many exciting artifacts at this site, we will walk you through each step of the process over the years and why we used certain methods, tools, or protocols. We hope this can help everyone understand why we process sites in a formalized way – and how that helps us to preserve the context and association of the artifacts we find and understand their historical significance!
The second Twine will be a choose-your-own-adventure format! Based on an excavation we did this summer at Spartan Village, we will provide a practice scenario for all of you: at each step of the process, we will provide you with the information we are typically given regarding a site (e.g., MSU’s construction crews were digging and hit a bunch of artifacts!) and you will be able to choose what you should do in response (e.g., go out now, wait one hour, start in the morning, etc.). In this way, you will understand how we make choices as how to excavate a site without delaying construction while still doing our best to preserve the history of our campus.
Twine is often used for interactive fantasy/role player games online where players can choose their own character and then decide what path they choose in a hope to win the game! Because of its success in that format, we believe this choose-your-own-archaeology-adventure will be a great learning tool as anyone who goes through our Twine will learn via experience!
We will be working on writing the script for the Twines this semester and will begin piecing together the html code next semester – hopefully these will be available for next summer and we can’t wait to make them available for all of you!!
We love the work we do through MSU’s Campus Archaeology. While our primary purpose is to mitigate and protect the archaeological and cultural resources on MSU’s campus, CAP goes above and beyond to also engage with our public audience and local community through outreach and …
Happy October! We hope everyone is doing well and is staying safe! Things are definitely looking a little different here this fall, as MSU has made the decision to stay remote for the entire semester. As our director, Dr. Camp, mentioned in her blog post …
Welcome back to our blog series on research and historical laboratories on MSU’s campus! In our last blog we learned more about the first three buildings added to Laboratory Row and how they have been used on campus over time. As we mentioned in our first blog post in the series, MSU was established in an effort to create an institution unlike any other and distinctly separated its curriculum from that seen in a more classical education – therefore, the push for research and hands-on learning likely acted as a major draw for student enrollment. And the creation of these laboratories over the twenty-four-year period from 1885 to 1909 clearly demonstrate the steady growth of both the College and each individual department, as almost all of these departments needed to relocate to even larger spaces!
Laboratory Row stands as a testament to MSU’s efforts to earn its place as a reputable and credible university – which seemed to have worked quite well based on MSU’s current status as an R1 institution! Today, for the last blog post in this series, we will explore the last buildings added to Laboratory Row and their place on campus today.
After the original Botany Laboratory burnt down in 1890, Professor Beal made every effort to build a new laboratory and a new museum near his Faculty Row No. 7 residence, but was prevented from doing so, as the potential site would have rested on the “Sacred Space” (Forsyth 2020a). Furthermore, a space in Laboratory Row had already been chosen by the Board of Agriculture, where it still stands today across from Linton Hall. While the College made sure to build the new structure in brick to prevent another fire, Beal notes that it “was never large enough” (Beal 1915:172) – in fact, there was not enough space in the new Botanical Laboratory or money to reinstate the extensive Botanical Collection that rested on the second floor of the original building (Kuhn 1955:182).
Most students today will recognize the new Botany Laboratory by its current name: “Old Botany.” However, the building looks a bit different than it did when it was built in 1892 because a 25×50 ft “long much needed” two-story addition was constructed in 1909 (Beal 1915:172). In 1910, a greenhouse for plant physiology was also added, which contained many cement structures to hold plants and act as benches for the students (CAP Report No. 18). While the College decided to update many of the greenhouses in 1930, it is unclear how this affected the Botany greenhouse, as greenhouses were not distinguished by number or any other individualizing moniker (CAP Report No. 18).
Left: Students on a botany trip, dated to May 1914. Right: Botany class in new Botanical Laboratory, dated to 1900. Images courtesy of MSU Archives and Historical Collections.
Today, Old Botany is the last building in Laboratory Row, of the six left standing, that is still awaiting renovations (MSU Today 2019).
As we have mentioned in a previous blog post, dairy courses were not a part of the original curriculum of the College even though dairy barns were an important fixture on the early campus. However, this changed due to the first ever short course, taught in the basement of the first Agriculture Laboratory, which focused on creamery management and was extremely successful. Therefore, a Dairy Building was completed in 1901 at the cost of $15,000, as the first building fully dedicated to dairy operations (Beal 1915:276; Forsyth 2020b).
The completed Dairy Building was 64×70 ft and stood two-stories high. The basement held store rooms, cold storage, a cheese curing room, as well as lockers and washrooms for the students (Beal 1915:276). The first floor contained a home dairy room, a butter room, a cheese room, a wash room, and a testing room (Beal 1915:276). The second floor contained classrooms, offices and laboratory spaces (Beal 1915:276). However, even with all its amenities, its use as a Dairy Building was short lived, as a new and larger Dairy Building was constructed in 1912. After the dairy operations moved to the new building, the old Dairy Building transitioned to the Department of Forestry in 1914, becoming the Forestry Laboratory (Forsyth 2020b).
Left: Early short course in creamery management (Kuhn 1955:70). Right: Forest Laboratory (originally the Dairy Laboratory), dated to 1934. Image courtesy of MSU Physical Plant.
The Department of Forestry used the structure for almost 50 years, which led to the building being renamed in honor of Professor Alfred K. Chittenden, who served as the Professor of Forestry from 1914 to 1930 (Forsyth 2020b). After Forestry relocated, Graduate Assistants for the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources used Chittenden hall until 1999, after which the building remained empty for 15 years. Since the turn of century, Chittenden Hall has been completely renovated, but this construction modernized many aspects of the building (Forsyth 2020b). One feature that remains from the building’s original purpose as the Dairy Building is a cow door, which hovers a few feet above the ground on one side of Chittenden Hall (Forsyth 2020b). Today, Chittenden Hall is used by the Graduate School.
During the renovation of Chittenden Hall, CAP performed a series of shovel pit tests along the west side of the building and uncovered a plethora of historical artifacts, including window glass, nails, ceramics, slag, and potential ash dumps (CAP Report No. 39). Additionally, CAP team members uncovered pieces of granite that matched those used in the building’s foundation, suggesting that the granites used for construction were likely cut on site (CAP Report No. 39). As this building sits in a historic portion of campus, it has been recommended that any future construction work be monitored closely.
MSU formally created the Department of Bacteriology and Farm Hygiene in 1900 and was one of the first institutions to do so (Forsyth 2020c). At first, the Department of Bacteriology and Farm Hygiene worked out of the second floor of Veterinary Laboratory (built in 1885), but was able to transition to a customized building in 1902 upon construction of the Bacteriology Laboratory, the first laboratory space wholly dedicated to bacteriology in the United States. (Forsyth 2020c). The laboratory, nicknamed “Old Bact’y,” was built at a cost of $30,000 and also included an attached barn in the rear of the building to house livestock. The building location was just northwest of the new
Botany Laboratory and on the plot of the old Experiment Station Forcing house (Beal 1915:279).
This laboratory earned quite a reputation over time, as it produced serums for profit as well as a journal, Microbiology, which was edited by the department head, Charles E. Marshall. Both of these pursuits enabled the laboratory to fund any improvements needed and sustain state-of-the-art equipment (Kuhn 1955:231). The laboratory was also used to cremate the remains from anatomical dissections on the second floor of the Veterinary Laboratory – students were paid 15 cents an hour to aid with this task (Kuhn 1955:232). After Marshall left MSU, the building was renamed as Marshall Hall and Professor Ward Giltner took over as the new head until 1947. Giltner’s role as head prompted the movement of the department to Giltner Hall in 1952 (Forsyth 2020c).
Left: Students working in a lab for bacteriology research, prior to the Bacteriology Laboratory, dated to 1890. Right: Student conducting research in Bacteriology Laboratory, dated to 1905. Images courtesy of MSU Archives and Historical Collections.
In 1991, the building received an addition in the form of a new seminar room along the rear of the structure, but underwent a full restoration in 2002 due to a donation from Randall and Mary Pittman (Forsyth 2020c). With their donation, the Pittmans renamed the building to Marshall-Adams Hall, the current building name today.
After the Department of Agriculture had moved into the first Agriculture Laboratory (built in 1889), research boomed and prompted the construction of new, larger Agriculture Hall in 1909 just south of the first laboratory on the plot of an old horse barn. When the building was dedicated, it was the largest building on campus at five-stories tall (Forsyth 2020d). The building was constructed at a cost of $182,000 with stone and paving brick, as well as concrete, to ensure that it would remain fire-proof (Beal 1915:285). The expansive building contained classrooms, laboratories, offices, and even a livestock judging pavilion, which was once located in the center of the large building (Forsyth 2020d). Additionally, the building allowed “the work of farm mechanics, meat demonstration, farm machinery, instruction in the use of cement, animal husbandry, agronomy, work in soils, [and] chemistry of the experimental station” (Beal 1915:285).
Left: Agriculture Hall, dated to 1909. Right: Original floor plan of Agriculture Hall, undated photograph. Images courtesy of MSU Physical Plant.
However, that still wasn’t enough space! In 1991, a new rear entrance was added to Agriculture Hall and a 27,000 square foot annex was added in 2000. This building is still used today and remains a main feature on MSU’s campus, but following the demolition of Morrill Hall in 2013, Ag Hall was renamed as the Justin S. Morrill Hall of Agriculture (Forsyth 2020d).
Left: Agriculture students in a lab, dated to 1918. Right: Crop class, dated to 1946. Images courtesy of MSU Archives and Historical Collections.
Image: Two-course stair structure uncovered by CAP in May, 2014 (CAP Report No. 43).
In 2014, CAP was called to a construction site near Agricultural Hall on West Circle Drive, as crews had uncovered an intact stone and concrete feature adjacent to the building’s foundation (CAP Report No. 43). Upon further excavation, a two-course stair structure was uncovered, which may be a remnant of an earlier version of the building’s façade or the foundation of a structure that predated Agriculture Hall (CAP Report No. 43).
Although no other artifacts were found, it has been recommended that the foundation feature indicates the importance of this site to MSU’s history and so any future construction work in this area should be carefully monitored or investigated further (CAP Report No. 43).
We hope you have enjoyed this blog series on laboratory spaces at MSU! A closer look at how these spaces have been added and have grown with the departments on campus truly show how dedicated MSU has been to the advancement of research from the start. Although MSU struggled in its early years, research has always been a focal point, which continues to bring in students from around the world. It is no surprise that MSU has achieved R1 status and supports so many different research endeavors on campus today!
If you enjoyed this blog series, please check out our new StoryMap on MSU’s historic laboratories! StoryMap acts as a virtual tour and allows you to click through the different laboratory spaces and see where they are located on a map of today’s MSU campus! We hope this provides you with a better idea of where these laboratories were located in comparison to one another and how the campus expanded over time.
We really enjoyed exploring MSU’s different laboratories and can’t wait to explore other historic features of campus in our future blog posts!
Welcome back to our blog series on research and historical laboratories on MSU’s campus! In our last blog we discussed how MSU branched out to expand their research to fields outside sciences directly related to agriculture, such as chemistry and botany, by creating a Mechanical …
Welcome back to our blog series on research and historical laboratories on MSU’s campus! In our last blog, we talked about the first two laboratories on campus, the Chemistry and Botanical Laboratories. Both laboratories highlight MSU’s commitment to agriculture, as a better understanding of the hard …
Welcome back to our blog series on research and historical laboratories on MSU’s campus! In our last blog, we outlined how the university gained its start with an emphasis on scientific research and its uses for agriculture. Although the College used as much of its limited funds as possible to provide students with a state-of-the-art chemistry laboratory, it was located within College Hall with all of the other classrooms and offices. Thus, in spite of the College’s efforts to engage students in actual chemical experimentation, dangerous fumes turned the laboratory into a hazard for others in the building. As the chemistry laboratory was quickly becoming a model for other scientific courses in the College that still relied on book learning, the question was not whether to shut down the laboratory – but how to continue to offer chemistry courses in a safer manner.
An opportunity to overhaul the chemistry laboratory arose in 1869 when the College was granted $10,000 from the State Legislature (Beal 1915:268). With the new funds, the College would be able to provide the chemistry laboratory with its own building and could fix some of the historic problems of the old laboratory in College Hall.
Left: Chemical Laboratory, dated to 1896. Image courtesy of MSU Archives and Historical Collections. Right: 1899 Campus Map with Chemical Laboratory indicated by red square (Lautner 1978).
Under a new professor of chemistry, Dr. Robert C. Kedzie, the new Chemistry building was constructed with the subject matter in mind and revolutionized the way that laboratory space should be built for hands-on research. Learning from the problems with the College Hall laboratory space, Kedzie designed the new building so that work tables sat at windows rather than between them to provide better lighting (Beal 1915:268). Additionally, hoods were provided along the walls with ventilation pipes that led up to a chimney – the first ventilation system of its kind in the United States (Forsyth 2020). This chimney and its rather boxy structure earned the building the nickname “Chemical Fort.” The laboratory was finished in 1871 and was located on a lot southeast of College Hall, where the fountain in front of the main campus library stands today.
However, even with a building all to itself, the Chemistry Department appealed for even more space! And this clearly continued to be the case, as the Chemical Fort acquired two separate additions over the next few decades, with the first built in 1882 and the second built in 1911. This extra space also allowed for the creation of Physics and Electrical Engineering courses, which were soon taught alongside chemistry in the Fort (Forsyth 2020).
By 1927, both Electrical Engineering and Chemistry vacated the Fort upon the completion of new customized buildings, leaving just Physics, who stayed in the Fort for additional two decades. Following the departure of Physics, the Fort was used as a library annex until the Main Library was finished in 1955. At this point, without any departments or books to house, the Fort was demolished.
As chemistry clearly contributed to agricultural research, the field would have been extremely valuable to the early College, which likely made its requests for space a priority. Thus, the creation of the Chemistry Laboratory, as well as its two additions, clearly demonstrate chemistry’s importance and the College’s efforts to address their ever present need for more space.
The original Botanical Laboratory, also known as Beal’s Laboratory, may seem like one of MSU’s wonders of the world, as William J. Beal is often recognized for his Botanical Garden that still exists on campus today and because some spooky legends surround the original laboratory site. While previous blog posts discuss Beal and the laboratory, it is important to highlight how this Laboratory fits into MSU’s history as a research focused university!
In comparison to chemistry, early botanical instruction at the College followed the more traditional path at the time and was confined to textbook learning (Beal 1915:61). Although the first instructor of Botany, Professor Henry Goadby, brought the first microscopes to the college, students used it primarily for identification rather than to understand the structures of plant varieties (Beal 1915:61; Kuhn 1955:29). This attitude around botany changed when William J. Beal took over as Professor of Botany, as he aimed to break away from book learning and provide students with actual specimens to examine. In fact, upon his arrival at the university, Beal argued that a proper laboratory space was necessarily to further botanical studies – just as one was needed for chemistry.
Once the College was able to secure the necessary funds for construction in 1880, Beal helped design the space so that it was fitted with a laboratory, lecture rooms, offices, and a museum for Botanical specimens – which included one of the largest collections of corn varieties (Kuhn 1955:111)! Furthermore, its close proximity to the Botanical Gardens allowed students to get hands-on experience setting plants according to species – by the time Beal retired in 1910, over 2,100 species were represented in the garden (Kuhn 1955:111).
Botanical Gardens, undated photograph. Image courtesy of MSU Archives and Historical Collections.
Left: Beal and his students in the Botanical Laboratory. Right: 1880 Michigan Agricultural College campus map (“U” indicates location of the original Botanical Laboratory). Images courtesy of MSU Archives and Historical Collections.
Unfortunately, likely because the laboratory had been built on a budget of $6,000 and was not constructed with bricks, it burned down in 1890, destroying much of the material kept inside (Beal 1915:61). However, even with such a short time as a laboratory based discipline, it clearly made a big impact on the College as plans were made immediately to rebuild the laboratory. While a new laboratory was built to replace it, the new laboratory was located in a different location of campus – as a part of Laboratory Row.
As no building has ever replaced this plot after the first Botanical Laboratory burned down, CAP has been able to conduct some excavation work in this location as an effort to learn more about the original building. In 2016, CAP uncovered a portion of the foundation and burned soils, as well as associated artifacts, including melted glass and windows. It has been recommended that any construction in this region be closely monitored, as the likelihood for discovery of relevant historical material is high.
Image of Unit 2 from an excavation of the original Botanical Laboratory, dated to 2016 (CAP Report No. 64).
Join us for our next post in the Blog Series to learn more about the historic laboratories on campus and how Laboratory Row played a part!
We are all familiar with Michigan State University’s (MSU) status as a part of the top ten conference (Go Spartans!) and for its place as a top tier research university (recently ranked in the top 8% nationwide). In fact, MSU offers 170 degrees for undergraduate …