Protecting Michigan State's Material Culture
As the semester comes to a close, I feel confident that I am not alone in saying that we all feel a bit frenzied. As I looked through my notes taken during my research time at the University Archives from the last few weeks, I …
The first step in my Campus Archaeology project this year is getting site numbers. These numbers are based on the state, county and site number. They are designated by the Office of the State Archaeologist, and are unique to each site. The reason that you …
I took a break from researching my sustainability project this week and focused my efforts on my favorite holiday: Halloween! Late October certainly has a notorious reputation in certain parts of Michigan, but I was curious to see how (and if) students on the historic campus celebrated Halloween. I could not find many records of university sanctioned events, but scrapbooks in the University Archives yielded a few Halloween invitations in the shapes of pumpkins, black cats, and witches. One invitation to a banquet in 1916 reads, “The witches dance behind the moon in shadowy array; the tomcats their weird pranks and yowl the night away; the owls screetch out their ghostly songs with the glad break of day; we beg that you will come along and join the merry fray.”
An invitation to a party hosted at Peoples Church in 1915 states, “On Halloween the pumpkins grin, the night owls prance, the tomcats scream, the witches dance, and all is eerie, leery skeery. But come and help us celebrate, below you’ll find the time and date. We’ll try to make the evening bright and cheery.” Both invitations are hand written and signed with female names. It appears as though women were throwing the best Halloween parties on the historic campus!
I looked through all the October volumes of the M.A.C. Record (1896-1942) and found only one mention of Halloween festivities, a summary of a party in 1904 hosted by President and Mrs. Snyder. The scene sounds ripped from a Vincent Price movie: “Jack-o-lanterns grinned down upon the ghostly company, sheeted and masked, which glided about the darkened rooms. The spectral crowd groaned their applause as they listened to the history of the festival, to strange, uncanny tales and weird music. A skeleton dance won their highest approval.”
A play called Hallow’en Revels (1898) – Three witches gather to discuss Halloween entertainment under the cover of thunder and lightning. The third witch asks, “What sayest thou of the Hallowe’en play, sister, what provence is it to be held in?” The second witch responds, “At the Michigan Agricultural College, three miles west of Okemos.” The first witch quips, “What sayest thou? Why that’s the place I fell into last week when my broom-stick broke on that pesky comet.” The witches name several faculty members, who are to be represented by animals during the night’s entertainment (President Snyder is to be a sheep while other professors are represented by pug dogs and porcupines!). Each professor must stand trial before the witches and was charged with a variety of offenses ranging from “climbing a tree” to “boisterous conduct on the streets of Lansing.” One witch concludes the introduction to the play with this summary of the performance: “Oh, mostly jokes on teachers, students, departments and the like, and lastly, a sort of hellish combination of all the devils and evils on the Campus.” The play appears to be a roast of campus figures and college life, set to the backdrop of a Hallow’en party and trial scene.
Author: Amy Michael
Michigan State University was originally established in 1855 as an agricultural college of the state and after almost 160 years, it has grown to become one of the largest educational institutions in the U.S. Over the years, MSU has become known for, not only its …
The West Circle neighborhood is known for its beautiful Collegiate Gothic dorms, with beautifully sculpted gardens and peaceful stands of trees. One grove of trees though holds exceptional significance in the legacy of our university. Just west of Williams Hall is a grove of thirty-three …
This week I have been working to pull together my notes from the University Archives building construction and use of space on campus. Though this is not the focus of my project this year (this topic has been addressed by previous CAP researchers Eve Avdoulos and Sabrina Perlman), I believe there are some threads here that could be easily tied to my sustainability research. For example, in speaking with Archives researchers, I have heard that the earliest structures on campus were made of locally sourced bricks and stone. If Anyone has a reference for this or could point me in a direction where I could find more information, I would appreciate it! Since it is well-documented that the first cohorts of students were just as much laborers as scholars, it would be interesting to know what role students played in the construction of campus buildings.
In its present design, Michigan State University’s campus is impressively expansive. The campus began as a small cluster of buildings set in swampy wooded land which necessitated much clearing. The radiation of campus growth projected from this initial cluster, but not in an even concentric fashion from the center. Buildings in the center of campus (now only a “center” in metaphor alone) are now historical landmarks just as much as they are functioning university structures. Initially, college buildings all faced the center of campus; now, with growth of the institution, the buildings all face away from the center (even though the physical structure remains unchanged). Some shifts in building design reflect a temporary need for accommodation (e.g. facilities needed to teach in and house students after war).
Archaeological data illustrate the university response to growth in all arenas (e.g. need for increased food production/sourcing in response to greater enrollment, need for reevaluation of campus planning in response to changing transportation technology, and need for adoption of modern energy technologies in response to greater campus-wide usage). For example, during a 2012 CAP excavation, the remains of a boiler house were discovered in what is currently the middle of a road. Archival documents show that the university was under pressure to provide energy for the campus that was outgrowing the technology infrastructure. The boiler house, seen archaeologically as an abandoned technology, was the last effort prior to the adoption of an integrated system.
This semester I will continue to visit the Archives to fill in some gaps regarding food, energy, and transportation practices on the historic campus. While I think as this point I have exhausted the material from the President’s Papers and student diaries, I am going to investigate the Annual Reports to the Board of Agriculture next week.
Author: Amy Michael
Numbers are important for archaeologists. We number each excavation we do, each hole within our surveys, and every single bag of artifacts we fill. These numbers help us keep organized. We can match the bag numbers with the site numbers, shovel test numbers with specific …
September is a wonderful time at Michigan State University. Students have just returned to campus, the football season has just begun, and there is a hint of color change in the trees. Most of the construction from the summer has ended, and the concrete is …
A quick GoogleScholar search with the keyword “sustainability” will yield thousands of hits. Paring down the search by adding “university” will still result in a host of results. Sustainability practices at the university level have been en vogue in the United States in recent years, but Michigan State has the distinction of being an academic institution that has, arguably, been “green” all along.
Readers of this blog may recall the ongoing CAP project documenting sustainability on the historic campus. This project continues this year, with research focusing again on uniting archaeological archival evidence for sustainable practices in energy, food, and transportation. Long before the town of East Lansing had properly come into existence, early students were spending as much time laboring on campus as studying for their classes. Imagine splitting your day between clearing brush and hitting the books!
Between the Campus Archaeology Program and the fantastic resources at the University Archives, we are able to both dig up and read about our Spartan Past. The most exciting thing for archaeologists is when these two sources explain each other; that is, we use one source (say, an excavation of an old dormitory) to explain another (say, diaries detailing like in that old dormitory). Often, I have found that scrapbooks and pamphlets, receipts and flyers, journal entries and Trustees minutes have offered more perspective on the historic past than anything found in a book.
Working with CAP Director Dr. Lynne Goldstein and recent MSU graduate Dr. Jennifer Bengston, I have identified several journals that may be best to disseminate our work on the sustainability project. As of now, the most difficult information to find has been that relating to energy practices. Though we have some exciting information about an old boiler that gives us insight into how the university was dealing with growth, more information on energy practices (especially during the early decades of campus life) is needed. Please share with CAP if you have any ideas!
Author: Amy Michael
It is fall 1900 and you are eagerly awaiting your first steps into your new home. Like many freshman you are nervous, anxious, and ready to taste some independence. You join the other 59 female students, and as you enter the brand new red sandstone …