This dance party was held over 100 years ago by the Martha Cook dormitory! 🎉

One of the earliest women’s dormitories on campus, the Martha Cook building was full events like dance parties, afternoon teas, and plays led by the students!

Here are a few memories from women who lived there during the building’s earliest years:

🐴 “One event that is very dear to me is the Birthday Party we gave to President Emeritus Angell. He told me the most delightful stories of his adventures on horseback,” Emilie Sargent wrote in her Alumnae Survey.

🕯️ Doris Anschutz, who lived in Martha Cook the first year it opened, described a celebratory breakfast when the women, all holding candles, lit one another’s tapers from a single flame they called “the spark of friendship:”

“When the spark of friendship was passed from girl to girl - I knew then that I belonged, and that Martha Cook, and the University, were mine.”

🌷 The Glee Club also often visited to serenade them! Doris wrote: “They were always impromptu affairs - and the serenaders would most romantically receive a flower or two from some darkened window above.”

🎵 Music wasn’t reserved for men, either; alum Harriet Haven wrote fondly about her memories of Martha Cook’s residents singing “songs after dinner every night!”

🏰 Ellen Sargeant wrote of her time at Martha Cook: “This was a glorious year. The building, itself, is so marvelous I never did quite come to earth during the entire year. I felt as though I were living in another era, a guest in a wonderful old castle.”

You can read more about women’s historical experiences at the Martha Cook building in the 1924 Alumnae Surveys from U-M`s early women students, which are digitized and available online!

Click through to see the whole panorama showing this 1916 party from Martha Cook’s early history!

📸: Sara Gladys Weir photograph album, 1916, Martha Cook dormitory

#MarthaCook #UMich #AnnArbor #StudentLife #Herstory #WomensHistory ...

Study spots from across U-M history! ⭐

The archives are full of photos that show students across Ann Arbor, digging into their books in all kinds of different places. 📖

Some of the more unusual study spots range from wildflower meadows, to bridges above the Huron River! 🌸

For students who preferred the Graduate Library, in a joking article from 1980, Michigan Daily writer Nick Katsarelas advised them:

"Every so often, tap your pencil with a calculated nervousness. Or better yet, exhale loudly,” to prove to other people how difficult the work is.

(We can’t really confirm whether that’s an effective strategy. 😂)

Jokes aside, wherever you study, remember: there`s a good chance that you`re being historically accurate.

Good luck studying for finals, Wolverines! You can do it! 😊

Bonus question: what’s the oddest place you’ve ever studied in?

#TBT #Studying #UMich #StudentLife #UniversityHistory #AnnArbor

📸: Photos from the News & Information Photographs, Residential College papers, Emile Low scrapbook, Gertrude Bunson scrapbook, & Glenn Munn scrapbook ...

Everyone`s talking about #SpotifyWrapped, but what about Archives Wrapped?

Let’s take a look back at how you used the archives in 2023! 📚

Did you know that you all have spent a total of over 300 hours in our Reading Room this year? 🤯

Click through for fun facts about the Historical Library, including some of your favorite collections, research topics, and songs from Michigan history!

If you visited the archives this year, what was your favorite thing that you saw? 👀

If you want to see these collections, we welcome drop-in visitors during our open hours, and you can find us on the University of Michigan’s North Campus! 😊

#Archives #YearInReview #LibraryMemes #UMich #LibraryLife #BentleyHistoricalLibrary ...

The secret to starting your research off right is to make a list of keywords before you begin– including names!

This is an incredibly crucial step. We have come across records for people with as many as six different names before! 🤯

By writing down any nicknames, alternate spellings, or married names you may need to know, you’ll actually make your research go faster. ⚡

Picture this: you finish an essay, thinking you’ve found everything there is to know about someone’s history. You sit back with a long sigh, and take a sip of your tea.

Before you close your computer, though, you run one more search– just in case there’s another file under a slightly different name.

And you find a whole collection that you haven’t checked yet. 😱

If you write a list of names before you start your research, you can find that extra collection right away, and save yourself from having to scramble towards the end of your essay!

Click through for examples of the types of names you want to be sure to write down, and an especially helpful bonus tip.

Good luck preparing for finals, Wolverines! We believe in you! 😊

#ResearchTip #StudyHack #HistoricalLibrary #ArchivesLife ...