Union Literary Society House (1890—1953)

Union Literary Society House as it appears in the Michigan State College Properties Survey of 1934. This undated photo was taken prior to the addition of a wraparound porch, which was built in spring 1907. Photo Credit: M.S.U. Physical Plant.

One of the Michigan Agricultural College’s primary duties beyond the teaching of scientific agriculture was to prepare young men (and, later, women) for leadership positions in their home communities. An important part of this goal was practice in public speaking, debate, and writing skills. As a result students organized societies that held regular forums for discussions, essays, and lectures. In the 1860s each class year formed its own lyceum, as they were known; their names ranged from the grandiloquent to the droll: The Cincinnatus Lyceum, The Excelsior Lyceum, The Sons of Demeter… and The Stoical Pen Yanker’s Society, or S.P.Y.S.[Beal, p. 205]

Then in 1872, the first Greek-letter “secret” society was installed as the Iota chapter of Delta Tau Delta. The fraternity was exclusive in membership and emphasized brotherhood and loyalty, but otherwise its gatherings were not significantly different from those of a lyceum. However that added camaraderie was quite an attraction; another national fraternity chapter was chartered in the following year, and the class-year societies were soon “eclipsed” in attendance.[Kuhn, p. 131]

In response, twelve men from the classes of ’76, ’77, ’78, and ’79 founded the Union Literary Society on March 31, 1876. They asked President T. C. Abbot and Professor George Thompson Fairchild (Professor of English 1866–1879, acting President ’72–’73) for a faculty charter; the professors “urged them to invite all non-fraternity men, in order to preserve social equality in a growing college.” The student leaders refused, wanting to include only “the best men” so better to compete with other societies, including the fraternities.[Kuhn, pp. 130–132. Wolverine (1907), p. 89]

As an aside, this competitiveness—chiefly in literary oratory—should not be taken lightly from our modern perspective: to wit, Delta Tau Delta was itself formed in response to a rigged vote in an oratory competition at Bethany College, (West) Virginia, in 1858. And at M.A.C. in 1895, a student gunning for the national competition “left school for a few days to secure expert assistance.” When he returned and was brought before the faculty on truancy charges, he responded that “his duty to the society [was] paramount to his duty to the college.” He was suspended for the remaining two weeks of the fall term. His fellow seniors, believing he had been expelled, protested to the faculty. For their efforts in advocacy—some might have said insurgency—many were dismissed from the College, leaving the class of ’96 “a broken class.”[Kuhn, pp. 186–187]

The Union Literary Society received its faculty charter in 1877 and over the next four decades was followed by more than a score of local men’s and women’s societies, with names like Eclectic, Hesperian, Feronian, Columbian, Olympic, Themian, Sororian, and Eunomian. These societies were usually assigned a room (or shared a room) in one of the college buildings, and Union Lit was no exception: the society at first met in a classroom in College Hall, then acquired space in the basement of the first Wells Hall.

Unique among the societies however, U.L.S. was the only one ever to have its own building on campus when it built the Union Literary Society hall just west of Wells Hall in 1890. Its architect was F. S. Robinson of Grand Rapids, who “was at one time a student at the college.” Construction was supervised by Professor Rolla Carpenter. After Feronian, the first local society for women, was chartered in 1891, U.L.S. offered their hall for Feronian meetings as well. Though it looked much like a house and was often referred to as such, it only contained rooms for meetings and recreation, and was never used as a residence.[29th AR (1890), pp. 54–55. MAC Record, 1(22), 16 Jun 1896, p. 4]

That said, the house did host the occasional overnight guest, since in 1910 U.L.S. constructed a major renovation on the house which removed first floor partitions to create a large ballroom, and raised the roof to increase the space on the second floor, adding a library and rooms in which visiting alumni could stay. College Architect Edwyn Bowd designed the changes, which cost about $3,500. U.L.S. charter member William K. Prudden (M.A.C. ’78), a Lansing businessman whose Prudden Wheel Company was a major supplier to the burgeoning automotive industry, contributed matching funds to active members’ donations, and arranged a loan for the balance.[Union Lit Speculum, 5(1), 1 Feb 1910, pp. 1–2]

Edwyn Bowd’s design for Union Literary Society House renovation, 1910. Image from Union Lit Speculum 5(1), 1 Feb 1910, p. 6, online at M.S.U. Archives.

A few years later, U.L.S. asked permission to further expand the building to add living accommodations, but the Board of Agriculture refused, its special committee claiming (without specific citation) that “records were found which favored the erection on the campus of buildings by literary societies for literary purposes only.” Another group, the Delphic Literary Society, asked to build on campus at the same time and were also denied by the Board, which felt it would be unfair to the eight societies that already owned or rented buildings off campus.[Beal, p. 205. Lautner, p. 61. 29th AR, pp. 54–55. Minutes, 19 May 1915, p. 202]

Union Literary Society House in 1925, two years before its purchase by the College, with wraparound porch (added 1907) and the raised roofline of Bowd’s 1910 addition. Rampant ivy obscures much of the structure, including the three east-facing windows of the second floor library. Photo Credit: Wolverine (1925), p. 302.

Over the years the societies evolved to include many of the “social attributes” of fraternities and sororities. U.L.S.’s first president later wrote of their hall, “Under the mollifying influences of a pleasant room… our austere bearing broke. Music crept in (we had almost none at first) then came the ladies and later the banquets.” Ultimately, those literary societies that did not fade away came to be affiliated with national fraternities and sororities; many of today’s chapters at M.S.U. can trace their origins back to local societies. Union Lit merged into the Ae-Theon Society in 1933, which two years later became a chapter of Delta Chi.[Kuhn, p. 131. MSC Record, 39(6), Feb 1934, p. 12. LCD (1933), p. 472]

The College leased their on-campus hall in 1925 for use by the Department of English, and purchased it two years later. By then the Union Literary Society had already been living off campus for several years, in a series of rental properties including the Collingwood house on Sunset Lane. When English moved to Morrill Hall in 1937, the Department of Foreign Language made its home in the former U.L.S. hall. It briefly became the Journalism building in 1950, but only saw occasional use for classes after that. It survived until December 1953, when it was razed to make way for the new Library building (now Main Library, West Wing).[MSC Record, 31(1), 21 Sep 1925, p. 5. LSJ, 30 Nov 1953, p. 13; 10 Dec 1953, p. 35]

Former Union Lit building in use by the English department, undated photo circa 1935. The wraparound porch from 1907 has been replaced by a small stoop with curved roofline. Photo Credit: M.S.U. Archives, which notes that a caption on the back of the original photo is mistaken in calling this a “Faculty Row House.”

For more about the evolution of local societies into fraternities and sororities in the early twentieth century, see The Society Houses.