Professor Anna Bayha

Anna Elizabeth Bayha was born at Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1886. She graduated from Ohio State in 1910 with a B.A. degree. For a few years she was an Assistant in Domestic Arts at Kansas State Agricultural College, and from around 1914 to 1918 was Instructor in Textiles and Clothing at the University of Minnesota.¹

Appointed to the Michigan Agricultural College faculty on January 1, 1919, as Instructor in Domestic Arts, she quickly rose in rank through Assistant Professor to Associate Professor by April 1920.²

Her focus was on textiles and clothing, and she was instrumental in expanding the department’s research and teaching in that field. In 1921, she initiated a project for the freshman sewing class in which the students would consult with mothers of East Lansing to plan and design dresses for their children, to be sewn by the students for class credit. Later, she worked with the F. N. Arbaugh company, in its day one of Lansing’s most prominent department stores, “to offer a course in commercial apprenticeship in clothing, millinery, textiles, costume design and house furnishings.”³

On a side note, she was part of a foursome (along with Edward H. Ryder, professor of history and political economics—and, at the time, mayor of East Lansing—his wife Georgia Ryder, and registrar Elida Yakeley) that went on an around-the-world tour lasting from August 1923 to January 1924. This sojourn, with planned stops in Japan, China, India, the Middle East, and Europe, generated much excitement in the pages of the M.A.C. Record, which published letters from several alumni who told of having shown the Ryder party their little corner of “the Orient.” The M.A.C. community also went through a period of deep concern, as it took nearly three weeks to learn of the quartet’s safety in their having left Japan several days prior to the deadly earthquake on September 1 that devastated Yokohama and Tokyo.⁴

In her fifteenth year of service to Michigan State, Professor Bayha died unexpectedly in July 1933 at the Mayo Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was just 47 years old. In her memory, the faculty established an alumni fund “as a memorial to her devotion to the home economics department, her untiring efforts in behalf of the students with whom she came in contact, and the high professional standard which she maintained at all times.” The proceeds of the fund, about $300, were used to purchase furnishings to improve the appearance of the main hall of the Home Economics Building.⁵

In 1943, the department named its four practice houses, where students would live for a term as a practicum in household management, in honor of four women: Ellen Swallow Richards (1842–1911, the founder of the home economics movement) and three former Michigan State faculty members. Three of the houses, Faculty Row № 4, № 5, and № 6, were named for Ethel G. Webb (1881–1940, Associate Professor 1923–1940), Maude Gilchrist (1861–1952, Dean of Home Economics 1901–1913), and Mrs. Richards respectively.⁶

However, these three assignments only lasted for a couple of years. Webb House and Gilchrist House were razed in December 1945, and Richards House was reassigned to the International Office when its former home, Faculty Row № 3, was razed in spring 1946. Maude Gilchrist’s name was later reapplied to one of the residence halls that replaced the old houses.

Meanwhile, “House #63”—previously known for decades as the Gunson residence—was named for Anna Bayha. Attached to the botany greenhouses and standing adjacent to the Botanical Garden, it avoided the burst of Faculty Row destruction necessitated by the residence halls that now make up North Neighborhood.⁷

When the Home Management Building (later known as the Paolucci Building) was completed in 1947, the practice units were moved there, and the Bayha House became the home of the College Nursery School, which had at first been housed on the third floor of the Home Economics building, and then for a few years in Faculty Row № 11 (built 1885 as № 10). Bayha House retained its name even as its purpose changed.⁸

In February 1954, Anna’s sister Elsie granted $500 to Michigan State College “to be used under the discretion of Dean [Marie] Dye in Home Economics to buy something for the Anna Bayha Home Management House.” It seems she was unaware the house had been repurposed for the nursery school, and moreover that it was already doomed—it stood on the planned site for the new Main Library. It was razed later that year (or early next) and the Bayha name vanished from campus. It’s not clear what the Board and Dean Dye did with Elsie’s grant.⁹

But the house was not Professor Bayha’s only namesake. Shortly after her death, her estate presented M.S.C. with a stipend and trust fund “to form the Anna E. Bayha Award to be given each year to the student in the Division of Home Economics who, at the close of [their] junior year, has shown unusual ability in the field of clothing, has a high scholastic standing, and who is partially or wholly self-supporting.” The Lansing chapter of Zonta International, a professional womens’ organization, also established a similar annual award in her name.¹⁰

As of 2023,^† the Anna E. Bayha Award continues to be presented each spring by the Department of Art, Art History, and Design in the College of Arts and Letters.¹¹

1. USDA Office of Experiment Stations Bulletin 247, Dec 1911, p. 29. University of Minnesota Annual Register. 18(2), Dec 1916, p. 31. Ohio State University Alumni Register, 22(1), July 1917, p. 27. ↩︎
2. MAC Record, 24(14), 17 Jan 1919, p. 5. 50th AR (1920), p. 9. Minutes, 21 Apr 1920, p. 456. ↩︎
3. MAC Record, 26(16), 28 Jan 1921, p. 9; 34(8), Apr 1929, p. 9. ↩︎
4. MAC Record, 28(35), 20 Aug 1923, p. 11; 29(1), 24 Sep 1923, p. 9; 29(7), 5 Nov 1923, p. 12. ↩︎
5. MSC Record, 38(11–12), Jul–Aug 1933, p. 17; 43(3), May 1938, p. 9. ↩︎
6. Minutes, 11 Jun 1943, p. 1922. ↩︎
7. Minutes, 28 Aug 1941, p. 1753; 11 Jun 1943, p. 1922. ↩︎
8. Minutes, 7 Aug 1947, p. 2467. Violet Charlotte Fee, Master’s Thesis (1967). ↩︎
9. Minutes, 19 Feb 1954, p. 3295. LSJ, 26 Nov 1954, p. 44. ↩︎
10. Minutes, 18 Apr 1935, p. 1156. Minutes, 9 Nov 1935, p. 1206. LSJ, 21 Jun 1939, p. 11. ↩︎
11. CAL News, 2 May 2023. ↩︎

1. † As of this writing, announcement of a 2024 award recipient has not been found by this author.↩︎