A Brief History of East Lansing

Category: M.A.C. People

  • The Local Societies and the Union Literary Society House (1890–1953)

    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…

  • The Society Houses

    For a look at the origins of the local societies, see The Local Societies and the Union Literary Society House. As the twentieth century dawned, the two chapters of national fraternities that had been established at the Michigan Agricultural College in the 1870s were no longer active. The Iota chapter of Delta Tau Delta disbanded…

  • The “Delta Club”

    In spring 1910 a group of junior faculty (mostly instructors, with a few assistant professors and Experiment Station research assistants) formed the “Delta Club.” Beal only tells us that it was organized in 1910 and in 1913 “occupies the Hewit house.” He gives no description of the group and lumps it in with the literary societies and…

  • Belle Sarcastic (1890—1903)

    Belle Sarcastic was a Holstein-Friesian cow owned by the Michigan Agricultural College in the 1890s. For a dairy cow, she garnered quite a bit of fame in her lifetime, and was a source of great pride for the College. She was bred by H. P. Doane of Duffield in Genesee County, and calved on January 18, 1890.…

  • Professor Rolla C. Carpenter

    Rolla Clinton Carpenter (1852–1919, M.A.C. ’73, M.S. ’76, LL.D. ’07) has never had a campus building named for him, nor other significant tribute, but he nevertheless was a major asset to the Michigan Agricultural College’s early development. During a fifteen-year tenure at M.A.C., he built the initial foundation upon which the M.S.U. College of Engineering stands today. Carpenter…

  • Professor Robert C. Kedzie

    Robert Clark Kedzie was born January 28, 1823, in Delhi, New York. He studied chemistry at Oberlin College, where he met his future wife Harriet Elizabeth Fairchild, then moved to Ann Arbor where he earned an M.D. in the first class of the University’s newly formed medical school in 1851. While there he “presented an…

  • The Women’s Cooperative Houses (1936–1956)

    Enrollment at Michigan State grew stratospherically during the era 1920–1950. Especially fulsome was the growth in number of female students, as the Division of Home Economics (established 1896 and commonly called the “Women’s Course”) reached maturity. A dedicated Home Economics building in 1924 improved the classroom and laboratory plant, which contributed to increased enrollment: from 537 female…

  • Bacteriology Laboratory — Marshall–Adams Hall (1902)

    The early years of bacteriology research at M.A.C. are closely tied to the man for whom this building is today named, Dr. Charles Edward Marshall (1866–1927). C. E. Marshall joined the staff of the Experiment Station in 1896 as bacteriologist and hygienist, a position he held until 1902. During this period, he somehow managed to find the…

  • Beal Botanical Gardens (1873)

    William James Beal (1833–1924) was Professor of Botany at M.A.C. from 1870 to 1910. He also served as Professor of Horticulture 1872–1882 and Professor of Forestry 1882–1902, two fields that grew from being sub-disciplines of botany until they warranted their own departments and professors. Even a short list of Beal’s accomplishments is lengthy and distinguished, including being credited…