Social Significance

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Illustration 7. Fluted doric columns on porch of Angell Hall.

During the tenure of President Marion Leroy Burton (1920-1925), the UM campus expanded considerably, fueled by the growth of the state’s automobile and manufacturing industries. This growth of local industry, in turn, stimulated the need for increasing numbers of educated engineers and administrators to operate and administer new factories. To fill this need, a larger campus had to be built. University administrators and architects began to emphasize the management and planning of campus growth, with clear, unifying circulation routes, and building ensembles that complemented one another stylistically. The university’s enrollment grew so quickly that classroom space became difficult to reserve in the old University Hall. (Illustration 3) Classroom spaces were in continuous use, making impromptu student-teacher interchanges impossible after class, and were widely separated from faculty offices, undermining efforts to create a group spirit between faculty and departmental majors. [5]

Administrators planned Angell Hall as a multipurpose facility, to provide significantly more classrooms and to house the widely scattered departments of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. Additionally, the first floor of Angell Hall accommodated the offices of the University President, the Dean of the College of L., S., and A., and other top administrators for many years, making it a focal point for campus activity and, at times, student unrest. (The University President maintained an office in Room 1017 of Angell Hall until 1948. At that time, the President's Office relocated across the street to Room 2522 in the new Administration Building, now known as the LSA Building.)

5. Ibid, p. 1574.