Residents of the ‘two-dollar house’ at 335 Ann St., where socialist students set up low-cost cooperative housing. (Photo courtesy Bentley Historical Library.)
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Some months earlier, two students, Charlie Orr and Len Kimball, had been sitting around talking. They were socialists—followers of Norman Thomas, who would take nearly a million votes in that year’s presidential election—and members of a U-M socialist club called the Roundtable Club. Orr said the club should quit talking about socialism and start practicing it. Broke students needed room and board. The club renamed itself the Socialist Club and put together a plan. One of the oldest houses in town—335 E. Ann, still standing across from City Hall—was available for $55 a month. The club signed a lease and put out a plea for cast-off beds, tables and chairs. They asked any farmer within 70 miles of Ann Arbor to donate produce; in exchange, they’d give the farmer’s son, if he wanted to go to college, rent-free living. Only students who would otherwise have to drop out were invited, with “socially minded” non-drinkers preferred. The fees were what attracted attention — $1 a week for a bed, $1 a week for food, about 10 percent of the usual expenses. The founders christened it the Michigan Socialist House. But around campus it was quickly known just as “the two-dollar house.” It filled immediately—26 men in a house built for a family of six.
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The tightest possible economies were imposed. A volunteer house steward bought most of the food from local farmers. A day’s typical menu was, for breakfast, oatmeal, applesauce and coffee; for lunch, soup, creamed carrots and cabbage slaw with bacon; for dinner, salmon loaf, baked potato, vegetables, tea and cookies. No tablecloths, no napkins. Provisions were put on a scale; 24 diners needed 13 pounds of potatoes, no more. Guests paid 15 cents a meal, 25 cents to spend the night. The house provided 60-watt light bulbs; if you wanted a hundred-watt bulb, it was five cents a week. To take a bath, you used the water heater for 25 minutes, then turned it off. All cooking and housework was cooperative, with daily and weekly responsibilities for each man. A committee appointed by the elected house board inspected each room weekly.
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Most residents were graduate students. Several were in their late 20s and 30s, and a number were foreign students. There was Sher Mohamed Quraishi, an Indian who spoke eight languages; Erwin Lindhorst, a Detroiter who called himself a Communist; Stewart Way, a socialist in electrical engineering from a small town in Pennsylvania; Carl Nelson, a self-described anarchist from the Upper Peninsula; Paul Howells, who identified his politics as “Futilitarian;” and Richard Bohland, a 30-year-old from west Michigan who said he was “only a farm boy trying to get along.””Looking for more broadening contacts than those offered by the ordinary run of students,” reported Larry Lipsett, an upstate New Yorker, “I was unsatisfied until I moved into the Socialist House, where I have found the heterogeneity and personalities intensely stimulating and often amusing.”
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Was the Socialist House really socialist? Certainly not in the Marxist sense, since the house belonged to a private property-owner, not a government entity. It would be more accurate simply to call it a cooperative, and it was one of the first college housing co-ops in the country, possibly the first. It spawned U-M’s co-op tradition. A group split off to form the Wolverine Eating Co-operative, which met for years in the basement of Lane Hall on State Street. (The playwright Arthur Miller was a member.) An early try at a woman’s Socialist House didn’t work at first, but others soon followed, along with others for both sexes, leading to the organization in 1937 of a co-op council to share costs. By World War II there were eight men’s houses and three women’s. Only three of those survived the war, but the co-ops revived and flourished in the 1960s and ’70s. Today the Inter-Cooperative Council coordinates 18 group houses and one apartment house, with memberships ranging from a dozen to more than 80.
There’s no two-dollar house any more. But at a cost of $578 a month for room and meals, the co-ops still provide one of the best housing deals in Ann Arbor.
Did you live in a co-op? What was it like? Share your story in the comments section below.
Kerri Pepperman - 1998
Jim (and John), thank you for such a nice article. I lived in the co-ops for three years of my undergraduate education at U-M, and they were three of the best years of my life. I even served as my house’s (Nakamura) president. It was very important to my parents that I earn some of my own way in college. I ended up in the co-ops because they were affordable, but I really got the bargain of a lifetime. I ended up marrying one of my housemates, and some of my former Nakamorons are amongst my closest friends. Living in the co-ops was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life.
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Deborah Schmidt - 1978
I lived in a co-op my freshman year at U-M (1971-72) and really enjoyed the experience. I figured it would be a good alternative to living in a dorm and it forced me to learn how to cook. I liked it enough to live in another co-op in Madison, Wisconsin when I transferred there as a sophmore. Both co-ops were coed but the one in Ann Arbor had fewer residents. I don’t hear much about students living in co-ops anymore but apparently the tradition is alive and well. Thanks for the article.
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Lisa Jacobs - 1981
What Kerri said. I lived in Steven’s house from 1978-1981 which has since burned down. My husband lived at Michigan House a bit later. My family went to the Co-op 60th Anniversary Reunion a few years ago. After a day of touring houses my pre-school daughter was standing outside a chain-link fence surrounding the burned remains of the foundation of Steven’s Co-op. “Mom, did you live in a hole in college?” she asked.
There is also a book called “Two-dollar house.”
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Sonia Schmerl - 1981
Lisa and I were housemates in Stevens, though I arrived one year earlier. The co-ops did provide an economical housing situation, but more importantly, they provided opportunities for participation and exposure to all sorts of people who were drawn to the co-ops for different reasons. It was an education that paralleled my formal education, and was, I think, as importat to who I became. I was a shy kid when one day someone asked for volunteers for the representative board, and I thought, “I guess I could do that.” I served as treasurer, and eventually president of the whole shebang. Lisa was the steward for Joint House, a job equivalent to running a commercial kitchen for a hundred or so boarders. We learned skills by taking on jobs we didn’t know we could do, and it was a heady feeling for a twenty-year-old to know that there was no rescue, no organization above us. We owned it.
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Lisa Kurcz- Barclay - 1953, 1954
I lived in Osterweil, a women’s co-op house the summer of 1950 when I was a second-semester freshman. Osterweil was somewhere behind the then Administration Building (the “salmon Loaf”), and like all co-ops then was a single-sex house. We had a graduate student “housemother” who was a Chinese woman from Taiwan, and we were supposed to keep regular hours and to sign in and out just like in the dorms and other housing units of the day. But she was a bit more relaxed about it than most housemothers. We bought a lot of our food at the Ann Arbor Co-Op store, and our diet was a lot better than in the original house, but we still were very frugal. We drank skim milk, and used oleomargarine as a spread. In those days, oleo was white, thanks to the dairy lobby, and each pound had a packet of yellow dye you could mash into the oleo to make it look yellow like butter. We had great discussions about whether to dyue the oleo or not, base upon whether we supported the dairy farmers, or the workers in the oleo factories, or whatever. I was a good cook and did not like housework, so I eneded up doing most of the cooking that summer, while others did the cleaning, dishwashing, etc. We were an interesting group of women- some socialists, some who were probably closet communists (this was the Mccarthy era!), most of us New Deal Democrats, and at least one Republican. We had a lot of heated discussions about world affairs, our government, civil rights, and other issues. At the end of the first week of that summer school, North Korea invaded South Korea, and so suddenly we were at war. And that was discussed at great length also. It was an exciting summer and the co-opers were most interesting and complex people- we met frequently with the residents of other co-op houses, both male and female, and shared many views. All in all, it was a great growth experience for an 18 year old!
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Kyle Marie Stock - 2005
I lived in Nakamura from 2003-2005. As Sonia mentioned it was definitely an education that paralleled my formal education. I distinctly remember watching the 2004 election returns in the basement TV room. And with bemused fondness I remember our batch of salt pancakes. We kept sugar and salt in matching bulk containers and one evening we accidentally used salt instead of sugar! One of my favorite memories was how everyone would stay at the dinner table until we wrote our nightly haiku.
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George Binder - 1945, 46, 50
I lived in the house on Ann Street from 1943 to 1945 and was house manager most of that time. Room and board was three dollars a week when I moved in and five dollars a week when I moved out upon completion of my chemical engineering degree. It was a great growth and broadening experience as well as a welcome economy.
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Evan Jon Gennrich - 2016
Hi George. My name’s Evan, current senior at UofM. I’m doing research in a class about those early days of Mich Socialist House on Ann. I would love to hear more about your experience living there!
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Kathleen Stack - 95, 2004
I lived at the North Campus coop for 4years; the 1st while getting my MPH & then returning years later to work on a PhD. Not only did living there make gradute school affordable, it was a life experience I’ll always treasure. The friendships I made at the coop were and are of immeasurable value. I also learned to love cooking at the coop. Upon joining the coop, I had to pick a job. I knew how to cook and so, joined the cooking crew. My fellow coopers’ love of cooking was contagious and to this day is one of my favorite past times. The meals we prepared and then shared are among my treasured memories.
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Lois Santalo - 1943
The book Two Dollar House was written by my very dear friend Laia Hanau, who won a Hopwood Award for it. It gives a wonderful picture of the founding of a co-op house, Lincoln House, where Laia and her husband Richard got all their meals while on campus in the early forties. Lincoln House was the first integrated housing on any campus. I don’t know if the book is still in print but if not, it should be re-printed, as it was a wonderful story. I helped her edit it.
Later, I believe Laia and Dick became house parents at a women’s co-op. I never lived in a co-op but I visited often and was very impressed with them. They made it possible for a lot of people to get an education during the Depression.
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David Strevel - 1970, 1971
I lived in the co-ops from the fall of 1968 to the spring of 1971, at Owen House, Debs House, Lester House, and North Campus. I didn’t really know how to cook but there was a Sunday vacancy and I found out that Army cookbooks could be very helpful. As time went by, I was the house steward, the Maintenance Manager for all the main campus co-ops, then on the Board of Directors just at the time the building of North Campus co-ops was starting. I was the President of the ICC at the time we were struggling to get North Campus co-ops completed and moved into.
As Sonia said above, we owned it and we had to make it work. The experience of trying and mostly succeeding was a great foundation for later life. I do regret how out of contact I am with all the co-opers I knew then so feel free to email me at dstrevel@nc.rr.com.
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Karen Epstein - 1976
I lived in Joint House and Owen House my Jr and Sr years at Michigan. After making taboule for 85 people (before food processors) and then being the breakfast dishwasher for a week cleaning dishes that sat all night, I became the house treasurer at Joint and then the division treasurer while at Owen. At Owen we had to make one vegetarian meal a week and nobody wanted to do it, so I did.
I had heard about the co-ops all my life from my father, Herman Epstein of Portland, Maine (BS 1941, MS 1944, PhD 1949), who during his first semester, subsisted mostly on ketchup, bread, and water. This changed when he found co-op housing. He was instrumental in purchasing Stevens House; he and his housemates each borrowed $10 from each of 10 relatives to get the down payment for Stevens. This was a big deal; prior to the purchase, as renters, co-ops would often have to move and find a new location each year, taking the house name along with them.
My parents met in a co-op in Cleveland during WWII; my father, a physics grad student at U of M, was doing his army service there working on airplanes and my mother went to Cleveland to pursue an MSW from Western Reserve University (now Case-Western).
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David Epstein - 1983
I,too, lived in Stevens, and was eventually house president. I was a legacy: my father had, in the late 1930’s or early 1940’s come up with the method for co-opers to to “buy back” their houses. In the ’30’s many of the houses had been bought out from under the coopers as they were seen as too leftist (“socialist” or even “communist”). Twenty students each borrowed ten dollars from each of ten relatives over a vacation. Returning to Ann Arbor, they had two thousand, and that was enough for a down-payment on a house. As minors, they were assisted by a local reverend (A.K. Stevens) who co-signed the note for them, and thus, Stevens House was purchased. From then on, the weekly charges (something like five dollars at the time) funded food, mortgage, and repayment of the relatives who had loaned money.
It was my privilege to live in Stevens for two years; my sister had lived in Joint House, across the street, some half-dozen years earlier. In addition to the living arrangements (and the consequent in-house romances), the coops provided many people with organizational training: many served as board members or office help or officers at the organizational level. It was all around life-training. But above everything else was the quality of life: interesting house-mates, fabulous discussions, lively disagreements. I loved every minute of it. Hi Lisa, Hi Sonia
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Janet Jacobsen Perkins - 63
I lived in Cheever House for two years and it was the only way I could afford to come for the wilds of the UP and go to school at Michigan. It was a great experience and the house was lovely with a dinng room paneled in walnut and a grand piano in the living room. Mrs Hawthorne was our house mother. I wonder if some of these young people today could use a good house mother now-a-days. What is so interesting is that the group I lived with has continured to take an interest in Cheever House even to having meetings every year for the residents of the 60’s.
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Mudhillun MuQaribu - 1998-2002
I lived in Luther House (Lutha’ Haus, we called it affectionately) four years at the turn of the century and served as food steward and even Out(of)House President on the ICC board eventually. I really loved polishing my French, the great parties, the sense of community within and among the ICC houses, and the return to authentic cooperative/coed/communal living it represented after a freshman year in the dorms and a childhood lived in a “cooperative community” of a family/household with more than ten children. On par with all those amenable aspects rolled together was the importance of affordability that the coops meant so critically for me in my years at Michigan. In a word or two, it was transformative and live-giving. Yes, fond memories, yes, maturation and growth, yes lifelong friends, and yes, survival at college.
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