No women allowed

Who goes there?

The Michigan Union was founded in 1903 as a club for all University of Michigan students, faculty, and alumni — all, that is, except women.

From 1907-16, the all-male Union occupied a fine stone house at the corner of State Street and South University. Then the house was torn down, and a much larger building rose in its place.

The building, like the club, was named the Michigan Union. It, too, welcomed all students, faculty, and alumni — except women.

Without a male escorting her, no woman was to be allowed through the front door. The Union’s “House Rules” of 1921 enshrined the practice in print, and the University employed a doorman, one George Johnson, to enforce it.

Johnson stood at the front entrance and greeted every woman who came up the steps. He was sorry, he would say, but they must walk back down the steps, then around the northeast corner of the building. There they could enter through the side door. Once inside, they were allowed in only three rooms without a male escort — a waiting room, a women’s dining room, and a “ladies’ powder room.”

A woman was allowed to attend dances in the Union ballroom if escorted by a man. Also, if accompanied, she was permitted throughout the building on Saturdays and Sundays — but never, under any circumstances, in the billiards room or the swimming pool.

Separate spheres

Black & white photo of doorman of the Michigan Union, George Johnson. He is standing at the inside of the front door of the Michigan Union. (Image courtesy of U-M's Bentley Historical Library)

As doorman of the Michigan Union, George Johnson stood his ground for a quarter-century, pointing women who arrived at the front entrance to the side door. (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)

The Union door rule symbolized a fact that everyone at Michigan took for granted from the late 1800s until after World War II: Outside of classroom buildings, students lived in essentially separate spheres, female and male.

Women lived in women’s dormitories, sororities, or all-women boarding houses regulated by the dean of women. Men lived in men’s dormitories, fraternities, or all-male boarding houses. Some student organizations were “co-educational.” But most of the major ones, including those with offices in the Union, were dominated by men.

The division became even more apparent when the Women’s League, an organization for women students founded by students and wives of faculty in the 1890s, raised funds for the construction of a Michigan League building. Opening in 1929, the building housed the offices of the League itself and other clubs and organizations that were strictly for women.

If a doorwoman ever guarded the League’s front door to prevent men from entering unescorted, no record of her survives.

The Union and League buildings were designed by the same architect, Irving Pond (1857-1939), who had thought a great deal about the proper place of the opposite sex in each building.

“Every man’s Union has to be planned to accommodate women,” Pond wrote in 1931, “and every women’s League must be planned in reference to the accommodation of men. In a man’s building the very minimum of accommodation for women may quite properly be provided; while in a woman’s building the maximum of accommodations must be provided for men. For men will gather in clubs and enjoy themselves without the presence of women, while women, especially college girls, find their enjoyment greatly enhanced by the presence of men or boys.”

The Union’s rule was hardly unusual. Men’s clubs around the world strictly regulated the entry of women, including the nearby clubs that U-M students would have known best — the exclusive Detroit Athletic Club (founded in 1887 “to encourage all manly sports”) and the Detroit Club, where the rules specified that membership “shall be confined to the male sex.” Their doors, too, were closely watched.

Breaking the rule

A black & white image of male staffers working at the front desk of the Michigan Union, selling newspapers and other sundries.

For decades, the Union was a hive of men at work and play. The front desk operated as a news stand. (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)

Did the rule about the front door really preserve the sanctity of the Union’s male domain? Judith Dow Rumelhart, a singer, musical producer, and philanthropist who grew up in Ann Arbor, told the Michigan Alumnus of her memory of her mother — Margaret Dow Towsley (1906-94, a U-M graduate of 1928), who would become a significant donor to U-M — breaking the rule in the mid-1940s.

Ms. Towsley was bringing her young children to the Union to catch a bus for Detroit. To buy bus tickets, she would have to go inside. So in she went, straight through the front door.

“We all followed her like little ducklings,” Rumelhart told the Alumnus. “We passed two guys going out as we were going in, and they looked at us like we had just entered the men’s bathroom.”

The timing is significant. During World War II, with so many male students away from the campus, women students took over many positions of leadership customarily held by men. When the men returned in force, old gender precedents had been shaken.

The Union doorman George Johnson died in 1946. The Union left his job vacant. Year by year, the rule became merely a custom, and by the mid-1950s, even the custom had fallen away.

‘Whatever door they prefer’

In 1954, the Union laid the cornerstone of a major addition to the north side of the building. A woman reporter for The Michigan Daily asked the Union’s current president, Tom Leopold, about the front door and women.

That was old stuff, Leopold said. “We want as many people as possible to use Union facilities, through whatever door they prefer.”

Not every Michigan woman approved of the change. “If this tradition goes the way of all the others,” a junior named Gretchen Quine remarked to the Daily, “this campus will be a pretty dull place. I’m all for a few old customs, even if it means walking out of my way.”

An iconic photograph taken in 1954 (displayed at the top of the story) is said to be the first to show women using the Union’s front door. The staged shot captures Suzanne Christy Collins (1958) and an unidentified friend busting out from inside. But it was taken when construction on the new north wing was blocking the old side door. So does the photo need an asterisk?

Penetrating the building was one thing. Membership in the Union as an organization was another. That rule was still men only, and for a long time.

Then, in 1972, a law student named Helen Forsyth filed a complaint with the Central Student Judiciary, charging that the Union’s male-only rule was “insulting to women and a violation of my rights.” The judges agreed, and Forsyth was admitted.

In any case, the Union as an organization lasted only a few more years. That left only the building, with all entrances open to everybody.
 
 
Sources included Steve Rosoff, “The Forbidden Door,” Michigan Alumnus (spring 2017); “Constructing Gender: The Origins of Michigan’s Union and League,”; The Michigan Daily; Irving Pond, “The College Union,” Architectural Forum (June 1931); George Bulanda, “The Way It Was — Nacirema Club, 1924,” Hour Detroit, 2/15/2021; and “Detroit Athletic Club,” Historic Detroit.org.

(Lead image: In 1954, a photographer caught Suzanne Christy Collins, left, and an unidentified friend breaking the rule against women using the Union’s front door without a male escort. The image is courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)

Comments

  1. Susan Serota - 1967-LSA

    I lived in South quad my first two years, 1963 & 1964. I could enter the Union but remember on the 2nd floor, there was a large room to play pool and other table games. A sign outside the door, said:
    No dogs
    No umbrellas
    No women

    Reply

    • Kirk Nims - 1971, 1980

      The no dogs part of that very likely stemmed from my father’s dog who was notorious for finding my father any place, always, on campus. Students opened doors for him as he worked to track my father.

      Reply

  2. Steve Carnevale - 1978

    Brilliant! Jim Tobin did it again.

    Reply

  3. Joe Scandura - AB-1953, MA-1955, PhD elsewhere

    All things considered, we’d all be better off accepting the fact that men and women are different, and that both play an essential and complementary role in any viable society. We can ignore the difference, but our Chinese competitors will not.

    Reply

  4. Blanche Mindlin - 1971

    My father (Bernard Lynn-1930) would visit to take me to lunch at the Union. He insisted I use the side door as only men could enter through the front. It was a tradition for him and a memory of many lunches with him.

    Reply

  5. Lynn Smith - 1969

    As a female student in the late 60’s, I used the facilities at the Union with no apparent restrictions.

    Reply

  6. Nancy Hart - 1963

    I came to the U of M in 1959. Betsy Barbour had recently opened to underclassmen. How convenient! I met and married my husband, had a baby, did my student teaching, got a teaching certificate and a B.A. Women couldn’t play in the band, or be cheerleaders. Now I have two granddaughters on campus. Much has changed!
    But we all say: Go Blue!

    Reply

  7. Clark Miller - 1971

    I was in the billiards room the day the first women entered to shoot pool. This was probably in 1970. The two older gentlemen who lovingly managed and maintained the billiards room — always in perfect condition —- looked on in shock. They had survived the entry of male “hippies” and “freaks” but when the women arrived they looked as though the world was ending. The students were all for the change!

    Reply

  8. Bev Parker - 1966

    In about 1950, my uncle Tom Dudley, who was then in college, took me through the front entrance of the Union. I felt incredibly special and that I had really gotten away with something. I was six then, so maybe no one noticed or cared about a little girl.

    Reply

  9. David Laing - 1956

    I worked in the dinning room and was married in my Junior Year. My wife met me in the Union everyday without special authorization. The ‘only male’ tradition was all but over by then.

    Reply

  10. Chris Bell - 1973; MSW 1994

    I recall having lunch my freshman year in the Union’s MUG (Michigan Union Grill) with my father (1947E) & mother (who attended 1937-39). i thought it was a great place to grab a burger but, alas, with the student bookstore protest in the fall of 1969, the MUG was torn out to put in the bookstore. Many years later, when the bookstore was no more and fast food was in the Union basement, they hung a few of the old carved-up table tops on the walls.
    I understand why the swimming pool was for men only because, as my father mentioned, men often (always?) swam completely naked. I seem to recall in a photo that one could look down into the pool from a first floor balcony–I wonder whether any women knew about those doors!

    Reply

  11. James Klein - 1966

    From 1962-66 I don’t recall seeing any women student cheerleaders/gymnasts on the football field or basketball court
    I was an English major in the College of LS&A. I don’t recall any classes taught by women who were tenured or tenure track professors in the English Department.

    Reply

  12. susan flowers - 1973

    My dorm had a curfew for women which was midnight, and if you weren’t there by then, the doors were locked until the next morning. The boys had no such curfew. Also I remember the Marching Men of Michigan, as the band in the late 60s did not allow women.

    Reply

  13. Rob McCaleb - 1969

    I was an RA at Bursley Hall in 1967-68. The Hall permitted residents to vote on open hours (when opposite sex visitors were allowed). The mens’s dormitories immediately elected 24/7, and before I could return to my floor, two girls moved in to single rooms, and didn’t leave until spring.

    Reply

  14. Frederick Trost - 1957

    Jim Tobin’s writing about the history of the Michigan Union is a classic. His book, “Sing To The Colors”, published in 2021 by the University of Michigan Press, is another “must read” in which he “explores two centuries” of student life on campus and those who shaped the greatness of the university. Makes one “wanna go back to Michigan, to dear Ann Arbor town…”

    Reply

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