Heritage/Tradition

  1. Women, take the field!

    The rule barring women from the Michigan Marching Band was dropped in 1972 — not with a bang, but a whisper.

  2. Two against football

    In 1925 two lonely rebels said no to the formidable Fielding Yost in a contest of ideas that still echoes today.

  3. Coming home

    The end of World War II sent U-M’s enrollment soaring, which put housing at a premium — creating a unique college experience for many GIs.

  4. Dean Bacon’s demise

    Michigan’s “Queen of Women” held the line on in loco parentis through the ’50s, until changing mores and student protests forced an abdication.

  5. Black Fridays of yore

    Weirdly gruesome posters created for U-M’s inter-class “rush” mingled themes of mayhem and mirth at the turn of the 20th century.

  6. Trophy life: The Little Brown Jug

    New book celebrates the myths, mysteries, and mania surrounding college football’s oldest trophy rivalry, born of a discarded water jug in 1903.

  7. If North Hall could talk

    A campus landmark closes after more than a century of service in health care, the military, and more.

  8. The Negro-Caucasian club

    In the 1920s African-American and white students joined hands to fight racial bias — but the University was unsympathetic.

  9. The vanishing of Schoolgirls' Glen

    Reclaiming one of the most precious and vulnerable gems in Nichols Arboretum.