Wednesday, January 10, 2018 // The Statement
4B
Wednesday, January 10, 2018 // The Statement
5B
A Saturday in Cook’s library
A brief history of the Law Library
by Matt Gallatin, Daily Arts Writer
O
n a Saturday I sit in the Law
library. I often do this, busy
or not, wasting my time pre-
tending I’m using my time
wisely. If I’m sitting in the library, I’m
working, right? Of course, when I say
“work,” I’m saying that I’m simply sitting,
and by sitting in the library, I’m sitting
productively. The Law library does that.
It makes me feel like these hours spent
curating a Facebook feed I never even use
are somehow hours well spent, hours mov-
ing me in a forward direction, hours put
into learning. I can call anything learning
next these dimly lit bookshelves, amid the
rows of old editions of the Texas Reports
on Law with dates that feel strangely dis-
tant and somehow very present.
The era when the Law library was built
feels the same. This stretch between the
1920s and ’30s was the lifespan of prohi-
bition, the playground era for flappers
and followers of the green light — cultur-
al phenomena that students at the Uni-
versity might have been forced to endure
in a high school literature class.
“So we beat on, boats against the cur-
rent, borne back ceaselessly into the past,”
Fitzgerald writes, and a roar of amen rises
from North Campus as they throw their
copies of “The Great Gatsby” into a well-
funded new recycling machine.
To the students today who do sit with-
in the Law Library, that era of prohibi-
tion likely feels ridiculous. The failed
campaign, an attempt at masquerading
public sobriety as public morality, feels
especially removed when considering
modern lives and modern laptops. Many
sitting around me might have rolled out
of Meijer with several blue 24-packs just
earlier today. Most will endure no jail
time for it.
But the Law Library, built in such
a seemingly archaic time, is hardly a
regressive stalwart against technological
progress. Despite its buttressed ceilings,
wooden walls and stained glass, the Eng-
lish Gothic architecture has not managed
to keep modernity at bay. Gradient, cool
mountains behind the white “Patagonia”
label sticker Mac computers and pear-
shaped Swell water bottles. Other stu-
dents have stickers that advertise coffee,
or the Wolverine Support Network, or
have a cute design inspired by the 2009
Pixar animation film “Up.”
The donor of this library was William
W. Cook. Cook came from a time at the
University when suits were the uniform
and sleevelessness a sin; when women
were barred from the Michigan Union
without a man by their side, and when
North Campus did not exist.
So Cook would probably gawk at the
attire of the students sitting within his
Law Library. Across the table from me,
a boy wears a white t-shirt that reads
“Saturdays / New York City.” I think it’s a
brand but I don’t know it. His hair looks
vaguely like a ’80s movie star’s; brown,
pushed back, but not aggressively.
Or the girl, sitting a few seats down
from myself, scrolling for lingerie on
LoversLane.com.
*****
No comprehensive account exists of the
construction of the University of Michi-
gan Legal Research Library, more collo-
quially known as the Law Library. Rarely
in the early 20th century did builders keep
detailed notes of the day-to-day process,
unless significant design changes were
made on the ground; even then, those
changes are more likely documented in
letters — say, between builder and archi-
tect, or architect and patron.
This absence comes as a bit odd, even
striking, when thinking about the ubiquity
of the building. The Law Library is one of
the first that comes to mind when describ-
ing the University’s campus, a glimmering
piece of a classic, collegiate architecture
on a campus with an often incongruous
style. The Law Library stands apart from
the Victorian storefronts downtown, the
mixed style of the Michigan Union and
the harsh brutalism of the Hatcher Gradu-
ate Library’s south stacks.
The prominence the library would play
on campus was not unknown when it was
built. In October of 1930, The Michigan
Daily raved about the building, seeing it
as a great moment for the University:
“The crying need for formulation, state-
ment and improvement of all branches of
the law into a form intelligible, not only to
law students and lawyers, but to the lay-
man as well, is at present being nowhere
more adequately met than at this Univer-
sity, where, with the completion in a very
few months of the Legal Research build-
ing, the latest addition to the Lawyers’
Club quadrangle, unprecedented facilities
fors (sic) legal study will be available.”
For the writer, the facilities for the
study of law and the actual study of law
go hand-in-hand. One cannot occur with-
out the other; it’s as if this gothic building,
designed in a tradition that is especially
collegiate, is meant to impart a studious
excellence. You might think the effect
goes the other way; that students, not the
buildings, should bring the atmosphere of
scholarship to the University.
But great collegiate architecture, espe-
cially the older, more gothic inspired build-
ings, can sometimes affect a desire for
study in itself. The chandeliers, the long
tables, the wooden bookshelves — these
all have a way of tuning a student into the
academic register. The building’s donor,
William W. Cook, held this sense, that the
facilities are necessary for good study.
Cook, born in Hillsdale, Mich., in 1858,
donated the Law Library and most of
the Law Quadrangle. After earning his
undergraduate and legal degrees in 1880
and 1882 respectively, he went on to prac-
tice corporate law in New York City, on
which he eventually wrote a widely cir-
culated book, “Cook on Corporations.”
The book became a seminal work for
corporate law, widely cited and reissued
several times. Cook’s writings would
help shape American corporate law just
as it was becoming increasingly relevant,
with the second industrial revolution
ushering in the first large national com-
panies. One of Cook’s other writings,
“Trusts,” would help lay the foundation
for Ohio’s famous anti-monopoly case to
break up John D. Rockefeller’s corpora-
tion, Standard Oil Company.
He became one of the most prominent
donors to the University, eventually giv-
ing a total of nearly $16 million (worth
over $200 million in today’s money),
which he says was in part to memorial-
ize his father and in part a reflection of
his strong desire to make the University
one of the foremost leaders in legal study.
He operated at first under a condition of
strict anonymity with his donation, and
he navigated publicity carefully. He once
stated he wanted no buildings named
after him, but after his death, the Law
Quad and its buildings were renamed,
and they all now bear his name.
Cook’s hand was heavy in the construc-
tion of the buildings, having requested
plans for the library as early as 1924, with-
out prior consultation with the law faculty.
He contracted the New York-based archi-
tectural firm York & Sawyer, whose work
he was familiar with, as the firm designed
Cook’s own brownstone apartment in the
Upper West Side of New York City.
As construction of the Law Quad com-
menced, Cook showed an increasing con-
cern with the specifics of design. Though
Cook had some prior stipulations, it was
during the planning of the Law Library
when animosity and willfulness began to
show their colors.
“I know nothing about architecture
but have had more experience in legal
research than any of them,” Cook wrote
in one letter, and he indeed imposed this
will, requesting specific alterations in
the location of bookcases, carrels, tables
and so forth.
Though he concerned himself with
the aesthetics, he above all believed in
fostering the best possible place for “the
scientific study of law, in all its aspects
— social, political and economic,” at the
University. His donations more than any-
thing aimed to accomplish this. The fac-
ulty, though, grew irate with Cook during
the construction of the Law Library.
“Cook’s manner is arrogant and he is,
of course, wholly ignorant of local con-
ditions,” Henry Bates wrote, the dean of
the Law School at the time.
Cook was also growing unhappy, and
the Law Library became the battle-
ground between Cook and the Universi-
ty. Cook increasingly saw the University
— besides a few select individuals — as
inept, and began to take an even stronger
role in working with the architects on
study carrel arrangement, brick choice,
bookshelf placement and so forth. At one
point, Cook wrote of “serious differences
between Bates and (President Clarence
Cook) Little and myself as to the pro-
posed new library building,” to the point
where he threatened to remove funding.
Soon after, he wrote to York, one of the
architects: “I don’t believe I shall ever
like the present design. It looks for all the
world like a cathedral.” The building was
completed in 1933.
*****
The student with that confounding “Sat-
urdays / New York City” t-shirt, studying
in the William W. Cook Law Library, has
gotten up. Behind he leaves a Starbucks
cup and a laptop. The Starbucks cup is the
festive all red one, which recalls Christmas
and, if you will it, Satan. He returns about
10 minutes later and charges his laptop.
I go down the stairs of the Law Library
into the basement, where Saturdays T-shirt
just returned. Next to the green-carpeted
extension, which was completed in 1981,
are the men’s and women’s restrooms and
vending machines. The men’s bathroom in
the basement of the Law Library is a dark
and sickly gray color, particularly fitting
for an austere Gothic design.
On my campus tour, my guide enthu-
siastically compared the Law Quad to
Hogwarts, Harry Potter’s Gothic, magi-
cal school of wizardry. The comparison
seemed a bit cheesy, sort of forced at the
time. The buildings are nice but I can’t
fly on a broomstick or conjure frogs out of
spiders, despite how much I’ve tried. But
the comparison works in this bathroom.
The cracked tiles and well worn urinals,
as grimy as they are, give the place a sense
of magic—because they’re real. Not that
I think magic is real. But Hogwarts and
Harry Potter wasn’t just some prim and
proper Disney ride, omitting the grit of
the wizarding world. There were ups and
downs. There were murders. And I can see
“Moaning Myrtle,” that poor girl killed by
an enormous, bloodthirsty snake in book
two, sitting in the last stall on the right in
the men’s restroom.
I walk in that stall and don’t find Myr-
tle. Rather, a phrase sticks out, scribbled
on the left divider: “This is the best place
on campus to shit.” They — whoever they
are — might be right, and this was like-
ly meant to be fraternal, but instead, it
has an oddly violating, sort of voyeuris-
tic sense to it, and Harry Potter and his
broomstick-flying friends disappear, leav-
ing one-ply toilet paper in their place.
*****
William Cook died in 1930 at the age of
72, before his library and the Law Quad
were completed. He never, so much as
we know, paid a visit to see the buildings
as they were constructed. The Michigan
Daily wrote of a rumor that he feared actu-
ally observing the buildings might result
in disillusionment with the grand project
he set out to create. He did, though, ask
for monthly statistics and reports on the
usages of the facilities. He did the same
for the all-female Martha Cook Residence
Hall, which he also donated and had
named for his mother. The same architec-
tural firm Cook hired for the Law Quad,
York & Sawyer, designed Martha Cook.
Cook’s reputation with the University
is complicated — not nearly as simplistic
as the benevolent donor narrative that $16
million is bound to make for you. Cook had
large strings attached to some of his dona-
tions, even outlining the specific terms for
eligibility into the Lawyer’s Club, which
was built just before the Law Library.
Arguments over those conditions are at
least part of the reason President Clarence
Cook Little — who is known today for his
eugenicist views — was forced to resign in
1929, pushed by the regents because they
felt he lacked diplomacy in the matter.
Cook’s legacy remains nonetheless vital
to the University. Today, the Law Quad,
and the Law Library especially, represent
the utmost in architectural beauty at the
University. Cook’s donations also helped,
as he hoped they would, to solidify the
University as a place for legal excellence,
which it has remained since the erection
of these facilities.
*****
I’m thinking about legal excellence,
looking at the table across Saturdays
T-shirt, as a boy puts his forehead flat
down on the wooden table. The patterns
in the wood on which he lies are mesmer-
izing, and if stared at long enough, induce
a kind of psychedelic experience. Near the
boy’s resting head sits a sign that reads,
“Food Forbidden — Noncompliance will
result in removal from the premises.”
Next to the boy with his head down
on the table, a girl in a Delta Delta Delta
sweater reads a psychology textbook, open
to a page about the brain, looking at a sec-
tion about the amygdala, a little almond
shaped nucleus in the temporal lobe. Two
girls whisper to each other at the table
next to her, and she glares at them, then
grabs a handful of nuts from her trail mix.
I leave the Law Library, walking out the
heavy doors and into the bitter cold, head
numb from dull democratic theory. There
comes a point after exiting the library
when the synapses stop firing, when you
disconnect entirely from the collective
groupthink, the brain that sits beneath the
floor corked for added silence, and sud-
denly that paper on de Tocqueville seems
absurd as your friend regales you of the
endowment of their most recent fling.
Of everything Cook concerned himself
about regarding the exterior of the Law
Library, it was the minarets, as he called
them, on the four corners of the building
that occupied him most. He was adamant
about these, and he got his wish.
“At any rate kindly raise the corners 20
or 30 or 40 feet and let us see how the whole
building will look,” he wrote to York and
so they did. It’s unclear why these corners
were of such specific interest to Cook, who
seemed far more concerned with function
and practicality than aesthetics.
But these pillars stand tall now, defining
features of the Law Library. For those who
live on South Campus, walking home from
Ashley’s will pass these unmistakable pil-
lars. I’ve made this walk many times and
never fail to look left on State Street with a
prideful sense of awe at the spires leaping
into the sky. Those minarets give setting
to the flocks of crows which often occupy a
few nearby trees, and in the evening it’s not
uncommon for a few of those black birds to
swirl and shriek around the pillars.
On this particular evening, the sky is
strangely red, sort of frightening, like a
scene from an old horror film about were-
wolves and vampires, shot in grainy blacks
and grays. Looking at those pillars, I thank
Cook for the extra 20 or 30 or 40 feet.
Inside, a girl with the phrase “The Lodge”
on her red T-shirt sits in the seat where
Saturdays T-shirt sat before. She locks eyes
with the Tri-Delt eating almonds from her
trail mix and takes a deep breath.
Courtesy of Bentley Historical Library
Construction of the Law Quarangle as seen from the corner of Tappan and South University in 1924.
Courtesy of Bentley Historical Library
Construction of a Law Quadrangle dormitory in 1924.
Amelia Cacchione/Daily
Students study in the Law Library.