P

refatory

Monday, Oct. 25, 2021: Julia Verklan Maloney

The building is compact with soft red bricks lined in 

stone filigree trim. Its beauty lies in the reflective dormer 
and casement windows, sprawling alcoves and wooden 
rails. Charm and feminine austere is within the patterned 
tiling, fanciful garden-scape and coffered ceilings. 
Imaginative and luxurious, exclusive and emancipating. 

As a female student on campus, the Michigan League 

was built for me. It is a building that in its creation offers 
the chance of fairness and freedom, two ideologies not 
fully realized outside its walls. A building I am trying to 
understand.

As I sat at table 5 within the Bentley Historical 

Library, I had an agenda. I sought to expose, know and 
deconstruct the history of the first women responsible for 
the foundation and eventual construction of the Michigan 
League through their first-hand accounts. The Bentley, 
situated on North Campus, houses 11,000 research 
collections to promote the study of the histories of both 
the state of Michigan and the University of Michigan 
for researchers regardless of academic or professional 
affiliation. In front of me sat two foam supports, one plastic 
page-turner, a set of blue rubber gloves and a rolling cart 
holding 7 dust-proof boxes. The subjects: Ethel Fountain 
Hussey, the first president of the Women’s League, 
and Mary Bartron Henderson, leader of the Michigan 
League’s construction campaign. 

As I opened the first box, a waft of mildew escaped 

from the cardboard. Inside, there appeared to be over 20 
leather-bound agendas with browning pages and gold-
embossed lettering. The remaining 6 boxes contained 
nearly the same contents, smell and aura — around 100 
agendas and files of correspondence dating from as early 
as 1876.

Within the leather binds and manilla folders, sprawled 

in purple-typed ink and smeared black fountain pen, there 
found are the two key aforementioned names. Hussey 
and Henderson dedicated their life efforts to ensure 
equal access and recognized existence of co-education 
in Ann Arbor. Their work was materially realized and 
documented throughout a series of letters, journals, 
sketch drawings and recorded skepticism. And it was all 
contained within the 7 boxes positioned next to me.

Hussey and Henderson had both the time and 

inclination to keep full diaries and threads of 
correspondence, each outlining almost every day of their 
working and personal lives in Ann Arbor up until their 
death. According to the agendas’ prefatory, the purpose of 
such extensive documentation was to serve as a guide for 
remembrance and a potential keepsake for old age. They 
are books that take 5 years to fully fill yet are good for the 
next 100. They are letters meant for exchange between 
2 people yet are conversations needed for U-M students 
everywhere.

Books and letters that exist to inspire and educate, not 

to be left dormant in dust-proof boxes. 
A 

look back in time

Jan. 1, 1890-Sept. 29, 1915: Ethel Fountain 

Hussey’s Story

It had been some 70 years since the school’s founding 

and only 20 since the first woman, Madelon Stockwell, 
was admitted to the University of Michigan. The female 

population on campus was rapidly growing.

Yet such a number was ignored and intentionally 

isolated. Female students had no designated residence 
halls to sleep in, forcing them to rent out local houses. They 
had no spaces to gather, denying them the opportunity to 
socialize and acclimate.

Seclusion angered Ethel Hussey, wife of astronomy 

professor and U-M alum William J Hussey. Although 
not a U-M alumna herself, she was engaged in campus 
affairs through her husband’s work as a teacher and 
acclaimed administrative figure. Although tangential 
at first, Hussey’s involvement in campus affairs turned 
personal following her external view of gender-based 
inequity in Ann Arbor. Considering there was no building 
for women to congregate, Hussey felt that female students 
were wrongfully stunted intellectually, socially and 
athletically— she was sure of it. Such fervor is highlighted 
in her diaries, with smeared ink and quick cursive to 
outline her intensity. Using her husband’s connection to 
administration as leverage, her fiery correspondence to 
her male counterparts was to enable female voices beyond 
her own.

Hussey’s push for equity was apparent, for she was 

unwilling to wait another 70 years for recognition at an 
institution pegged as being “progressive.” Eventually, 
with the influence of her husband, Ethel’s ferocity led to 
the formation of the “Women’s League of the U. of M.” in 
October of 1890: A female governing institution to which 
she would be elected the first president. It was ultimately 
an intangible compromise. Her persistence allowed for 
an equitable constitution for all college girls, serving 
as a sponsor for meetings, dances and lectures. With a 
formally recognized name and clear purpose, the League 
was to be a haven and home for the growing population 
of female scholars. And while the League’s intention was 
grand, it still lacked a physical space — its members met 
in a single office in the corner of Barbour Gymnasium. Its 
cramped nature may have left enough room for a small 
gathering, yet did not provide nearly enough footing for 
what was to be the coming generation of female scholars.

Her next objective was simple: supervised and 

refined student housing for women in an effort to create 
a community on campus followed by a gathering space 
big enough to host events, lectures, meetings, dances and 
more. 

In one of her accounts, Ethel writes: 
“The aim is no less personal freedom, but greater 

personal comfort, with greater social opportunity and 
enjoyment available to the average girl who comes to take 
her chance.”

Under the League, she advocated for the establishment 

of Martha Cook and Helen Newberry Residence Halls 
— a fight she would inevitably win after spearheading 
donation campaigns and marketing efforts. Yet it was 
no easy triumph. Similar to her earlier campaigns, 
she was met with a series of defeated responses from 
administrators, outlined financial barriers from the 
regents and social hills to climb from the general student 
body. From 1909 and onward, Hussey penned countless 
letters to University President James B. Angell, donors 
and professors pushing for female dormitories — all of her 
writings were persistent and bothering.

In 1911, the building plan for Martha Cook Residence 

Hall was approved, with its construction ending in 1914. 
Her first goal had been achieved despite hardship and 
doubt, making way for the achievement of her second — 
an ample meeting space for the League. It was a goal to be 

left unfulfilled, for Hussey passed away on Sept. 28, 1915. 
A formalized space of social opportunity had not broken 
ground. 

Jan. 1, 1926 -Apr. 26, 1937: Mary Bartron Henderson’s 

Story

It had been four years since her first correspondence to 

the Board of Regents, seven years since the construction 
of the Michigan Union and over a decade since Ethel 
Hussey’s passing. Mary Bartron Henderson, U-M 
alumna and executive secretary of the Alumnae Council, 
was waiting on the approval of a $1 million campaign to 
construct a building for women. It was to be the sister 
to the Michigan Union and a closing chapter to Ethel’s 
objectives.

The Union was built to provide students with 

opportunities for academic enhancement and socializing 
— a plan that at the time had restricted access on the basis 
of gender. Male students and administrators, along with a 
door guard, enforced inhibitory policies for female entry, 
closing the literal and metaphorical door to opportunity 
while offering no alternative. Instead of entering a space 
founded upon discriminatory principles, Henderson 
instead desired to create and open a new one of her own, 
leaving the door open and unrestricted for her succeeding 
sisters.

Henderson was relentless, speaking at every event from 

director luncheons to national conventions, talking to 
anyone who would listen. It was a race to raise $1 million, a 
race that was anything but unaided.

To raise funds for the building campaign, some female 

students made flapper beads out of lamp pulls to save 
change, others double-bunked to rent their rooms out on 
football weekends. Leftover savings went to the cause. 
Students and alumnae sold small items, including yellow 
pillows, “freshies” (cold cream papers), maps and League 
playing cards in support. Clara Clemens, daughter of Mark 
Twain, toured major Michigan cities performing “Joan of 
Arc,” donating the proceeds to Henderson’s movement. 
Yet the largest gift for the effort came from U-M Alumni 
Mr. Robert P Lamount, offering $100,000 under one 
condition: the money was to be used to memorialize 
Hussey in the form of a swanky women’s lounge.

And through Henderson’s direction and endless 

pursuit of both wealthy contacts and small donation 
endeavors, the shovel broke ground in 1927. $1 million had 
been raised, the cornerstone had been laid.

The construction of the Michigan League was a 

triumphant victory for Ann Arbor women. On May 4, 
1929, a new door opened and was propped open for female 
students to enter.

Nov. 10, 2021- Onward: The Future Story of U-M 

Women Everywhere

Students can find the Hussey Room located on the 

second floor of the Michigan League. As a spectator walks 
through, they are greeted by portraits of female heroines 
like Joan of Arc and Judith lining the walls. At the head 
of the room, painted above the wood paneling and lofty 
curtains is the mural “Young American Womanhood.” 

It is the most prominent and eye-catching painting 

in the famed room, stretching across the northern wall. 
It depicts a young woman in the 1920s seen in three 
semblances: An austere scholar in gown and mortarboard 
holding the lamp of knowledge, a steely athlete in tennis 
garb and a graceful belle in a gown, holding roses with her 
left hand as she extends her right.

When you’re a prospective freshman touring the 
University of Michigan, your tour guide will tell you an 
anecdote about how wherever you go in the world, you’ll 
see a block M. Maybe it’s just new car syndrome, maybe 
it’s infectious school spirit, but I have seen this to be true. 
Whenever I’m traveling, the ever-recognizable bold block 
M invites complete strangers to shout “go blue” in passing, 
even when you’re halfway around the world.

Our university’s student body has many epithets. We 

are Victors, Valiant. We are the Leaders and the Best. We 
are Wolverines. But those are just names — when a person 
thinks of the University, they think of the maize block M.

Unlike the University of Michigan, most D1 colleges 

have some sort of mascot. The term mascot derived from 
an 1880s French opera called “La Mascotte,” loosely 
translating to “lucky charm.” In the opera, a struggling 
farmer is repeatedly visited by a young girl. In the end, the 
farmer produces a bountiful crop, crediting his visitor as a 
talisman of good luck.

By the 1900s, the term “mascot” was widely used as a 

reference to such talismen. Eventually, the term became 
synonymous with the costumed pep squad members who 
dance on the sidelines between plays. Our biggest rivals, 
the Spartans and the Buckeyes, parade their mascots 
across the field at contentious matches to rile up the crowd.

It has been nearly a century since the University 

embraced the wolverine as its mascot. In 1923, U-M 
football coach Fielding Yost was inspired by a University 
of Wisconsin tradition of players carrying along live 
badgers when the team entered the stadium. But unlike the 
Wisconsin badgers, wolverines are not native to the state 
of Michigan.

The school got its mascot from the longstanding 

nickname belonging to Michiganders in general. The 
origin of this nickname is debated. Yost thought it traced 
back to a colonial-era fur trade running out of eastern 
Michigan which dealt primarily in wolverine pelts. Others 
think it derives from an insult waged against the gluttonous 
French settlers or the state’s mischievous soldiers operating 
during the Michigan/Ohio border disputes. All of this to 
say, there were no wolverines around the state when Yost 
went looking in 1923.

Yost contacted 68 different trappers but eventually had 

to settle for a taxidermied wolverine named Biff in 1924. 

However, after four years of searching, Yost procured a 
pair of live wolverines from the Detroit Zoo.

The wolverines, Biff and Bennie, proved too wild for 

the school to subdue. The pair of wild animals chewed 
through their cages and were aggressive towards the staff, 
so they were retired to captivity after just one season. The 
University has not had a mascot since.

Even when you acknowledge the historical basis of the 

mascot, the wolverine still seems like a unique, if not odd, 
choice. The carnivorous mammal is actually a member of 
the weasel family, known for its solitary, roaming lifestyle. 
It’s not the kind of pack animal you’d expect as a traditional 
mascot.

Try to picture a wolverine in your head. It’s probably 

brown and furry, with big sharp teeth and claws, but is it 
the size of a dog? Is it hunched over? Does it look like this 
guy?

Scott Hirth, co-owner and president of The M Den, 

believes this unfamiliarity with what a wolverine actually 
looks like is part of the reason why the mascot never 
materialized.

“A long time ago, it was difficult to get a good drawing of 

a wolverine that could turn into an actual mascot,” Hirth 
said. “Everybody likes the concept of a wolverine. That’s a 
ferocious beast. You certainly want to be thought of that as 
how you play on the athletic fields, but in terms of actually 
selling products, that has never really moved.”

Regardless, when the University was founded in the 

1800s, they took on the state’s moniker of wolverine 
without considering its historical or biological justification, 
nor its implications on the school’s future branding.

In the 1960s, as our rivals were workshopping foam-

suited jesters to convey their school’s likeness, the 
University invited a pair of dogs to perform at halftime. 
In the 1980s, students campaigned to establish Willy the 
Wolverine as the school’s official mascot. And in 2011, 
athletic director David Brandon teased at revisiting the 
idea. Needless to say, none of these short-lived efforts have 
survived.

The M Den is the official merchandise retailer of 

Michigan Athletics. To Hirth, the block M is just as 
identifiable a logo as any mascot would be.

“It just speaks to what the University is,” Hirth said. 

“A lot of other universities have an official mascot. They 
don’t really stick to what classically defines Michigan or 
their university, and Michigan has done that from the very 
beginning of licensing days.”

***

When I was a kid, my dad would take me to all kinds of 

sporting events. We bonded over soft pretzels in between 
quarters or frozen lemonade at the seventh-inning stretch. 
I didn’t understand any of the rules, but it was exciting, and 
I enjoyed the company.

Michigan football was a family affair. My dad and 

his dad would pack up the Sedan with M-printed seat 
cushions and rain ponchos. My brother and I would deck 
ourselves head to toe in maize and blue. The whole family 
would complain about traffic over the sound of pre-game 
radio as we drove to Ann Arbor.

Sometimes we would stop at my cousins’ tailgate outside 

the steps of the Big House. My brother and I would giggle 
as our dad chanted “you suck” along with the student 
section. And after the game, we were rewarded with one 
item from The M Den.

I remember sprinting from the stadium to beat the post-

game rush, roaming through the labyrinth of coat racks 
amid a sea of navy blue. Many of those items were nearly 
identical to the ones hanging on the same racks a decade 
later.

Hirth spent his childhood in The M Den, just like me. 

When Hirth was 10, his father opened up The M Den with 
a partner. Hirth and his other co-owners worked in the 
store their whole lives. After he graduated from the Ross 
School of Business, Hirth and his partners, Julie Corrin 
and Steve Horning, took The M Den over in 2013.

Hirth said that the U-M branding has stayed 

consistent over the years. The best-sellers are always 
navy shirts or sweatshirts with the block M or block 
Michigan lettering. Hirth called these his favorite 
products — alongside a specialty Swiss watch which is 
more of a unique item.

In recent years, the “sailor vault logo,” which Hirth 

describes as “kind of like a bear with a sailor hat on,” has 
risen in popularity. Hirth attributed this phenomenon to 
the logo’s licensing becoming looser within the last five 
years, allowing for companies like Nike and Champion 
to begin putting it on their designs. Hirth now calls it 
the “number three logo” behind the traditional lettering 
options.

Yet in Hirth’s experience, other items with wolverine 

iconography don’t sell as well as the classics.

“It’s not like we haven’t tried to carry different looks over 

the years,” Hirth said. “The word wolverines almost never 
appears on Michigan products and if it does, it usually 
doesn’t sell as well. That’s just the way the merchandise 
world is — very, very consistent over time.”

The M Den is unique in the collegiate athletics 

retailing industry. For one, it gets colder in Michigan 
than it does down south, meaning that Hirth’s team has 
to stock t-shirts for August and jackets for November. 
The M Den is also an exclusive partner with Michigan 
Athletics, so it has to ensure that all locations — the 
stadium, the mall, downtown, online — stay stocked 
through the year. Not to mention, there is the issue of 
not having a mascot.

“Everybody else has a mascot,” Hirth said. “Yes, to 

a degree, we have that sailor vault guy that everybody 
loves, but it is fundamentally a different game in this 
industry.”

Whereas other schools’ retailers will produce two 

batches of any clothing item or tchotchke, one with the 
mascot and another with the school name, U-M can only 
partake in the latter.

Still, Hirsh said that the basics — the maize lettering 

on a navy background — “warm his heart.” There is a 
special unifying message in adorning the same block M 
my dad wore when he was on campus, and his dad before 
him. Every few years, we swap in a limited variation 
acknowledging our latest championship win, but for the 
most part it remains exactly the same.

The University is a pretty old school, being that it was 

among the first public universities founded in the United 
States. It’s impressive that our public image has remained 
steadfast for so many years, even if the wolverine mascot is 
just a passing thought.

“Just like there’s no advertising in our football stadium, 

we don’t have a mascot,” Hirth said. “I think it works for 
who Michigan is.”

***
In the past, the University’s athletics department has 

dismissed the idea of a mascot, calling it “unnecessary 
and undignified,” and arguing it “would not properly 
reflect the spirit and values of Michigan athletics.” The 
department did not respond to requests for comment on 
this story.

The University walks a fine line between two 

competing realms of collegiate philosophy: education and 
enrichment. People choose their college based on whether 
they’d like to work or whether they’d rather just have fun. 
The University holds a unique position in American higher 
education, with a decorated reputation for both athletics 
and academics.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
6 — Wednesday, November 10, 2021

S T A T E M E N T

It’s great to be a Michigan Wolverine: Exploring the history of U-M’s mascot hesitancy

MELANIE TAYLOR

Statement Correspondent

Of apples and trees 

and Wolverines

LILLY DICKMAN

Statement Correspondent

When comparing myself to my mother, I can confidently 
claim that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. As far as 
mother-daughter pairs go, we’re about as similar as they 
come. We love to laugh, and we share the same quick-witted, 
self-deprecating sense of humor. We’re both anxious and 
right-brained people, operating on the “up-tight” side of the 
Type A-Type B spectrum. We’re curious and ambitious. 
We’re the lightest sleepers, and when we get hiccups, they last 
for weeks. We have a fascination with Hollywood, film and 
television. We like to complain. We love to write. We value 
friendships and family. We grew up in the same town. And 
last, but certainly not least, we’re both Michigan Wolverines. 

It’s as if I’m a carbon copy of my mother roaming the streets 

of Ann Arbor, just 30 years later. The phenomenon makes for a 
great experiment. If she and I are the control variable, then the 
year is the independent variable, and the climate, the times, 
and the campus culture is the dependent variable. I couldn’t 
help but wonder what has changed since my mom was the 
one frequenting the Big House, the Shapiro Undergraduate 
Library and Pizza House. I wondered how those changes will 
shape and mold two similar people differently.

The first step to answering this question was pretty 

simple: I called my mom and started with the basics.

“What was your favorite place to study when you were 

here?”

“The Law Library.” Me too.
“Favorite late-night snack?”
“Pizza at Brown Jug.” Ah — for me it’s pizza at Joe’s.
“Favorite spot on campus?” 
“The Diag and the Big House.” Me too.
“Studying before the sun rises or after it sets?”
“Before it rises.” Me too.
I could see already that she and I were on similar pages 

in 1986 and 2021, and that not too much had changed in 
Ann Arbor to account for that. Digging deeper, I asked my 
mom about her major, her academic aspirations and the 
opportunities provided to her when she was a Wolverine. 

“I majored in political science because I wanted to go 

to law school, although I don’t think I knew why,” she 
reflected. “I was an English minor because I loved that — 
I loved writing — but I didn’t want to be a journalist and I 
didn’t understand how I could otherwise support myself as 
a writer.” 

I’m similar to my mom in that I love writing and being 

creative yet don’t necessarily know what I’ll do with that 
passion after college. However, it seems like a couple 
aspects of modern-day Michigan, if not modern day in 
general, will hopefully better guide me and make me way 
more equipped to find a satisfying career so that I don’t 
have to latch onto a pre-law track like my mom did.

For Michigan women everywhere

JULIA VERKLAN MALONEY

Statement Associate Editor

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

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