August 18, 2025: University of Michigan Studying: Founding Histories

[Laterthis week, we’ll be moving my youngerson Kyle into his first-year dorm at Michigan. So this week, through proudDad tears, I’ll share a handful of UMichigan contexts, leading up to a specialpost on some of Kyle’s plans there!]

Threeinteresting and telling moments in the early history of a groundbreaking publicuniversity.

1)     A Crucial Conversation: The oldest institutionof higher ed in Michigan was the brainchild of a number of early 19thcentury figures, including the territory’s acting governor William Woodbridge,but at the top of the list was AugustusBrevoort Woodward, an emigrant from New York who had become the first ChiefJustice of the Michigan Territory. Woodward believed that knowledge could becategorized and thus taught more easily to others, and in 1814 he exchangedcorrespondence with afamous friend who had a similar perspective (and in-development plans for hisown public university): former President Thomas Jefferson. As a result of boththat conversation and his own evolving perspective, Woodward coined a new term,Catholepistemiad, a blend of Greek and Latin words by which he meant “Schoolof Universal Knowledge.”

2)     An 1817 Act: His role as Chief Justice meantthat Woodward could put that idea into legislative action, and in late August 1817 hedid so, crafting a territorial act that formally created the University ofMichigania, featuring thirteen distinct professorships (what he calleddidaxiim) that embodied Woodward’s goal of universal knowledge. The law alsonamed the university’s first president (the Methodist minister, abolitionist,and educator JohnMonteith) and vice president (the French Catholic priest and educationalpioneer Gabriel Richard),a pairing that nicely connected this new institution to key communities in theterritory. In late September 1817 the cornerstone for the first buildingwas laid, at the intersection of Detroit’s Bates and Congress Streets, and lessthan a year later the university was in operation.

3)     A Distinct Campus: For twenty years theUniversity of Michigan was located in Detroit, but by the 1830s it wasstruggling to survive. So when Michigan Territory was admittedto the union as a state in January 1837, the time was ripe for a change,and fortunately one was very much in the offing: the small but growing town of Ann Arbor(located about forty miles west of Detroit) had proposed that the universityrelocate, and the university’s regents met and acceptedthe invitation. The move allowed the university to develop a much moredistinct and comprehensive campus than had been possible in the bigger city,and to reinforce that goal, the talented and innovative young architect AlexanderJackson Davis drafted a plan to build a number of buildings in his GothicRevival style. In 1841, the University of Michigan opened its first Ann Arborbuilding, MasonHall, and the rest is history.

NextMichiganStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?