The University of Michigan will celebrate its 200th anniversary in July 2017. Many of our community members know only a little about its history and the magnificent accomplishments of people associated with the university. One way to give lasting prominence to the university’s history would be to erect State of Michigan Historical Markers at significant locations on campus. Although the University Committee on History and Traditions placed 22 markers on campus in this decade, many of them are obscure and provide limited information.

Those of us with long tenure at Michigan feel strongly about commemorating people and events — especially those sometimes overlooked in popular historic accounts. Consideration might be given to erecting markers in the bicentennial year to commemorate some of them or others suggested by members of our community. State of Michigan Historical Markers are permanent, provide space for a reasonable explanation of the person, event or site and could include a URL where additional information would be available. Without substantial cost or major bureaucratic effort, it is possible to bring the rich history of this campus to the attention of today’s students, staff and visitors — and to those who will be here in the university’s next century.

Below are 21 individuals who had significant influence in the development of the university and its influence in Michigan, the United States and the world. No living persons are mentioned.

Judge Augustus Woodward: Shortly after he was appointed by President Jefferson as the first governor of the newly formed Michigan territory, he proposed a complete system of public education including the creation of a Catholepistimead that became the University of Michigan. In 1816, he published “A System of Universal Science” presenting his conception of how a modern university should organize knowledge and teaching.

Father Gabriel Richard: Working closely with Judge Woodward, Father Richard played a key role in getting the Catholelpistimead organized with the 13 disciplines Woodward described.  He recruited John Montieth who served briefly as the first president while Richard was vice president and one of the first instructors.

Asa Gray: He was the first professor hired for the Ann Arbor campus in 1840 and was, in this lifetime, the leading American exponent of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Although he remained here for only a short time, he played an important role in establishing the library by traveling in Europe where he purchased a marvelous and large collection of scholarly books.

Henry Phillip Tappan:  Serving as president from 1852 to 1863, Tappan understood that the best models for a modern comprehensive university were found in Europe and, to the extent possible, sought to make Michigan the peer of what were the world’s leading universities. He succeeded in laying the foundation for the modern research-oriented University of Michigan in a sparsely populated rural state.

James Burrill Angell:  He was the longest serving president — from 1871 to 1909 — and among the most visionary. He foresaw and contributed immensely to the growth of a research university that would also  serve the needs of the state and its citizens.  As a diplomat, he was dispatched to China by President Grant to negotiate an end to the opium trade and to control immigration. He served as minister to Turkey and negotiated fishing treaties with Canada.

William LeBaron Jenney: A professor of architecture at the university from 1876 to 1879 he was, to a considerable degree, the inventor or developer of the modern skyscraper, an achievement he accomplished while working with collaborating architects in Chicago.  His only remaining building in Ann Arbor is the Delta Kappa Epsilon shant.

Moses Fleetwood Walker:  He played for the University’s baseball team while attending law school.  He was the last African-American to play Major League baseball before that sport imposed the Jim Crow policies that excluded blacks.  He was the catcher for the 1882 team with a batting average of .308.

Branch Rickey: Hired to serve as baseball coach in 1909, he also earned a law degree during his four years in Ann Arbor. He is well known for his accomplishments as an effective administrator for major league baseball teams, especially his successful efforts to end the exclusion of blacks when he recruited Jackie Robinson to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 thereby integrating what was, at that time, the nation’s most popular sport.

George Sisler: This 1915 graduate of the College of Engineering played baseball for Branch Rickey at Michigan and then went on to a Hall of Fame career in baseball hitting .420 for the St. Louis Browns in 1922.

Clarence Darrow: He enrolled in the Michigan law school and then went on to become one of the most prominent attorneys of his era. He is, perhaps, best known for his accomplishments in the Scopes trial in which he defended the right of a Tennessee educator to teach about the theory of evolution.

Frank Murphy: He graduated with an undergraduate degree in 1912 and a law degree in 1914. As Recorder’s Court judge in Detroit in 1925, he presided over the most famous civil rights litigation of the 1920s in which Dr. Ossian Sweet was found not guilty (of murder) when he defended his home from attack by an unruly mob. Murphy served as mayor of Detroit, governor of Michigan during the era of Sit-down Strikes, Governor General of the Philippines and was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Roosevelt in 1940.

Albert Kahn: Kahn was one of the most innovative and productive architects of the 20th century. He was not a graduate but he collaborated with his brother, Julius Kahn, whose engineering degree was from Michigan. The emergence of Detroit as the world’s automotive capital is due in no small part to Albert Kahn.  His buildings on campus include Angell Hall, the Clements Library, West Engineering, Hill Auditorium, the Natural Science Building, Simpson Memorial institute and the Harlan Hatcher Library. 

Fielding Yost:  As football coach and athletic director, Yost played an important role in defining the role that commercial sports now hold in modern American universities. He is responsible for building several of the massive structures that are still used by the football and hockey teams.

George Sutherland: An immigrant from England, he studied at the university’s Law School in the 1880s.  He became active in Republican politics in Utah and represented that state in both houses of Congress.  In 1922, President Harding nominated him for the Supreme Court where he served for 17 years strongly defending conservative interpretations of the Constitution. He is one of three Michigan Law School students to serve on the Supreme Court.

Jesse Owens: As a member of the Ohio State Track team, Jesse Owens set four world’s records at Ferry Field in the space of 45 minutes on May 25, 1935. He represented the United States in the Berlin Olympics.  His feat of four world’s records in one day has never been repeated.

Arthur Miller: He was motivated to come to Michigan because he knew financial prizes were awarded to undergraduates for literary compositions. In Ann Arbor, he wrote his first play and then went on to win a Hopwood Award. He became one of the most accomplished and lauded play writers and essayists of the 20th century.

Raoul Wallenberg: He studied architecture at Michigan and earned his bachelor’s degree in the early 1930s but became well known for saving thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust during World War II.

Dr. Jonas Salk: The School of Public health conducted the evaluation of the polio vaccine developed by Dr.  Salk. On April 12, 1956, at a public meeting in the Rackham Building, the announcement was made that the Salk vaccine was effective and, within just a few years, polio disappeared.

John F. Kennedy: During his presidential campaign, Kennedy came to the steps of the Michigan union on October 14, 1960, and laid out his idea for a Peace Corps. The idea of young volunteers serving their country by traveling abroad to accomplish laudable goals was first described on the University of Michigan campus.

Lyndon Johnson: On May 22, 1964, addressing graduates in the football stadium, President Johnson laid out his plans for a “Great Society,” perhaps the epitome of liberal political thought and planning every annunciated by a United States president.

Gerald Ford: He was the first graduate of the university to serve as president of the United States.