Co-Op Scenes By john Allen Conceived by students, guided by faculty, and boosted by Madison's hippie heritage, campus-area cooperati ve housing is still going strong . In Madison's Mansion Hill District, just to the east of the state Capitol, a vast, pale gray home looms above a tiny park. At the lot's southeast corner, a bronze plaque, placed there by the city in 1976, honors the neighborhood's significance. This area, it proclaims, was once populated by the city's elite -legislators, lawyers, and captains of industry. "The seed of the Wisconsin Idea," the sign states, "may have been planted by informal discussion and from associations among these neighbors when they cooper­ ated to determine policy and direct the course of events." But on a tree above and behind this plaque there's another, far less grand sign - hand-lettered, in black paint on gray wood - identifYing the home's current occu­ pants: Hypatia Co-op. The residents are members of Madison Community Coopera­ tives (MCC), and they do not command vast sums of wealth or write the state's laws. But they do cooperate to live out their own Wisconsin Idea legacy, one created on - and off- campus. 12 BADGER Insider Foundations requirements for membership, responsi­ England, the principles lay out a set of bilities, and benefits. guidelines for how an ideal co-op should One name dominated the early history of Co-op housing wasn't invented at work, promoting centralized ownership, campus-area co-ops: H arold Groves. H is the UW, but that sense of intentional democratic governance, and (to avoid efforts affected thousands of students, community makes them a natural fit with introducing external conflicts) political though few probably knew who the pro­ the progressive ideals that underlie the and religious neutrality. And he helped fessor of agricultural economics was. Wisconsin Idea. That may be why co-ops to create several of Madison's longest­ What makes co-ops -whether have roots that run nearly a century deep running cooperative institutions, includ­ housing, agricultural, retail, or anything at the UW. The first housing co-op - ing the Green Lantern - a dining co-op else - different from other ventures is known as M ortarboard House - was - and Groves Women's Cooperative, an the principle of common ownership. A created under the aegis of the dean of institution that operated from 1943 until co-op's members own the organization's women, Lois Kimball M atthews, and 1987, when it reorganized into a co-ed key resources in common and make deci­ gave a home on North Warren Street co-op. It reopened, and continues today, sions in a formalized - often democratic (now Randall Avenue) to seven women under the name Hypatia. - way. In housing cooperatives, the key in 1915. Over the decades, many more Co-ops have played an important role in UW resource is the title or lease to the home. co-ops came and went, with university student housing for generations. The three color In typical apartment housing, indi­ faculty and staff often providing key photos on this spread show different views of support and guidance. Hypatia, a co-op found in Madison's Mansion Hill viduals or groups of students might sign district. Hypatia has an impressive pedigree- the a lease to rent a home from a landlord or So where does Harold Groves fit in? same building once housed Groves Women's Coop. In the 1930s and 1940s, he offered advice real estate company, creating an informal The black-and-white photo shows Groves circa relationship among the tenants. Co-ops, and support to several co-ops, helping 1951, when it was located at 1104 West lohnson, however, are predicated on a sense of them usher in what are known as the its home from 1946 to 1963, before it moved to intentional community. They create a sort Rochdale Principles. the building that's now called Hypatia. Pictured D eveloped in the nineteenth century are (from left) Adela Kalvary Owen '54, Carolyn of corporation, with a formalized agree­ Konoshima, Marie Cochrane Gadsden PhD'54, and ment to govern decision-making, at a weavers' cooperative in Rochdale, Clarice Wruck Cox '53, MS'ss. SUMMER 2009 13 II Propagating the Faith us about equity and amortization The UW faculty member who may have and land contracts exerted the most influence on today's - all the stuff we Madison cooperatives was also perhaps needed to know." the least likely to become involved In 1968, with the movement: James Graaskamp Graaskamp's PhD'64. proteges pushed In the late 1960s, Graaskamp was forward an effort a young professor and rising star in the to unite several of School of Business's real estate program. the campus-area He was also an occasional diner at the co-ops. The result Green Lantern. was the Madison At the time, the Green Lantern was Association of "like a left-wing fraternity," according to Student Coopera­ Hank Beck '68, a member there. "It was a tives (MASC), a center, in my eyes, of political and social league of eight or­ activity. [The members] were organizing ganizations - five protests against the Vietnam War and houses, the Green raising money to send people to Selma, Lantern, and two Alabama," to march against racial stores - with segregation. Kummerow as the But Graaskamp was hardly a organization's first left-winger. Rather, he was "a business manager. school guy who made good money as a "My role," consultant," says Max Kummerow '67, Kummerow says, MS'73, MS'80, another Green Lantern "was to be the guy diner and co-op leader of the late sixties with short hair and no beard who went Above: Even while he was building a reputation and early seventies. He asked Graaskamp to Mark Musolf- then a young lawyer; as one of the nation's best minds in real estate, why a committed capitalist "would advise Graaskamp had been his undergrad James Graaskamp (left) was also advising many anti-capitalist student co-ops. He replied adviser and sent him to us - to incorpo­ of Madison's co-ops during the boom years of the late 196os and early 1970s. that it doesn't matter what you call it­ rate co-ops and sign leases and purchase Above right: In the early 1970s, the house at profit, nonprofit, government, or co-op offers." -what matters is who controls, who 636 Langdon was the center of Madison's co-op Not every campus-area co-op movement. Today it remains a co-op, under the gets the rewards, and do they make good joined MASC (which changed its name name Phoenix. decisions based on good information." to MCC in 1971). But the association Below: Scenes from many of the city's current "Graaskamp wasn't of the faith," helped launch a boom in cooperatives in campus-area co-ops, including {left to right) says Jay Wind '71, another co-oper of the early 1970s, and enabled the city's Lothlorien, Audre Lorde, Ambrosia, Rivendell, Nottingham, and International. the period. "H e didn't really believe that cooperative movement to win its greatest co-ops could succeed. But we all sat at challenge: the battle for Le C hateau at his feet with great attention. He taught 636 Langdon. 14 BA DGER Insider The Tipping Point against paying rent. Le Chateau held a "The purchase of 636 Langdon was the block party on Lang­ tipping point," says Jay Wind. "That's don, and hundreds of really when MCC went from being a people came. By Sep­ concept that a few people were into to tember, the co-opers everybody getting it." had prevailed. The big French Provincial-style "That led directly house on the corner of Lake and Lang­ to MCC becom- don, just east of the edge of campus, has ing what it is today, the stately architecture usually associated moving it from the with fraternities- and until1969, it fringe to the center," was one: Alpha Chi Rho. But in the late says Wind. "Before sixties and early seventies, campus culture Le Chateau, a lot of was drifting away from anything tradi­ people didn't believe tional, and Greek-letter organizations in the mythos of the seemed to be dying out. Some thirty of co-op, that you could them disappeared during that period. have centralized own­ "Fraternities were going belly-up aU ership and localized over then," says Wind. "Co-ops stepped control, and still get in to fill the void." things done. But we In 1969,Alpha Chi Rho rented showed that if every­ its building to a group of co-opers who body would just stand renamed the site Le Chateau. Over the up and say so, we could next several years, MCC built up the change things." necessary finances to try to purchase the house. But it wasn't the only outfit inter­ Thriving ested in buying. Madison landlord James says Hypatia resident Sherman Hack­ Korb also wanted the property. Thirty-five years have passed since the barth JD'05. "They're thriving." In the summer of 1974, it looked battle for Le Chateau, and in that time, Hackbarth chose Hypatia because as though the fraternity would accept fraternities and sororities have grown of its location - near his office on Korb's offer over MCC's. So MCC took again in popularity, and new generations Capitol Square, but also because he its case to the streets. of students and landlords have taken up didn't want to live a solitary life in an Launching a campaign called Isaiah residence in the old houses and apart­ apartment.