200 years of history, highlights, and milestones of the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and Arts. 1817 1837 1838 The University of Michigan is founded. The Michigan legislature passes an act Influential botanist Dr. Asa Gray Originally called the Catholepistemiad, creating the University of Michigan and becomes the first professor of U-M. or University of Michigania, its first its three departments, Law, Medicine, He never taught a class, but building was on Bates Street in Detroit. and “the Department of Literature, he did purchase 3,700 books to Science and the Arts.” start the U-M library. Images courtesy of the Bentley Historical Library or the Creative Commons unless otherwise noted. 1841 1846 1848 1852 Professor of Mathematics Professor Louis Fasquelle of France Spanish is taught for the first time. Psychology is taught for the first time. George Palmer Williams gives becomes the first foreign born faculty the first lecture in U-M history to member. French is the first modern seven students in Mason Hall. language taught at the University. 1854 1856 1857 1870 The Detroit Observatory is built. The The University of Michigan becomes History begins to be taught as Madelon Louisa Stockwell is the state of the art facility was the crown the first school with its own a separate subject from ancient first woman admitted to the University. jewel in President Tappan’s vision of chemistry laboratory. languages and philosophy with She graduates in 1872 with a degree U-M as a premier research university. the teaching of Professor in literature. Andrew Dickson White. 1872 1872 1875 1876 Saiske Tagai of Japan enrolls in LSA The name “Department of Literature, Henry S. Frieze is appointed the Mary Henrietta Graham is the first to study literature, becoming the Science and the Arts” is first used first dean of LSA. known African American woman University’s first Asian student. in the minutes of the January admitted to the University, earning Regents meeting. her degree in literature in 1880. 1877 1880 1881 1882 Louisa Reed Stowell, the first female The Department of Economics is The Department of Philosophy Alumna and soon-to-be president instructor at U-M, starts her 12-year established, although classes in becomes its own unit, separating itself of Wellesley College Alice Freeman career teaching botany. She was economics had been taught from from the study of theology. becomes the first woman to earn not considered part of the faculty the University’s founding. an honorary degree, a Ph.D. at the time. 1884 1885 1887 1887 Philosopher and psychologist John Jude Rose Colby earns a doctorate in Influential economist The Department of Romance Dewey becomes an instructor in LSA. literature to become the first woman Henry Carter Adams joins the Languages and Literatures and the His concept of “functional” psychology to earn a non-honorary Ph.D. at U-M. Department of Economics. Department of Germanic Languages had a huge impact and Literatures are founded. in his field. 1890 1891 1894 1895 The Department of Physics is The Department of Literature, Science, The Literary Class of 1894 is Professor of English Louis A. Strauss established. Courses in physics were and the Arts establishes its Graduate the first to wear academic gowns becomes the first Jewish member of first taught in 1843. Department. at a U-M commencement. the faculty, eventually becoming chair of the department in 1920. 1897 1898 1910 1911 Fanny Elizabeth Langdon becomes the The existence of “organic free radicals” The Department of Political Science is The Department of Fine Arts first woman instructor in the sciences, is discovered by Chemistry Professor founded, although courses were first is established. teaching zoology and botany until her Moses Gomberg. taught in 1852. death in 1899. 1913 1914 1915 1915 The Museum of Zoology becomes Susan Benedict becomes the first The Committee on Nomenclature The departments of Geography an independent unit headed by woman U-M Ph.D. in mathematics. proposes and the Regents approve and Geology are established. They Alexander Ruthven. “College of Literature, Science, and the became individual units in 1923, with Arts” as the official name of LSA. geography dissolving in 1982. 1918 1921 1921 1928 Elmer Samuel Imes becomes the Robert Frost joins the faculty as The Department of Rhetoric and The Department of Anthropology first African American U-M physics one of the first “poets in residence” Journalism is established, is founded. Ph.D. and only the second in in the nation. later partially merging with the the United States. Department of English Language and Literature in 1930. 1929 1929 1929 1930 A summer symposium on nuclear Literature graduate Esther Marsh Cram The Department of Psychology The Hopwood Awards for creative physics is held on campus, the first (A.B. 1898) becomes the first woman separates from the writing, playwriting, and poetry of 12 that would attract top physicists regent of the University. Department of Philosophy. are given out for the first time. such as J. Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi. 1933 1936 1938 1938 Mehmet Aga-Oglu joins the faculty Physical Chemistry Professor Kasimir Legendary playwright Arthur Miller Botany Professor Elzada Clover as the first ever chair in the history of Fajans joins the faculty at U-M after graduates from U-M with an A.B. becomes the first woman Islamic art. Aga-Oglu would teach at fleeing Nazi persecution in Germany. in literature. to successfully navigate the U-M as a fellow and then a professor. Colorado River. 1939 1940 1941 1943 Journalist Mike Wallace of Doctoral student in chemistry The great English poet W.H. Auden Future Nobel laureate Jerome Karle 60 Minutes fame graduates Alfred L. Wilds synthesizes equilenin, teaches English at U-M for one year. earns his Ph.D. in chemistry. from U-M with an A.B. the first time a human sex hormone is synthetically produced. 1947 1948 1948 1949 Valentine Davies (A.B. ’36) wins the Orval “Val” Johnson becomes the The Division of Biological Sciences Marjorie Lee Browne earns her Academy Award for Best Story for first African American president of is formed, separating from the Ph.D. in mathematics, the first the filmMiracle on 34th Street. the LSA senior class. departments of Botany and Zoology. African American women to earn one at Michigan and one of the first in the country. Brookhaven National Lab via AIP Emilio Segre Visual Archives 1954 1954 1955 1959 Professor Donald Glaser invents his Zoology alum Thomas H. Weller Actor James Earl Jones graduates Samuel C.C. Ting earns a bachelor’s “Bubble Chamber,” a way to observe wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology from U-M with a degree in in both physics and mathematics. subatomic particles. He would later or Medicine for his work on growing English literature. After earning a U-M doctorate, he win the Nobel Prize in Physics for poliomyelitis viruses in a lab setting. shares a Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention. his contribution to the discovery of a subatomic particle. 1962 1963 1967 1968 The Michigan Quarterly Review, U-M’s The Department of Linguistics The Residential College is established. The Black Student Union takes literary magazine, makes its debut. is established. possession of the LSA Building as part of a protest demanding increased minority enrollment and support services for minority students. 1969 1972 1973 1975 H. David Politzer receives his B.S. Willie Hobbs Moore becomes the The Executive Committee of LSA Hopwood Award winner and faculty in physics. He would later share a first African American woman in approves the proposal for a Women’s member Robert Hayden becomes Nobel Prize in Physics for his work the nation to earn a Ph.D. in physics. Studies Program. Five courses are the first African American to serve on the mechanics of the strong offered in the following fall semester. as Consultant in Poetry to the Library nuclear force. of Congress, known today as U.S. Poet Laureate. 1978 1986 1987 1988 Professor of microbiology and Stanley Cohen (Ph.D. ’86) wins Joseph Brodsky, member of the The Undergraduate Research immunology Albert H. Wheeler the Nobel Prize for Physiology or faculty and future poet laureate of the Opportunity Program is founded, becomes the first African American Medicine for his discovery of epidermal United States, wins the Nobel Prize in allowing students in LSA to participate to be granted tenure at U-M. growth factor. Literature for his poetry. in high-level research during their Vanderbilt University Special Collections & University Archives undergraduate years. 1996 2000 2001 2010 The 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics goes The National Medal of Science The Middle English Dictionary, LSA junior Chris Armstrong becomes to Richard E. Smalley (B.S. ’65) for his goes to alumna and mathematician a 15,000 page, 75-year project, is the first openly gay president of U-M’s discovery of the carbon arrangement Karen K. Uhlenbeck (A.B. ’64). completed by U-M researchers. student government. buckminsterfullerene, or “bucky-balls.” 2013 2014 2016 2017 Robert “Bob” Shiller (A.B. ’67) Political science Professor LSA physicists help detect The University of Michigan celebrates wins the Nobel Prize in Economics. Robert Axelrod is awarded the gravitational waves for the first time, its 200th birthday with a year of National Medal of Science by a discovery that serves to confirm a bicentennial-themed events, symposia, President Barack Obama. major prediction of Albert Einstein’s special guests, and more. 1915 general theory of relativity..