Living on Campus: An Architectural History of the American Dormitory PDF
Preview Living on Campus: An Architectural History of the American Dormitory
Living on Campus Yanni.indd 1 15/01/2019 10:25:17 PM This page intentionally left blank Living on Campus An Architectural History of the American Dormitory CARLA YANNI UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS MINNEAPOLIS • LONDON Yanni.indd 3 15/01/2019 10:25:18 PM The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges the generous assistance provided for the publication of this book by the Rutgers University Research Council. Copyright 2019 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401- 2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Yanni, Carla, author. Living on campus : an architectural history of the American dormitory / Carla Yanni. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2018037431 (print) | ISBN 978-1-5179-0455-5 (hc) | ISBN 978-1-5179-0456-2 (pb) Subjects: LCSH: Dormitories—United States—History. | Architecture and society—United States—History. Classification: LCC NA6602.D6 Y36 2019 (print) | DDC 720.1/03—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018037431 Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper The University of Minnesota is an equal- opportunity educator and employer. 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Yanni.indd 4 15/01/2019 10:25:18 PM To Bill, who is in charge of funny To Joseph, whose laugh lights up our world To the elder Joseph, who takes such good care of Mom Yanni.indd 5 15/01/2019 10:25:18 PM This page intentionally left blank Contents Introduction 1 1. College Housing for Men Fellowship and Exclusivity 33 2. The Coed’s Predicament Women’s Dormitories at Coeducational Colleges 79 3. Quadrangles in the Early Twentieth Century 117 4. Dorms on the Rise Skyscraper Residence Halls 153 5. Rejecting the High- Rise Quadrangles (Redux) and Hill Towns 185 Epilogue Architectural Inequality and the Future of Residence Halls 219 Acknowledgments 237 Appendix 241 Notes 243 Index 277 Yanni.indd 7 15/01/2019 10:25:18 PM This page intentionally left blank Introduction I n Philip Roth’s Indignation, the atheistic, lovesick, and profoundly unlucky pro- tagonist, Marcus Messner, son of a kosher butcher from Newark, New Jersey, transfers from an urban university to a prestigious coeducational college in the boondocks of Pennsylvania. The year is 1951. Marcus’s grades— all As— are beyond reproach. And yet the dean of men, Mr. Hawes Caudwell, hassles him: “You seem to be having some trouble settling into dormitory life.” The falsely con- genial Caudwell continues: “I’m a bit concerned about your having already resided in three different dormitory rooms in just your first weeks here. Tell me in your own words, what seems to be the trouble?”1 The dean wants Marcus to join the Jewish fraternity, or at least to consort with other Jews. And Marcus knows it. “Why should I have to go through this interrogation,” he ponders, “simply because I’d moved from one dormitory room to another to find the peace of mind I required to do my schoolwork?”2 Marcus’s question is a reasonable one. But from the dean’s vantage point, college is not only for schoolwork. The objective of college, and in particular the goal of dormitory life, is to offer students practice in the fine art of getting along with their fellows, albeit while staying within socially accepted cate- gories as determined by college leaders. Living on Campus: An Architectural History of the American Dormitory explains why Americans have believed for so long that college students should reside in purpose- built structures that we now take for granted: dormitories. This was never inevitable, nor was it even necessary. In the chapters that follow, I will show that living on campus is a manifestation of three hundred years of American edu- cational ideology that placed a high priority on social interaction among stu- dents. The architecture of dormitories provides a lens through which to examine the socially constructed nature of the student. Furthermore, the history of this 1 Yanni.indd 1 15/01/2019 10:25:19 PM
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