Marquette History
Enrollment boom
| Marquette University embraces the modern era |
Excerpted from Dr. Thomas Jablonsky's book History of Marquette University 1881-1981
Photos courtesy of Special Collections and University Archives
The most notable departure from tradition immediately following WWII was the startling upswing in enrollment. Students of every age and background flooded campus in numbers never before witnessed in Milwaukee. In the fall of 1943, deep in wartime, registrations at Marquette had sunk to their lowest point since the Great Depression at 3,000 students. The following fall — only three months after the Normandy invasion and when victory by Christmas seemed within reach — enrollment edged upward to 3,772. One year later in September 1945 — a month after V-J Day — this number had crept up another thousand students. But that was nothing compared to September 1946, when registrations reached 7,296. Enrollment finally peaked at 8,603 in 1948, before slipping to below 7,500 by 1951.
The generosity of women
With marvelous generosity the Association of Marquette University Women surrendered the land upon which O’Donnell Hall would later be built to the university, although not before the group decided to name the hall after President Edward O’Donnell, S.J
In yet another gesture, AMUW made Alumnae House available as a male dorm after O’Donnell Hall opened. The first men to move into Alumnae House noted its benefits (such as curtains) and its shortcomings (such as the absence of outlets for electric shavers).
In June 1953, the women’s association officially ended its pioneering work in student housing when the organization transferred ownership of Alumnae House and Merritty Hall as well as their investment in O’Donnell Hall to Marquette University, assets valued at half a million dollars.
Called to religious life
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| Summer School, 1954, (kneeling) Sister Marie Assumpta Rooney, RSM, and Sister Mary Lillian Fries, CSA, (back row) Sister Mary Georgia Costin, CSC, Sister Jane Frances Mills, CSJ, and Sister Mary Harold Lopata, CSSF. |
The impact of hundreds of religious women and men moving about campus can be measured by the number of Marquette students who chose to follow in their footsteps. During the years after World War II, about a dozen men from the university went on to diocesan seminaries annually; a slightly larger number entered religious congregations other than the Society of Jesus; and 20 or so typically chose to follow St. Ignatius. About half a dozen young women entered various houses of formation each year. From 1948-54 nearly 250 Marquette students left campus either before or after graduation to become priests, brothers and sisters.
Jaywalking causes problems
With the increase of automobile traffic in the Marquette neighborhood, Milwaukee police injected themselves into campus life by periodically cracking down on jaywalking. Crossing Wisconsin Avenue in front of Johnston Hall or 13th Street between the business administration building and Carpenter Hall (a key roadway leading into the Menomonee Valley) elicited $2 municipal tickets “for obstructing the free flow of traffic.”
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Alumnae House
AMUW turned over the building and it became a men’s residence. |
In March 1956, a speech instructor produced a film, Confusion on 13th Street, that highlighted the dangers facing drivers and pedestrians between Wisconsin and Michigan avenues. In the tradition of academic decision-making, a committee was appointed “to investigate the parking problem on the Marquette campus.” To reduce the number of automobiles parked along 13th Street, the university installed an electronically operated gate at the faculty lot south of Science Hall. Implemented in March 1957, this was the first campus activity controlled by a plastic card.
By the following fall, city hall was again bombarded with complaints about students jaywalking across 13th. Just how serious this problem could be became evident in October 1958, when a nun from the nursing program was killed and another sister seriously injured while crossing Wisconsin Avenue in front of Gesu Church. The driver’s first explanation was that the women had darted into traffic while trying to catch a bus. Later he explained that his vision was obscured by another vehicle as he turned from southbound 12th Street to eastbound Wisconsin. Fourteen months later, the city installed “walk” lights in front of Gesu and four-way traffic lights at 11th Street.
Father Walsh and Teatro Maria
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Oliver Twist, 1962 |
In 1951 Rev. John Walsh, S.J., a doctoral candidate in theatre at Yale, arrived. During the next decade and a half he created a proud theatre legacy that survived into the next century. One of his first productions took place on a flatbed truck parked in front of Gesu Church — with the temperature at 12 degrees below zero. This same play was redone in 1962 — indoors this time — with the Columbia Broadcasting System hiring renowned thespian Helen Hayes to narrate the Ludus Coventry Medieval Mystery Play.
Finding facilities for rehearsals and performances was always a problem at Marquette. Following the opening of Memorial Library in late 1953, drama students were assigned the library’s old storage space in Bellarmine Hall. For $120 the Marquette Players “purchased 126 theatre seats, 22 gilded box seats, 37 mirrors, a red velvet curtain and carpeting” from the recently closed Davidson Theatre, a venue that had hosted Marquette College events throughout the late-19th century. The newly refurbished facility in Bellarmine was then christened Teatro Maria. A 1962 production of Oliver Twist required 78 performances to satisfy audience demands. The following year, Father Walsh created the Paul Claudel Theatre in Grandmora Apartments’ inner courtyard for summertime productions. He left Milwaukee in 1965. Nine years later, the Helfaer Theatre opened.
Beards and blue jeans
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Tunnel entrance on Wisconsin Ave.,
ca. 1964 |
Etiquette at a Catholic university came under assault in the mid-60s. Male students at Marquette were still forbidden to grow beards in 1965. Moreover, they could not wear a hairstyle that was considered “effeminately long.” When the student senate tried to challenge these restrictions through a series of resolutions (none of which were well received by the dean of students), an editorial in the Milwaukee Sentinel applauded Marquette authorities for serving “notice to the academic world that it will be no haven for the creeps and kooks who seem to be infesting American campuses in increasing numbers.” The “reassertion of the old-fashioned idea that a university is the master of the students” came as a welcome relief to the newspaper’s editors.
A year later the issue switched to women’s wardrobes. In May 1966 the dean of men issued a reminder that, with the return of warm weather to Milwaukee, women wearing shorts and blue jeans were not permitted in campus buildings or at social functions. The following year, the Associated Students of Marquette University passed a resolution asking that female students be allowed to wear slacks in the student union and in the library. In reply, the union manager warned that violators of the slacks rule would be refused food service and asked to leave. A “slack-in” was proposed. By the following fall, these rules had been quietly revised, allowing slacks after 6 p.m. on weekdays and all day on Saturdays.
The end of a century
As the 1980s approached, the centennial committee put out a call for ideas for celebrations. The final lineup of activities favored academic events. After an opening liturgy in mid-February 1981, a seminar, symposium and lecture followed.
During March, the focus was the week-long Conference on Human Life, whereas several honors convocations dominated April. Symposia on student life, medieval philosophy, genetic engineering, and ethics and economics were rolled out in the fall. However without question, the highlight of that year’s festivities was the conferring of the Père Marquette Discovery Award upon Mother Teresa of Calcutta in June 1981.
Dr. Thomas Jablonsky’s book History of Marquette University 1881-1981 will be published this year.
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Dressed to dance:
Prom night 1954 at George Devine’s Million Dollar Ballroom |
Schewe’s Drugstore:
A favorite student hangout on North 12th and Wisconsin Ave. |
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