Thank you to the U-M Library, the U-M Bentley Historical Library for creating a searchable digitized archive of the Daily.
Within seconds I found a few never-before-seen nuggets on a few of my favorite topics like The Little Brown Jug and Willis Ward.
Speaking of Ward, you may know a lot about the 1934 Willis Ward controversy that played out before the Georgia Tech game that year, either from this site or on mgoblue.com, or via the kickass and Emmy-nominated documentary Black and Blue. I don’t think I had heard about this, though.
It turns out more than a few folks raised a suspicious eye when, in May 1934 (yes, months before the Georgia Tech game mess heated up) the U-M track team failed to elect Ward captain of the 1935 squad. Here’s one of the letters to the Daily in the May 25, 1934 edition:
So nicely done, C.A. Blue.
Thanks to a quick search in the new digital archive, I know that “Murmuring Michigan” refers to a piece that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, where the author described a few days on campus in Ann Arbor. As I understand it, he observed a movement of students on campus beginning to rebel against the established norms/biases of the day, like racism.
He was right. A few months later, the campus exploded before the Georgia Tech game.
