History of McMillan Hall
by Sam Steinberger

McMillan exterior from the west, circa 1930

On October 20, 2011, the Department of Anthropology celebrated a campus milestone, albeit one that few students, faculty, or staff may talk about. On that same date 105 years ago, the university community gathered in 1906 to see W.K. Bixby, vice president of the board of directors and former business partner of William McMillan, break ground for a new building. On that autumn day, he spread mortar, using an engraved silver trowel, over the cornerstone of McMillan Hall. Standing over a century from its not-so-humble beginnings, this beloved building is home to the Department of Anthropology—and no archaeologists from Washington University have used silver trowels since.

Funded by Mrs. Eliza McMillan, the millionaire widow of William McMillan, McMillan Hall opened in 1907 as the university's first women's dormitory. Dusty yearbooks, Student Life articles, alumni, and the building's own architecture continue to tell the tale of this historic building. It has hosted a range of activities—from annual May Fetes to top social scientists—and housed women, men, and machines. It was never a mere collection of rooms. Since its completion, McMillan Hall has inspired generations of talented individuals.

"A center of much college enjoyment"

May Fete in the McMillan Courtyard, 1938

Construction for McMillan Hall began October 20, 1906, and it was ready for occupancy by September 1907. Student Life reviewed and critiqued the new building on October 2, 1907. The article relating the opening of "McMillan Dormitory" describes the building as "finely built and equipped with all conveniences," only soured by the "dainty and very 'feminine' white plaster" ceiling of the dining room (McMillan Café) and the gargoyles that "smack a bit too much of the lady-like." All in all, the reviewer concludes in words farsighted and all the while smacking of the early 20th century, "McMillan Hall promises fair to be a center of much college enjoyment and pleasure."

Indeed, the building would serve not only as a place of domestic and intellectual pursuits, but also of social activity. When studies were finished for the day, women rooming at McMillan Hall in the first years of its occupancy engaged in a regular schedule of tea times, reading circles, sewing bees, dancing parties, musical and dramatic rehearsals, and basketball in the women's gymnasium (now Room 149, a large lecture hall on the west wing).

Perhaps McMillan Hall's most important social duty in its early years came as academic activity concluded each May. With the return of spring to St. Louis, the campus would buzz with anticipation of the annual May Fete, held in McMillan's courtyard. Today it may seem hard to relate to the pageantry of those nearly forgotten events, but throughout the first decades of the 1900s, and even leading into the early years of World War II, this spring blockbuster garnered excited reviews in Student Life and was a highlight of students' college experience.

This annual production, put on by the university's female students, was complete with a May Pole dance, a theatrical presentation, and the all-important crowning of the May Queen. In 1928, the celebration saw the crowning of Miss Carol Crowe after a daisy chain processional of 50 women. In 1941, the same year that Count Basie played on campus ("part of a 'lecture' sponsored by the Department of Sociology and Anthropology," The Washington University Alumni Bulletin reports), the May Fete was particularly well attended. Spectators numbering more than 2,000 cheered for the crowning of Miss Alice Louise Stephens.

McMillan Hall still hosts social events and luncheons today, but the courtyard is more likely to see students taking a break from finals than planning the May Fete. Though its function may have evolved, and the norms of higher education changed, the spirit of the building lives on in the 1909 words of Alice G. London, former proctor of McMillan Hall: "I firmly believe that the results of the social activities of the students, and the corporate life in the halls, bring the greater interest to the universal heart and mind, and are of more permanent value to the college student."

Changes in Students, Changes in the World

McMillan dormitory room, circa 1960

Although it may be hard to believe today, mixed-gender education has not always been popular in higher education. Some early critics feared that romance would supersede education if men and women interacted in classrooms. To prove that coeducation was not only possible, but beneficial, in a college setting, university officials looked to McMillan Hall's residents to demonstrate "friendly, natural, and unromantic coexistence between men and women." Though social interaction was still subject to the norms and rules of the day, men and women contributed to mutual academic and intellectual growth.

Even in McMillan Hall's final years as a women's dormitory, Jim Burmeister, AB 1961, recalls having to sign in with the proctor, who sat behind a bankteller-style grate at the entrance. Men were not allowed to enter the women's housing areas, so any young man taking a resident on a date or study session was required to wait in the front room (Room 101) after signing in.

Many students in the 1950s and '60s lived off-campus. Burmeister estimates that 85 percent of students lived within driving distance of campus while he was a student from 1957 to 1961. Keeping in mind that most students commuted to class each day, officials did their best to promote on-campus living, which, according to one brochure, eliminated students' "long and profitless daily journeys back and forth on the streetcars."

McMillan Hall in Wartime

Just a few years after McMillan Hall was redecorated in 1939, the formal dinners and pajama parties gave way to the demands of wartime when the United States entered World War II. In 1943, Adèle Starbird, dean of women and resident of McMillan Hall, saw her apartment, along with the rest of McMillan Hall, converted into quarters for Army engineers training and drilling on campus grounds. Between pages of "Washingtonians in the Armed Forces" in the June 1943 edition of The Washington University Alumni Bulletin, an announcement was made that McMillan Hall would house armed service personnel. By October 1943, some 2,000 Army students were living and training on campus.

The women moved off-campus to a large residence at 22 Kingsbury Place and to the Usona Hotel at 5500 Waterman Avenue. The Women's Building continued to serve as the social nexus for female students, and McMillan Hall still saw its share of celebrations. On July 14, 1944, for example, the St. Louis chapter of France Forever celebrated Bastille Day in McMillan Courtyard. By October of the same year, McMillan Hall's brief service as housing for the U.S. Army was over. Once again, McMillan Hall filled to capacity with female students.

A Super (Sized) Computer

In the early 1960s McMillan Hall ceased to house students. Instead, students moved to the newly opened residence halls on the South 40. McMillan Hall's apartments and dorm rooms were converted to meet the university's needs for an academic building. Washington University also began preparing for new technology.

University resources were integral to the technology behind atomic fission in the 1940s and late 1950s. The university received another technological marvel: its first computer. The room-sized Univac was housed in McMillan Hall's former women's gymnasium. Jim Burmeister, who worked with IBM accounting machines and data cards as a student, recalls that professors or students wanting to use the computer would drop off their input cards in the evening and pick up the computed results the next morning. Some 50 years later, it's hard to believe that computing now easily done with a common cell phone calculator required the physical space of a gym (currently, a lecture hall) and a number of hours to complete.

New Home for a New Department

By the time Anthropology became its own department in 1968, McMillan Hall no longer housed enormous computers or served as women's housing. Today is a different era in the building's colorful history. Instead of dancing around May Poles, students throw atlatls in the courtyard during the department's spring picnic. Room 149 is no longer a basketball court or a giant computer room—although even some of the smartest professors still have trouble with the desktop-sized computer and overhead projector used in the room's current incarnation as a lecture hall.

What does this building, which has aged so gracefully, mean to today's students, faculty, and staff? With new construction so commonplace on college campuses, perhaps the best indicator of what McMillan Hall means can be found in its history—and in its fiction. To quote internationally recognized architect Tadao Ando: "You can look at any city and see that many of the buildings have no fiction. They are purely functional. They don't give people anything to think or dream about. They exist without inspiring people." The same might be said of a campus. From its "lady-like" gargoyles, old school hallways, floor-to-ceiling mirror, and three-story oak staircases, McMillan Hall defies this characterization. It is a building rich in history and character, inspiring all who cross its threshold.