From the pages of history

From M, summer 2005

100 years ago

"Happy," read the headline on the lead article in the April 3, 1905, issue of The Minnesota Alumni Weekly. "The word is hardly adequate to express the state of the feelings of the University people when the announcement came last Thursday that the [Minnesota] house had, by the decisive vote of 78 to 27, voted to relieve the University from the board of control supervision." The alumni association had been formed 14 months earlier, in large measure, to defeat the board's micromanagement of University finances and purchasing.

75 years ago

An editorial in the April 19, 1930, Minnesota Alumni Weekly lamented the fact that "the problem of learning how to make heaps of money has become more important than the problem of learning how to live.... The average student enters the University for the avowed purpose of increasing his earning ability.... After graduation there comes disappointment and discouragement to the majority of students [who] have found the secret of money making but are groping blindly for the secret of happy living."

50 years ago

Dr. Alfred Xuma (B.S. '20), a 60-year-old physician in Sophiatown, South Africa, was forcibly evicted from his home in March 1955 because it was too close to expanding white communities, according to the April 1955 issue of Minnesota Alumni Voice. Apartheid laws passed in 1950 allowed for forcible resettlement of blacks to "homeland" areas. "What happens to people like me?" Dr. Xuma asked. "Must I now be expected to return to my tribal ways?" Apartheid remained in effect until 1991.

25 years ago

It was as if Minnesota had won a hockey gold medal. Five U students, four alums, three other Minnesota natives, and U hockey coach Herb Brooks (BA '62) were part of the 1980 "Miracle on Ice," when the United States's band of amateur players defeated the mighty Soviet Union and other powerful teams to win the Olympic hockey gold medal. The April 1980 issue of Minnesota made it the cover story and included six pages of stories and photos. The main article called the event "a major morale booster...a sort of national vindication," noting that it came in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the ongoing Iranian hostage crisis. "Perhaps no single event since the moon landing has united Americans in such spontaneous and heartfelt pride."

Alumni Association members receive Minnesota as a benefit of membership. To join, visit www.alumni.umn.edu, or call 612-624-2323 or 800-862-5867.