Whether it’s learning how to live alone for the first time or making new friends with the other students on your floor, living on campus is an important part of the college experience for many Americans. As many students near their end of the fall semester and return home for the holidays, we’re taking a look at the history of dormitories to see how college housing has changed over the years.
Student housing has been a part of American college life since early in the country’s history; some dorms were built before the revolution.
“Colleges were very small, and some of them were in remote, rural locations,” said Carla Yanni, a professor of architectural history at Rutgers University-New Brunswick and the author of “Living on Campus: An Architectural History of the American Dormitory.”
“These were small colleges that were in towns that simply weren’t big enough to house the students,” she said. Colleges built one large, multipurpose building that included a place for students to sleep, classrooms and a dining hall.
There is a “fraught and complicated” history of which students were allowed to live in college housing, Yani said. Students of color were often barred from living with white students.
“You can always find out who the first African American graduate of any university was, that’s going to be right on the website,” Yanni explained. “But they often don’t tell you that the person had to live in a boarding house or had to live with relatives because they weren’t allowed in the residence halls.” Sometimes there were decades between the time the first Black students graduated and the first Black students were allowed in dorms.
Dormitory architecture reflects the popular styles of the times in which they were built.
“You could teach the entire history of American architectural style just using dormitories,” Yanni said. Early dormitories were “Colonial boxes” with red brick and white trim. Gothic Revival dorms came later. Building styles changed abruptly with the arrival of modernism, she said. Those dorms were plain and utilitarian, but they suited the need for housing after soldiers returned from World War II.
Today, college housing continues to serve an important role in the student experience.
“We don’t really need dormitories, and yet, Americans are far more dedicated to this building type than in other countries and places,” Yanni said. “I think it’s because Americans see colleges as an opportunity for networking.”
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