Middlesex COUNTY · Education & civic life
Wesleyan and Middletown: a changing campus
College buildings, military training and the changing boundaries of access to education.
Historical focus · 1850–1999
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The story in photographs
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THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTOGRAPHS
People, places, and change.
Buildings and access, 1870–1912
Judd Hall opened in 1870 as a building dedicated to scientific study. Wesleyan admitted women during its first period of coeducation, from 1872 to 1912, before pressure from male alumni brought that experiment to an end. The nineteenth-century campus therefore held both new educational ambitions and contested limits on participation. [1]
Training for war, 1917–1918
Military preparation changed campus life during World War I. Hundreds of students entered training in 1917; Wesleyan introduced the Student Army Training Corps in September 1918. The university’s archival account connects college education with marching, drills and the demands of mobilization, changing the use and rhythms of familiar campus spaces. [2]
The postwar campus through 1999
Women returned as exchange or transfer students in 1968 and as freshmen in 1970. New institutions accompanied the expansion: the African-American Institute began in 1969, the Center for the Arts opened in 1973, and the Center for the Americas followed in 1998. These changes connect campus architecture with changing academic and civic priorities. [1] [3]
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