University of Michigan Heritage

River Rat

When a pioneering botany professor set out to explore specimens along the Colorado River, she made discoveries of a different sort.

Lorin Bell, who joined the expedition at its layover at Lee’s Ferry, with rattlesnake he captured at Quartermaster Canyon.

Each moment might easily have been our last, but fortunately we were too busy to meditate upon our imminent untimely end.

– Professor Elzada Clover, 1938

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^“The colored were not part and parcel of the school.^”
– Joseph Leon Langhorne

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The First Women

^“[Professor Sewall] called my name three times, yet I could not muster enough courage to answer.^”
– Ella Kyes, 1924

A 1924 survey of Michigan's early "co-eds" reveals what life was like for a generation of pioneers.
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^“My school work has, on the whole, paid off not only when it comes to grades, because that isn’t too important, but because I really feel that I’ve learned something.^”
– Raoul Wallenberg

Before rescuing thousands of Jews during World War II, Raoul Wallenberg learned and grew at Michigan. No other individual has been credited with saving so many from extinction.

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