Historic
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Rackham Building
Historic
Name(s): Horace
H. and Mary A. Rackham Building
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Rackham
Building
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Date
constructed:
Built
1938. Dedicated June 27, 1940
Architect:
R. S. Gerganoff of Ypsilanti
Style
of Architecture: PWA Moderne / Streamline
Original
Use: Housed Special Education classes
for EMU students, a teaching school, and dormitories
for students attending the teaching school.
Dates of renovation: 1986:
renovated Rackham and Snow Health Center to
house an expanding Children’s Center.
Current
Use: Houses classrooms, Administrative
offices and the Children’s Center.
History:
Normal had opened the first Special Education
Departments in 1919. It had been housed in
Welch, but in 1938, it got a building of its
own. Rackham was built to house the growing
Special Education program as part of the building
program under President John M. Munson. The
Horace H. and Mary A. Rackham fund made a
$350,000 donation to commemorate the work
of Charles M. Elliot in the area of Special
Education. Mr. Rackham, the lawyer who drew
up the contract that incorporated Ford, had
died leaving a fortune of $12 million dollars
from Ford stock. Following his death in 1933,
his will directed that the trustees of his
fortune use the money to “promote the
health welfare, happiness, education, training,
and development of men, women, and children,
particularly the sick, aged, young, erring,
poor, crippled, helpless, handicapped, unfortunate,
and underprivileged regardless of race, color,
religion or station…”
The new
building met the criteria set by Rackham’s
will since it aided the disabled. The facility
contained impressive facilities for the study
and practice of special education. Rackham
was the first facility in the nation built
specifically for teacher training in special
education. The new building not only housed
the Special Education Dept, but also a Laboratory
School where teachers learned techniques for
educating students with special needs. A dormitory
connected to the Laboratory School housed
these students during the week while they
took classes. Student teachers taught classes
for the deaf and hard of hearing, blind and
partially-sighted, mentally retarded, and
physically handicapped. The building also
contained a speech and hearing clinic.
When it was built, visitors
felt that Rackham was one of the most beautiful
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Rackham's
PWA Moderne/Streamline Architecture
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buildings on campus. Its streamlined
moderne architecture seemed to flow smoothly
around curved corners. Architects selected the
bricks to match McKenny Union in an effort to
created a sense of visual unity on campus. Placed
near what was then the outer edge of campus,
the building stood in a natural setting overlooking
an area known as “Sleepy Hollow,”
now the location of Bowen Field House and the
Parking structure. To the south, Rackham overlooked
the science gardens that were once planted behind
Sherzer. Architects sited the building so that
all the entrances to the building were made
from ground level, relieving children,
especially the disabled, from climbing steps
to enter the building. The ground slopes downwards
to the north allowing both the ground floor
and the first floor to be completely open in
the back with a view out over the countryside.
Inside,
Franklin Tiles decorate the areas around water
fountains and along walls. Designs include
fish, frog, crabs, cougar, cranes, and leaves.
Some of the tile designs are listed in the
Franklin design sheets as early as the 1920s.
The school could accommodate more than two
hundred children. A dormitory attached to
the building could house 24 four students
as well as a housemother. The dormitory was
open to children requiring special education
who lived too far for the daily commute. The
ground floor contained six classrooms as well
as a gymnasium and auditorium. Separate recreation
rooms for boys and girls, laundry room and
incinerator were also located on the ground
floor. The first floor housed classrooms for
the deaf, physiotherapy and orthopedic therapy
rooms, office space, and a clinic. The building
also included a lunchroom that could house
all two hundred pupils.
The laboratory
school closed in June 1982 because of Michigan’s
mandatory special education act that delegated
administrative responsibilities for special
education programs to local school districts.
The Special Education department, however,
continued to use the building for classroom
space.
Today, most
of the Special Education classes are housed
in the Porter College of Education and Rackham
is the home of the Children’s Center.
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Location
of Rackham Building (Click on the image
for a bigger view)
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