Timeline – 1969 – History Moves to the Humanities Building

In the late 1950s, the Department of History was located in Bascom Hall, where twenty-three professors and thirty-four TAs shared sixteen offices. Over the early 1960s, the University prepared plans for new buildings to house the departments of History, Music, and Art. This eventually resulted in construction of the Humanities Building—now the George L. Mosse Humanities Building—as a single building to house the three departments. Construction began in 1966 and the buiding opened in 1969.

Designed in the Brutalist style, it is infamous among History students, staff, faculty, and visitors for its Byzantine layout and inhumane qualities. Was it intentionally designed to avert student demonstrations, as scuttlebutt would have it? Not according to official sources, but the suggestive timing keeps the campus legend alive.

Source: Jim Feldman, “Historical Society,” The Buildings of the University of Wisconsin (1997), 396-399.