1890, and the Student Christian Association, established in 1859-60, did much to alleviate the situation. The Castalian for 1891 reported that a "Reception Committee" had been appointed "whose duty it was to welcome Freshman girls, to help them in finding their way about the college buildings, to introduce them to their different professors, and assist them in getting suitable rooms and boarding places." After a few years these duties were taken over entirely by the League Executive Committee.
With the appointment of Dr. Eliza M. Mosher, the first Dean of Women, in 1896, interest increased in improving the women's facilities. Although special emphasis was placed on physical education and hygiene, an effort was made to improve the social life of the girls by providing parlors, dining rooms, and kitchens in Barbour Gymnasium. A small auditorium was even set aside for their use. Interest at that time, however, was concentrated on the building of the gymnasium rather than on improving housing conditions.
No radical change took place until 1902, when, upon the resignation of Dr. Mosher to resume the practice of medicine, Mrs. Myra Beach Jordan ('93) became Dean of Women. In this year, 453 women were enrolled in the University. In the fall of 1904 a united movement among the girls to secure rooming places with reception rooms where they could entertain their guests was begun. By this time eight sororities had managed to rent houses then known as "house clubs." Through the Women's League, Dean Jordan encouraged groups of girls to live together in approved houses, which were inspected and supervised by the Dean of Women. In these "league" houses, the first of which was opened in 1904, rooms were rented only to women, and parlor privileges were included in the rental. As an experiment in group living, the League, in 1909-10, contracted with three landladies for the use of their houses, with guaranteed income. Although this proved a financial burden to the League treasury, the following year it led to formal contracts with an additional "six of the most desirable landladies in town … to take girls only, giving them the use of the parlor and home privileges without money guarantee" (Minutes of the Women's League, April 6, 1910). The lack of guaranteed income was offset in the contracts by stipulations which more or less guaranteed roomers. The October, 1910, issue of The Michigan Alumnus commented favorably upon this work of the Dean of Women and the Women's League:
With the opening of the present school year, every freshman girl entering the University had been provided with a room before she came, either in the nine homes selected by the Women's League … or in another series of houses in which girls alone are provided for. The upper-classmen have greater freedom in the selection of the houses in which they are to room, but in most cases they are living in the houses which have been approved by the Women's League. The work of corresponding with the freshmen entering the University was undertaken by … the Women's League … every freshman … was met at the train and properly installed immediately upon arrival.
Mich. Alum.
Although the number of league houses was increasing, it was evident that dormitories would be the only permanent solution to the housing problem. Accordingly, in October, 1910, the Women's League enlisted the interest of every undergraduate woman in this movement and sent out as financial secretaries Myrtle White Godwin, of Houghton, Michigan, for the year 1910-11 and Agnes Parks Robey, of New York City, for 1911-12, to arouse interest in the dormitory idea. "While the amount of money raised by these young women was
