Henrietta Snell & Snell Hall, University of Chicago
Henrietta Snell donates to the University of Chicago
One of the University's most pressing obligations in its first years was to provide adequate housing for its students. A successful college experience, President Harper believed, required adequate on-campus living quarters, although University officials conceded that they were not in a position to provide every student with housing. Residential opportunities for women students were particularly problematic, since plans for women's residence halls were still incomplete even after the University opened its doors in 1892. Rooms in boarding houses and apartments scattered around Hyde Park served as a temporary solution to the housing problem. In addition, administrators in 1893 temporarily reassigned female students to Snell Hall, a men's residence hall funded by a $60,000 gift from Henrietta Snell. Yet officials knew that relocating students to different locations on the campus was only a short-term solution and that sufficient housing would have to be built quickly to respond to the needs of the University's women students.
Source: University of Chicago Library
The Story of Snell-Hitchcock
Over a Century of House Culture: The Story of Snell-Hitchcock
Over a century ago, Snell-Hitchcock residents launched The Section Six, an annual magazine documenting the dorm’s people and culture. Now, as its residents revive the publication, Grey City takes a deep dive into the dorm’s long history.
By Gabi Garcia and Solana Adedokun
March 9, 2021
"Snell, the oldest continuously operating dorm on campus, was built in 1892 as a dorm for the University’s football team and was funded by donations from affluent Chicagoan Henrietta Snell. The money Snell had donated for the new dorm was from unclaimed reward money for the unsolved murder of her husband Amos Jerome Snell. The dorm’s first resident head was Amos Alonzo Stagg, a famous football coach who led the Chicago Maroons to seven Big Ten championships and became the namesake of U Chicago’s Stagg Field..."
