Category Archives: Class

Building Appetites, Building Campus

Campus Development, Civil Rights, Class, Community, Urbanization, , ,

By Lauren Griffin, Public History MA student at Temple University

Throughout Temple’s history, its students, faculty, and staff have used food to forge community. To raise money for sports teams or other extracurricular activities, students would host bake sales, chicken dinners, or ice cream socials not too different from fundraising practices on campus today. Through food, university students created a network of support not just for their university, but for their peers and the larger Temple community. 

One unique food related event was the annual “flour fight” on campus. Sponsored by the Booster Club, 50 sophomore students concealed packets of flour on 20 members of their team. Freshman students were given 10 minutes to search for the packets and dumped them on the poor sophomores when discovered. Less about food and more about the clouds of flour that it stirred up, this was a yearly competitive experience for new students that welcomed them into the Temple community and their traditions. 

Sophomore student Frank Gibson climbed up the telephone pole in true Philadelphia fashion to escape the hoards of freshman. The sophomores ended up winning this year as freshman chased the trickster Gibson and missed the other flour bags hidden among the grounded. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Temple students bonded together, and the university’s appetite grew, but not for food. This time, they wanted land. In 1955, the Philadelphia City Planning Commission designated the area between 12th, 13th, Norris, and Diamond Street as the Northwest Temple Redevelopment Area, contributing urban renewal grant funds to redevelop the 38-acres under Institutional Development District zoning. The area around Temple was designated as blighted, which misrepresented reality. These were homes, gardens, and life that Temple began razing for their reimagined urban university. 

During the 1950s, cities across the United States felt the effects of deindustrialization as factories closed and businesses moved to the suburbs or abroad. Philadelphia’s deindustrialization disproportionately affected its Black residents, and it also heightened the competition within the working-class population as real wages declined and housing costs rose. In the 1960s and 1970s, residents of Yorktown dealt with structural inequality and a predatory housing market that had been preparing for university expansion. The housing crisis, combined with poor economic conditions in the neighborhood, led to the escalation of tensions that resulted in the Columbia Avenue Riots in 1964. 

Police taking shelter from the rain during the Columbia Avenue Riots, 1964. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

In 1965, Temple became a state-affiliated institution and received an influx of funding to expand their physical footprint. Temple began insulating itself from the rest of the community as they shifted into the next stage of development. Rather than close off Temple from the outside world, certain student groups like the Steering Committee for Black Students fought to integrate with the local community, demanding that residents be granted open access to Temple facilities and fighting for the protection of preexisting houses and community structures from Temple’s rapid expansion. One thing in particular they fought for was public access to the Mitten Hall Cafeteria. Temple dodged these requests, and student activists staged sit-ins to block customers from dining. Temple’s administration finally relented, and public access to Mitten Hall was finally granted. This victory was short-lived, however, as the Mitten Hall cafeteria would soon become obsolete as the new Student Activities Center was built in 1971.

Outdoor dining plaza at the Student Activities Center, 1985. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Community access to Temple dining facilities was a nice option for residents, but the situation inside the cafeteria wasn’t exactly stable at the time, either. Students had recently protested the high prices of meals inside Mitten Hall and carried the Brown Bag Boycott. In 1968, a Black waitress at Mitten Hall, Mattie Cross, was fired from her position after a white customer accused her of spilling water on her. The Steering Committee for Black Students protested this and called for Cross to be rehired. They also demanded  in addition that all Black employees at Temple be paid the minimum wage and that Temple release an official statement in apology to their Black employees.

Serving station at Temple University (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

As Temple was in turmoil, the community of North Philadelphia was taking steps to establish their own community spaces. Established in 1968 by Reverend Dr. Leon Sullivan, a prominent civil rights activist, the Progress Plaza at 1501 N Broad Street was the first African American owned shopping center in the United States. The goal of this shopping center was to support Black enterprise and help foster business within the community outside of Temple.

Rev. Dr. Leon Sullivan in front of Progress Plaza, 1969. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Sullivan made a deal with A&P food store chain for a 20 year contract to have a grocery store in the plaza under Black management. This was a major investment for the neighborhood, but satisfaction with the quality of the grocery store fell over the decades. After the Super Fresh market shut down, the area was left without a local source of affordable groceries, turning it into a food desert.

In 2009, decades after the opening of Sullivan Progress Plaza, the center underwent significant renovations and expansions so that Fresh Grocer, a new grocery store chain, could move into the space. While this was welcome news, the neighborhood still suffers from food insecurity. The area has also been classified as a food swamp, which is an area characterized by mostly low-quality food sources, like fast food chains and convenience stores. Many of those fast food restaurants are there because of Temple University catering to the needs of its students. 

When walking around campus, take a look at what food options you see. Are there a lot of big chains or local offerings? What cuisines and ethnicities are represented? Are dietary restrictions and healthy offerings well represented on campus? In looking at the variety of food service in campus, it is also important to recognize who is eating in what spaces, and who is serving.

A vendor serves up hot dogs to an eager crowd on Good Neighbor Day. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Mitten Hall: Serving Students for Decades

Business, Campus Development, Class, Community, Labor, , ,

By Lauren Griffin, Public History MA student at Temple University

The first generation of students that attended Temple sourced their meals from a variety of different places. Some students commuted from home, some sought out meals at diners and lunch shops, or some students ate their meals at their nearby boarding houses. One of the early restaurants near campus was the Temple Restaurant, a lunch shop that was in operation until at least 1911. In 1908, they even served supper for students attending night classes. At this time, men and women had to dine in separate rooms. 

The Temple Restaurant was the first instance of university dining. The Great Depression interrupted the growth of Temple, but the administration responded by offering financial aid and by expanding services available to students. In the 1920s and 1930s with enrollment recovering after World War I and the Depression, Temple began constructing its own buildings near the Baptist Temple. One of those buildings was Mitten Hall, which permanently changed the campus environment as a student activities center. Not only a space for students to host club meetings and study sessions, it also offered a brand new cafeteria space. 

Photo of the cafeteria in Mitten Hall, c1930s. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

In addition, Temple started building dorms for students to live on campus. The construction projects in the 1930s under Temple President Charles Beury marked the beginning of Temple’s significant expansion into the surrounding neighborhood. Temple transformed from a university of row houses and commuters into a more idealized version of a university campus. Those row homes were not empty, however, and it was during this time period that Temple began demolishing the homes of its neighbors and erasing the former history of North Broad Street. 

For students and faculty, life on campus was good for a while. Mitten Hall was the center of student life. The cafeteria, dubbed ‘Casa Grilla,” hosted theatrical performances, poetry readings, dances, and special dinners. Things would change in the 1940s, however, when World War II came to campus. Students were drafted and left the university to fight overseas, and educational programming was modified to better assist a country at war. The US government also established a rationing system and in 1942 began restricting the quantity of high-demand food items that individuals could purchase. The annual Founder’s Dinner celebrating the legacy of Russell Conwell was even canceled one year due to rationing. While individuals were encouraged to plant victory gardens and start canning their vegetables, Temple’s student dining facilities struggled.

Article from The Temple News, March 23, 1945. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

After World War II ended, enrollment at Temple once again surged as veterans returned home and used their GI Bills to go to college. Temple expanded and built more dormitories and student dining facilities. Since the 1930s, the meals at Temple dining halls were prepared by Slater Food Company. Founded by Philadelphian John F. Slater, the company specialized in corporate and university cafeterias that focused on feeding large groups of people as quickly as possible. The relationship between Slater Food Service and the students of Temple was tenuous. In the 1970s, it came to a head with the Brown Bag Boycott.

A photo from the 1968 Temple University Alumni Review depicting two stylish boycotters. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Starting in the 1960s, students expressed their frustrations with how dining halls were managed. Cafeteria “bouncers” would kick students out of the dining room if they weren’t actively eating, food prices fluctuated randomly, and students regularly complained that dishware was dirty and servers got their orders wrong. The Dorm Senate Food Committee met to try and figure out a solution to students’ concerns, but Slater services also had complaints. Slater claimed that they had to devote a significant amount of their budget to replacing stolen dishware, coffee pots, and utensils. If students would stop stealing, Slater pledged to serve sirloin steaks and lobster in the dining halls. The cafeteria bouncer was actually an employee of the university in place to keep the student areas under control, and the dining halls had been notoriously overcrowded for years.

Smiling students protesting in the dining halls with a sign stating “don’t buy slater.” (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA)

In 1968, students had finally had enough. The Brown Bag Boycott Committee instituted a full boycott of Temple dining halls and Slater Food Services and encouraged all Temple faculty and students to bring bagged lunches from home. The catalyst this time around was Slater raising the price of a cup of coffee from 10 cents to 12 cents. This might seem minor, but Slater had been gradually increasing food prices over the past decades. The radicals behind the boycott were successful – prices were lowered. This wasn’t the end of Temple’s relationship with corporate food services, however. Slater would be replaced with Sodexo, and in 2017 the Sodexo contract was replaced with Aramark Food Services.

An inside look at a day in the life of a Sodexo employee, from the 2016 Templar yearbook. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

By the 1970s, Temple and its students had outgrown Mitten Hall. They needed a new space for the growing student population, so they built the Student Activities Center (the SAC) in 1971. The SAC continues to be a hub for student life on campus, offering expansive cafeteria and dining space, offices for student services, entertainment options, a bookstore, and more. It’s been renovated and expanded since the 1970s to continue to meet the needs of the shifting student population.

A sketch from 1984 depicting some proposed changes to the SAC. Is that a pile of boxes being unloaded, or is that little umbrella the formation of a food truck? (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Even though Mitten Hall is no longer the center of student life on campus, it holds a special place in Temple University’s history as a space of community, protest, and development. Students struggled against the corporatization of their meals, but there was a new answer to this problem: food trucks.

First Come, First Served at the Diamond Club

Class, Community, , ,

By Jacob Wolff, PhD student and educator at Temple University

In the final issue of the Diamond Club’s monthly newsletter, Jean Brodey warned that it “may be within weeks of a permanent closing.” 

Temple University’s private club featured French wines paired with entrées by an in-house chef.  Faculty and administrators were free to saunter about the smoke-filled library, billiards lounge or dining room atop Seltzer Hall while a trio played jazz standards. Occasionally, the president would host a gala. 

Despite the perks, too few members were taking their meals at the club. Even fewer renewed memberships at all. “Its absence will be felt in many more ways,” Brodey added in the March 1979 newsletter. “Honored guests” would be “entertained at Blimpie’s” or worse, the food trucks. 

Administrators intervened shortly thereafter, transferring operations from a nonprofit board to the foodservice vendor under contract with Temple. 

Now over forty years later, students and faculty alike line up for a quick lunch from the iconic trucks on campus. Few decried the postpandemic decision to relocate what’s left of the Diamond Club – a lunchtime buffet with a membership option – on the main floor of a dormitory. Why no protest? 

For starters, mealtime has never been about the food. It’s about the company you keep. 

The original “Faculty Club” was demolished to make way for a residence hall. The rebranded Diamond Club was moved to the corner of Broad and Columbia Avenue, the site of the 1964 protests against police brutality. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA)

When members originally chartered the Diamond Club on 9 January 1967 with the Court of Common Pleas, they promised “to maintain an atmosphere conducive to the free and informal exchange of ideas.” Yet, university leaders imagined an exclusive place segregated from the public they were purported to serve. Temple – to its credit and unlike the University of Pittsburgh, New York University, or Boston University – enrolled a remarkably diverse student body in 1967, estimated at 3,100 local students of Color out of the total enrollment of 34,000 students. But, the bylaws were unequivocal: all undergraduates were prohibited from entering the club, barred even as guests of members. Moreover, only staff “earning the equivalent of an instructor’s salary” were entitled to membership, effectively barring working-class employees who were disproportionately Black or Puerto Rican. 

Membership standards, not meal costs, made the difference. For the dwindling Diamond Club patrons, an ambiguous expectation of “cleanliness and neatness” was nonnegotiable with management; whereas, the Club promoted a 50 percent discount on the 50.00 dollar dues in 1978, hoping to win back business. After the university foodservice vendor took over operations in 1979, club dues kept falling (In 2003, dues bottomed out at $5.00 annually!). 

In the 1970s, a cheesesteak cost $1.65 at the Diamond Club. Adjusted for inflation, this would cost about $8.11 in 2022. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

No matter the cheapening bill, faculty opted instead to join students over cheesesteak or similar fare at the nearly thirty food trucks that operated on campus by the 1980s. Leo Martella opened the first dedicated food truck on 15 June 1954, selling pizza to Temple students. In 1963, with the federally-backed building boom, more trucks arrived on campus. “You can’t make it with just pizza anymore,” he told a reporter in 1981, “the competition’s too tough.” Wayne’s Deli offered an “Inflation deflator” hamburger special, Maggie’s Oriental Café specialized in MSG-free dishes, and Eddy Eggroll promised “a full line of vegetarian” dishes, including yogurt and fruit juices. Faculty members found more diverse culinary offerings from food trucks than they could on the menu at the Diamond Club. 

 A food truck operator serves patrons on the Temple University campus. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Some food history scholars believe that middle-class consumers have become more egalitarian in their choices. Others, like Josée Johnston and Shyon Baumann, see “omnivorousness” as “an alternative strategy to snobbery.” In their analysis, diverse rather than exclusive tastes have come to define a cosmopolitan identity. Might the faculty who “slum it” with students and ethnic entrepreneurs reveal a grittier, yet enduring class distinction within our consumer republic? 

The answer is probably a bit more complicated. 

Dylan Gottlieb, a Temple alumnus (MA ‘13) and historian at Bentley University, reminds us that “we should not mistake [consumer choice] as a substitute for meaningful political struggle.” However, the structural conditions under which university faculty labor have grown more precarious since the original Diamond Club dissolved. 

Perhaps faculty consumption mirrors a downwardly mobile status for all university employees. Appropriations from the Pennsylvania legislature have continued to shrink since the “Great Recession” and poorly-compensated adjuncts or graduate students now teach three-quarters of all undergraduate courses in the United States. 

Temple employees were on the vanguard of building a collective movement among knowledge workers. Thomas Paine Cronin, president of the Philadelphia AFSCME district, chaired a summit of all campus labor unions in 1983 at the Diamond Club. “As the bread and butter issues get tougher,” he explained, “I think the issue of democracy in the workplace becomes more and more prominent.” By the fall of 1986, faculty went on strike. “Terms of the contract were not made public,” according to the New York Times, “but sources close to the talks said the settlement amounted to almost an 11 percent wage increase in a two-year contract.” In 1990 faculty walked out again – some undergraduates marched in sympathy until a court order forced faculty back to work. Graduate workers were forced to cross picket lines, for fear of losing funding through the duration of their doctoral training. Despite decades of organizing, only in 2001 did the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board rule that graduate workers at Temple were eligible for union representation. The lead organizer among graduate workers spearheaded a 2019 petition in favor of food truck operator rights. 

With annual dues and meal costs averaged $350.00 per person in 1977 (almost $1,800 when adjusted for 2022 inflation rates), and a budding class-consciousness by the 1980s, eligible employees most likely could not afford to join the Diamond Club. Nor did they want to, even after dues dropped. The space, then in the basement of Mitten Hall, was just room available for large gatherings. 

No wonder why people hadn’t spilled ink over the 2021 move to Johnson and Hardwick Hall like they did back in 1979. University employees – faculty, staff, adjuncts, and perhaps midlevel managers – no longer want an exclusive space on campus. The food trucks are just fine. 

That’s not to suggest private clubs are no longer relevant. Back in the 1960s, the Diamond Club catered to the shared governance of faculty and administrators. Now running a campus is big business. For the select university leaders who can afford it, places like the Union League exist.  

To see Jacob's other work, please visit https://www.jacob-wolff.com/