history  of  housing  co-ops

2015 marks the 100th year since the first confirmed housing cooperative in Madison, Mortar Board Cottage, was founded by eleven women in 1915. (Deutsches House may have been started as a women’s co-op in 1914, but limited documentation can be found.) Since then housing cooperatives have gone through many cycles of growth, stagnation, and change.

 

The Women's Coops

In 1915, a group of women approached the Dean of Women, Lois Kimball Matthews, with the idea of starting a cooperative house for female students.  At that time many low income women who could not afford to live in sororities had few options on campus.

 

The new coop, called Mortar Board Cottage, was started with 11 women in a house at 433 North Warren rented to them by the UW.  The next year, the senior women's association Blue Dragon started the Blue Dragon Inn next door. That same year, the Association of Collegiate Alumni started A.C.A. Cottage.  The women's coops were run on a cooperative basis, but they were very much controlled by the UW Board of Regents at this time.  There were house mothers that lived with the students, and they had to obey a curfew.  In 1919, the three women's coops were dissolved by the UW to make way for campus expansion, and the displaced members banded together to found Tabard Inn at 444 North Charter.  Around 1924, Tabard Inn was forced to move by the university, and they bought a house at 115 North Orchard with the help of the newly formed University Women's Building Corporation, which was the first association of housing coops in Madison.  The UWBC existed to pool money in order to buy new coops.  This marked the first step towards independence, as rent paid was now going towards paying off a mortgage, not to a landlord.  They were still controlled by the Board of Regents however.

 

In 1920, a faculty member named Mary Anderson found furniture from the three women's coops that had been dissolved, and she found a group of interested students to found Anderson House.  In 1921, Charter House was established, and in 1924, Fallows House, named after Bishop Fallows, one of the first to urge admittance of women at the UW.  Catherine Cleveland House is also started that year.

 

Decline of the Women's Coops, Start of the First Men's Coops

During the Great Depression the women's coops had trouble staying filled, and all but Tabard and Anderson failed.  Fewer women were attending the UW , as sending a daughter to college was seen by many as more of a luxury than a necessity at that time.  The Depression created the need for cheap options for students, and between 1932 and 1935 six men's coops were started: Murray House, Squire Hall, Sterling House, Hodag House, White House, and Babcock House, left to the UW by biochemist Steven Babcock.  Together they formed an organization called the Badger Club, which had 66 members in 1933, and 125 in1939.  The Badger Club was run democratically with elected officers, but still had to answer to the Board of Regents at the end of the day.

 

The Eating Coops, Rochdale Principles, and Segregation: The Coops Become Political

By 1939 seven eating cooperatives had been established; by Methodists, Catholics, Congregationalists, Baptists, the YMCA, and two independent eating cooperatives that followed the Rochdale Principles: Congo Cooperative Eating Club and Green Lantern Eating Cooperative, which existed until 1986 and which was the center of discussions of radical politics, cooperatives and activism in the coop community. It often hosted movie nights, and there were many satirical songs and skits performed, often poking fun at the coop itself.

 

The Rochdale eating coops served food all year round, and students at some of the other coops such as Tabard and Anderson, which didn't serve food in the summer, and which were much less political than Green Lantern, came to the eating coops and were exposed to radical politics for the first time.

 

The Rochdale eating coops were the only ones that didn't discriminate based on race, and were the only inexpensive meal plan for minority students at that time.  They were so successful that two other Rochdale patterned eating cooperatives were established, Huntington and Circle Pines.

 

The success of the eating coops set off the first golden era of cooperatives in Madison, as all over the country the Rochdale cooperative movement was gaining ground.  The Rochdale coops were more political than previous coops in Madison, as the goal of the Rochdale movement has always been to give power back to the people, and to take it away from those who hold it from the people, whether it be between bosses and workers, consumers and corporations, tenants and landlords, or farmers and agribusiness.

 

In 1937 there was a coop periodical in Madison called the Cooperator, a coop milk factory, two coop gas stations, and a coop dry cleaners in addition to the housing coops. The Rochdale coops boomed, not only due to political interest, but also because they were the only housing option for minority students, who faced discrimination at fraternities, sororities, religious coops and UW housing.  

 

Around 1939 two Rochdale patterned men's cooperatives were founded, Owen House and Rochdale House.  They combined in September 1941, becoming known as Rochdale Men's Cooperative at 439 N. Murray St (which does not exist anymore, Murray St was destroyed in the Triangle Redevelopment Project of what was the Italian immigrant neighborhood Greenbush in the 1970's), which they shared with Circle Pines Eating Cooperative. 

 

WWII: The Men's Coops are Emptied by the Draft, the Women Take Over

In 1942, Rochdale Men's Cooperative started another house at 150 Langdon (the red brick house up the hill from the new building across from Nottingham) called Grove's Mens Coop after longtime coop activist Prof. Harold Groves.  It only lasted one semester however, as all the men's coops were emptied by the WWII draft.  Two women, Virginia Wicks and Louise Hunt, whose boyfriends had lived at Groves, turned the house into Groves Women's Coop with the aim of working against the discrimination faced by minority women on campus.  Wicks summed up the mission of the coop when she said: 

 

"The house is open to any girl on the campus.  We are particularly anxious to relieve the housing situation by removing the bars of discrimination.  We can't win the war unless we win it on the home front as well as the fighting front."

 

The Dean of Women, Lois Trexell Greeley, was at first wary of the idea of a racially inclusive house, saying that the members were too young to manage their own affairs and that the house might become a hangout for radicals of all sorts (which in many ways it did).  After the media reported on it's unique mission however, she embraced it and declared it an example of the Wisconsin Idea.  In 1943, the new Grove's Women's Coop was opened, and Green Lantern moved into its basement. There were still live-in house parents, and this was the cause of much conflict.  During the semester of 1943-1944, around 10 of the 25 members of Grove's Women's Coop were Communists, and there were many conflicts with those who were anti-Communist in the coops.  In the second semester all the Communists resigned and left.

 

Groves was a center for education, and hosted many discussions and lectures, even bringing speakers from Europe, and raising money so Polish resistance fighter Adela Kalvary could come live there.  They also picked their own beauty for the campus beauty contest, saying "So what if we have different conceptions than the judges!".  The women living in the house were supposed to keep their grades up at this time, but many found the discussions in the Groves living room more engaging and more educational.  

 

Groves moved to 625 North Henry, and then in 1946 to 1104 West Johnson.  This caused much controversy amongst some of the neighbors, who considered it a "slap in the face" that there would be a house for "mixed living" "right on Johnson St".  The real estate agent who sold them the house was kicked off the local real estate board for doing so, and many neighbors tried to get Grove's kicked out of the neighborhood as a "nuisance" during a long community meeting at Lathrop Hall.  

 

The Post-War Era, a Boom in Cooperation

After WWII, the Green Lantern and Congo Eating coops were restarted, and an Inter Coop Council was set up, which included Weyland, Babcock House, Groves, Green Lantern, Three Squares, Anderson and Tabard.

 

Lloyd Barbee, the civil rights lawyer who would go on to win a historic case on school desegregation in Milwaukee helped restart Rochdale Men's Cooperative in 1950.  He and others turned the coop into the center of radical organizing and discussion on campus, campaigning against segregation, McCarthyism, and compulsory ROTC training.  During this time, as Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy was targeting all kinds of people and accusing them of being Communists, Green Lantern burned its membership files to avoid them falling into the hands of the House Un-American Activities Committee.  Barbee led a recall of McCarthy while he was living at Rochdale, and a statue of him now stands right in front of a statue of McCarthy at the Wisconsin Historical Society.

 

Barbee was friends with the playwright Lorraine Hansberry, author of the play A Raisin in the Sun, who lived at Grove's Women's Coop. The song To Be Young, Gifted, and Black was written about Lorraine Hansberry by her friend Nina Simone.  According to Barbee, Hansberry was always a bit wary of him because he was more radical than her.

 

The Late Fifties: Another Period of Decline

The UW decided that the women's coops were "aging" and "inefficient", not to mention likely politically bothersome, and to start replacing them with new "coop" dorms.  In 1955 the university built the Zoe Bayless and David Shriner "coop" dorms, and then in 1961, Susan Davis was opened next to Zoe Bayless.  

 

It wasn't until 1966 that another coop was started, when a group of students approached the local Society of Friends with the idea of starting a Quaker coop.  They were successful, and they lobbied the university to become the first co-ed housing on campus.  The next year they started another Friends Coop (the current one). 

 

The Second Golden Age of Madison Coops

1967 was the beginning of another wave of coop activity, the biggest yet.  Many students had been radicalized by the Vietnam War and by the violent police repression of the Dow Chemical protest in 1967.  The documentary The War at Home is a good source of information about this era in Madison's history.  There was a lot of housing pressure for students at that time, especially for international students.  A man named Orville Hanson rented 315 North Murray and subleased it to the newly formed International Coop House, when the members found out he was taking a profit they got angry and set out to find their own house.  They rented 140 West Gilman, with an option to purchase.  In the first years of the house, there were fifty people living there, with what is now the tool room having people sleeping in it.

 

In 1968, members of ICH and Green Lantern went to a coop conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where they learned about the North American Students of Cooperation and the Ann Arbor ICC.  They are inspired to found the Madison Association of Student Cooperatives, or MASC.  MASC included worker coops as well as housing coops, and had the mission of educating the community about cooperatives, as well as starting new coops.  MASC helped Stone Manor (now Ambrosia), ICH, and New Wine Commune buy their houses.

 

The Greek system was falling apart around the country as the rise of the counterculture meant fewer students were interested in fraternities or sororities.  This, combined with the fact that banks wouldn't lend money to developers for projects in the Langdon neighborhood due to the riots and unrest, was the perfect environment for the coops to grow and thrive.  Many former fraternities and sororities became coops, such as Nottingham, Ambrosia, Loth Lorien, Phoenix, among others.  

 

The "coop" dorms, Rust and Shriner were dissolved in 1969, and refugees from them rented Le Chateau Coop (now Phoenix) from Alpha Kai Rho.  There were many different worker coops at this time as well, such as Mifflin Street Grocery Coop, Community Pharmacy, Whole Earth Foods, Natures Bakery, The Consumers Coop Garage, the Common Market Grocery Coop, Madison Book Coop, The Good Karma Coop, Brindlewood Crafts Coop, Sunflower Kitchen, a coop restaurant, and Melting Snow, a housing coop comprised of mostly workers at Natures Bakery.  David "Rosebud" Sparer, MCC's attorney, lived there. The coops were like their own little village within the city. The housing coops and worker coops eventually split, and the housing coops formed MCC.

 

The Mid Seventies: The Struggle Against Landlords

The downtown property market became a battlefield in the mid seventies as developers moved in to buy up vacant fraternities and chop them up into efficiencies.  There were numerous rent strikes against greedy landlords, and the city and UW were seizing a lot of land through eminent domain.  MCC had been renting Le Chateau (now Phoenix) for three years when Alpha Kai Rho decided to sell the house.  MCC made an offer, and a landlord notorious for chopping up houses into tiny efficiencies and charging exorbitant rents named James Korb made an offer that was $10,000 less, but with all the money up front. The fraternity went with Korb's offer, and members of the house formed the Isaiah 5:8 Committee, which took its name from a bible verse condemning landlords in response.  The Committee organized a rent strike of all of Korb's properties which was very successful as he was unpopular with his tenants.  They also organized an anti-Korb block party, at which 1500 people burned Korb in effigy, and picketed at his home.  The rent strike had enough of an effect on Korb's cashflow that he was forced to withdraw his bid, just as the members were preparing to occupy the building.  MCC bought the building, and it was seen as a major victory for the coops against the landlords. The campaign against Korb continued, and the next year he left the Madison property market forever.  A mural was painted on the wall of Le Chateau depicting the struggle.

 

Around this time, members paid $50-$80 for rent and fees, not including food.

 

The Late Seventies and Eighties: Another Slump

Summit, Nottingham, International, Rochdale International, Solveig, New Wine, and Rivendell all left MCC in this era to become independent.  MCC started Syntropy, and Black Walnut is started by former MCC members.  Many coops failed, such as the Madison Book Coop in 1978.  In 1986, Green Lantern was audited by the state and fined for back sales taxes for the movie proceeds, the fines were more than it could pay, and it was forced to close.  MCC sells Tralfamadore Coop after it can't fill the rooms.

 

The Nineties to Twenties: Drugs and Taxes

The nineties were a time of drug problems and apathy in some houses, and the former Grove's Women's Coop, then called Mulberry, was restarted as Hypatia, an Egyptian female philosopher, in a nod to its history as Grove's.  ICH was also restarted in 1993, and rejoined MCC. In 1996, MCC bought Emma Goldman Coop (now Audre Lorde), and in 1997 MCC successfully sued the City of Madison for tax-exempt status, saying that it was a benevolent organization serving the wider community, not just students, and that more and more non-students were moving in.

 

The Early Two-Thousands to Today: Structural Racism, Rent Strike, and Tentative New Development

In 1997, MCC adopted a “Plan for Inclusion” to address racial inclusion in the organization. In line with those goals, the organization started a new coop on the south side called Kianga, which was predominantly African-American. At the same time, Assata Coop, named after the Black Panther Assata Shakur, was a family-oriented house and about 80% African-American. After members of both houses came into conflict with MCC staff in 2004 for reasons that remain controversial, but were alleged by many to be racist, Kianga was sold and Assata was restarted as Ambrosia with a much more white population.

 

In 2013, Lothlorien experienced a significant house fire that displaced members. Related to the fire, there was significant conflict between staff and some MCC officers and members, with about half of the officers and board members believing staff had too much power and influence. Staff tried to form a collective with IWW but were denied (because they had hiring/firing power), and attempted to engage in a slow-down. Ambrosia, Phoenix, and Sofia went on strike to support the demands of staff; Syntropy. Avalon and Audre Lorde joined the strike to specifically address systems of oppression). Members of Audre Lorde (a majority POC house) were removed from their house in 2017. Most houses went off rent strike due to turnover and burnout at trying to leave MCC and/or start a new organization. Avalon and Syntopy continued to withhold funds from MCC in support of former Audre Lorde members until 2019 and 2020, respectively. During this time there was significant turnover of staff and officers, largely related to conflict around racism, resulting in a significant loss of historical knowledge. In late 2020, during the COVID pandemic, MCC restarted Phoenix due to debt and safety/cleanliness concerns, which resulted in the displacement of people of color.

 

Overlapping these events, MCC purchased a building on Hancock Street to replace Friends House on ( ), which was falling apart. Some members of Ambrosia moved out to create a new co-op, Perennial, on the south side, and developed MACHA, the Madison Cooperative Housing Alliance, with the intent of supporting cooperative development and education. A few individuals purchased two buildings on Jenifer Street and started to convert these into a co-op under the name RefineJenifer or Rejenerate.

 

With the announced sale of Voit Farm on the east side, hundreds of people in the community are in progress (as of March 2021) to develop a proposal that would include cooperative ownership and affordable housing options.