IN-PERSON: The Elderwise classroom at the Vineyard Church
William W. Cook (1858-1930) graduated from the University of Michigan’s LSA and Law School and donated the Martha Cook Building and the entire University of Michigan Law Quadrangle. This class will describe how a man who grew up in the small Michigan town of Hillsdale became a successful lawyer in Manhattan, helped to create trans-global communications, and became the nation’s leading expert on corporation law. Cook was generous but eccentric, and racially biased by today’s standards. Margaret Leary’s presentation addresses critical changes in the role of philanthropy and of race in the last century, both at the university and nationally. Margaret Leary received a B.A. from Cornell University, an M.A. from the University of Minnesota, another from Eastern Michigan University, and a J.D. from the William Mitchell College of Law. She taught at the University of Michigan Law School and was director of the university’s Law Library from 1984 to 2011. Margaret is the author of Giving It All Away: The Story of William C. Cook and His Michigan Law Quadrangle (University of Michigan Press, 2011).
