From the UW Archives: Terrace Iconoclasm, Oct. 1967

I find this image haunting because amidst the aftermath of a protest rests a Terrace chair. The Memorial Union Terrace is one of UW-Madison's loveliest features. During the warm months, students and locals all gather here for beer, brats, campus-made ice cream, sunshine, live music, breezes, people watching, chic-chat, and relaxation, all with a lakeside view of Lake Mendota, which borders one side of the campus. The brightly-colored, attractively-designed chairs of the terrace are icons that radiate the conviviality and ease of the place. Until I happened upon this picture, I never considered the history of these chairs and just how long they've been around.

Here's an image of terrace nightlife in 1960:




Fifty years later, any given night in June or September looks very much the same.

Sadly, there's less dancing like that seen in this image of 1956 which features the Terrace chairs in the bottom left corner:



I suppose we can thank those damned protesting hippies for the demise of structured social dancing...

I was amazed to see the Terrace chairs as early as 1933!



Is that a waiter there on the left?!

Here's a contemporary photo by Dennis Flood, an image not currently in the archive so far as I know but one that gives anyone unfamiliar with the UW campus a good sense of the Terrace's ambiance and how the chairs set the scene.



With all of this in mind, the post-protest image offers an amazing representation of how student unrest and political action shook the campus in the late '60s.