Willard Straight Hall

Cornell University Willard Straight Hall
Straight Hall
Western facade on Libe Slope
General information
Type	Student union
Location	Ithaca, New York, USA
Opened	1925
Website
http://www.dos.cornell.edu/wshhome.html

Willard Straight Hall is the student union building on the central campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. It is located on Campus Road, adjacent to the Ho Plaza and the Gannett Health Center.

The construction of Willard Straight Hall was initiated by Willard Dickerman Straight's widow, Dorothy Payne Whitney, as a memorial to her husband. The building was intended to lead to "the enrichment of the human contacts of student life", according to the speech Straight gave at the dedication of the hall. Cornell historian Corey Earle notes that in the era Willard Straight Hall was constructed, "it was unusual to have a building with no academic purpose". The concept of a "student union" building was a recent invention at the time—the first student union in North America, Houston Hall at the University of Pennsylvania, had opened in 1896. When Willard Straight Hall opened its doors in 1925, it was still one of only a few such structures in the country dedicated to student life. However, Cornell provided on-campus space for student organizations since its earliest days. In January 1870, Andrew Dickson White allocated a large room in the middle section of White Hall to be used as a "Society Hall." White donated $1,000 to furnish it subject to $300 in matching gifts from student organizations. Later, Barnes Hall was built to house the Students’ Christian Association in 1888.

In 1918, recently widowed, Dorothy Whitney Straight met a Cornell Agriculture student, Leonard Knight Elmhirst, who persuaded her to visit the campus. Elmhirst and Straight together with certain faculty members decided that the best realization of Willard Straight's wish that some of his estate be used to make Cornell a more "human place" was to build a student union building. Elmhirst graduated from Cornell and left for India in 1921. For the next three years, Dorothy Straight oversaw planning for Willard Straight Memorial Hall, which was to be built with part of her Whitney family fortune in addition to Willard Straight's bequest. The cornerstone was laid on June 15, 1924 and the dedication ceremony was held on November 25, 1925. Elmhirst and Dorothy Straight had been married in April 1925.