Education Hall

The building that is now Education Hall (and its now demolished sister building) was originally built in 1924 by the Otis E. Glidden, a producer of pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food products. One product invented by this company was Jiffy Jell, which had been a major success until Prohibition. Alcohol had been used to preserve the fruit flavoring, but when Glidden couldn't find a suitable substitute, he sold the recipe and rights to the Genesee Pure Food Company in 1921. Generations of Americans would come to know the product as Jell-O.

Glidden, meanwhile, turned his skills in chemistry to the world of cosmetics & pharmaceuticals, using this well-lit building as laboratory space for research and development. He formed a partnership with San Francisco born actress Edna Wallace Hopper, and "scientific advertising" pioneer Claude C. Hopkins. The actress had made a name for apparently ageless beauty, even claiming to have reversed (with the help of plastic surgery) the aging process. Hopkins, Wallace-Hopper and Glidden founded a cosmetics company, using the aging actress's fame to promote the products as beauty aids for other women. Glidden, and later his son Roy, led the company, but Edna's ongoing fame was key. A series of direct advertising campaigns promising eternal youth kept the various creams and powders profitable well after both Gliddens died in the mid 1930s.

On May 9 1960, Madison's Capital Times reported that Glidden Laboratories, Inc., was bought by a subsidiary of Nicholas International Limited, which had its headquarters in Toronto. While it's not clear what that company used the property, a second building had been demolished soil remediation completed by 1989. What was then Carroll College bought the property, and the "Barstow Building" housed faculty offices, classrooms and storage space for theater and homecoming props. A 2016 renovation brought the interior spaces into the 21st century and replaced parts of the red brick façade with the cream-colored brick associated with SE Wisconsin. In April of 2017, the building was renamed Education Hall.

On June 27, 2019, a thunderstorm with straight-line winds topping 70mph hit Waukesha, downing trees and power lines, and damaging buildings in a straight line about a block wide stretching from Grand Avenue eastward to McCall Street. Thankfully no one was injured, but the storm wrought considerable damage to the roof and back of Education Hall; yet another renovation was required, so Education faculty moved their damp books and materials to the lower level of North Bergstrom for the 2019-2020 school year. If nothing else, the year without Education Hall probably served as a helpful reminder that good teachers must adapt to unexpected circumstances--just like Otis Glidden nearly a hundred years ago.

"Barstow Building." Accessed July 28, 2020. Box 9, Folder 15. Carroll Buildings Collection. Carroll University Archives. Waukesha, WI.

"Industry." The Capital Times (May 9, 1960), 1.

Bennett, James. "Edna Wallace Hopper" http://cosmeticsandskin.org/companies/edna-wallace-hopper.php

Renner, Joan. "Edna Wallace Hopper" on Vintageowderroom.com (blog), posted Nov. 12, 2016.

Riccioli, Jim. "Severe storm damage downs power lines, closes two buildings at Carroll University in Waukesha." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 28, 2019. https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/waukesha/2019/06/28/waukesha-storm-weather-damage-closes-buildings-carroll-university/1593502001/.

Saturday Evening Post July 29, 1916, 47.