James Burrill Angell became President of the University of Michigan when Ulysses Grant was President of the United States and becme President Emeritus during the administration of William Howard Taft. Before coming to Michigan Angell had been editor of the Providence Journal and President of the University of Vermont. While at the University of Michigan he also served as United States Minister to China and to Turkey and was a member of various international commissions. Alice Freeman Palmer, formerly President of Wellesley, once wrote to him: "In all these years not a single educational reform has escaped your influence; you have found time and means for bettering every scholar in Michigan, from the kindergarten into his professional life,— and so of helping on the reign of right reason everywhere..."

Shirley W. Smith