Because the Great Depression caused a shortage of funds, the building took several years to construct, and its distinctive stained glass windows on the east facade were not placed until 1938.

The building housed a bookstore, small library, hotel, soda fountain, banquet hall and ballroom (in what later became the Keene Faculty Center, see below), chapel, game room, "sundry ship," and student organization offices[2][3] (including those of not-yet independent student newspaper, the Florida Alligator, whose officers were in the basement).

[2][5] The building adopted its current name in 1975 in honor of Manning J. Dauer, the longtime chairman of the political science department.

Open to faculty and guests weekdays from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. as a coffee, reading, and discussion room, it can be reserved for use in late afternoons, evenings, and on weekends, for other activities, such as dinners (with seating for up to 50), receptions, concerts, lectures, conferences, and meetings.

Originally the basement part of the room was used as a "short-order café" and bookstore and the upper portion was used for banquets.

Most "large University dinner events" shifted to The Hub after that building was completed in 1950, but the Union Social Room was still use for banquets occasionally, such as for the annual Caribbean Conference.

After the Florida Union moved to Museum Road in 1967 (where it remains as the J. Wayne Reitz Union), Dauer Hall was given to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to alleviate a critical shortage of classroom and office space, and from 1970 to 1997, Social Room was a language lab with close to 50 listening stations.