The first awards were made in 1931, and today, the Hopwood Program offers around $120,000 in prizes every year to aspiring writers at the University of Michigan.
According to Nicholas Delbanco, UM English professor and former director of the Hopwood Awards Program, "This is the oldest and best-known series of writing prizes in the country, and it is a very good indicator of future success.
When it ran, the contest was open only to students who took writing courses during spring and summer terms.
The room was established by Professor Roy W. Cowden, director of the Hopwood Awards from 1933 to 1952, who generously contributed a part of his library, which has grown through the addition of many volumes of contemporary literature.
In addition to housing the winning manuscripts from the past years of the contests, the Hopwood Room has a lending library of 20th-century literature, a generous supply of noncirculating current periodicals, some reference books on how to get published, information on graduate and summer writing programs, and a collection of screen plays donated by former Hopwood winner Lawrence Kasdan.