Author Archives: edmunsot

Friday Feature: the Oregon Archives Month 2013 debrief

Wow, what a month. Oregon Archives Month at OSU was a great mix of activities and opportunities for connecting with the community.

Good Morning America, 1988

Karl McCreary started off the month with a film showing on the 8th. He arranged for the transfer of several “films from the VHS vault,” including one of Benny and Bernice Beaver celebrating on the Memorial Union steps in 1988, former library director Rodney Waldren talking about the McDonald Room in 1984, and the always mysterious “Mr. Wizard.” These films aren’t online yet, but you can view them in our reading room (8:30 – 5:00, Monday – Friday).

 

Next on the docket was an event hosted in our reading room celebrating the 50th anniversary of Linus Pauling’s Nobel Peace Prize. History of Science Doctoral Student Linda Richards hosted a session on peace crane folding and early arrivals were able to explore some of our collections. Richards also gave an introduction to the panel featuring Tim Naftali, Jacob Darwin Hamblin, Christopher McKnight Nichols, and Joseph Orosco.  It was well-attended and Mina Carson took pictures you can find on Flickr (thanks to her for the one above). History of Science librarian Anne Bahde says “this is definitely something we’d will do again.”

We took a bit of a break before launching into back-to-back events to highlight the new Oregon Hops & Brewing Archives. The first was a fun Saturday afternoon brewery crawl, history lecture, and showings of both the documentary Oregon Brewed and all the Hopstories mini-documentaries. You can read about it and find great pictures on our Tumblr blog. A few days later we hosted the 8th annual Taste of the ‘Chives, our historic recipe cooking event, and you can read about that on our Tumblr blog as well. This year we featured recipes cooked with beer or beer ingredients. You can imagine how aromatic that was! Check out the KBVR news piece (check minute 3:15 for us).

Our final event was a celebration of OSU (and OSC) alumni during Homecoming Weekend. We held an open house and film showing on the 26th before the big game against Stanford. While the game was a bit of a bummer, the visitors weren’t! Student Mike Dicianna wrote up a nice blog post about the event and included some fun pictures of what our staff are calling “The Super Alums.”

I send out my thanks to all who attended and gratitude for all those who helped make it happen. It takes a lot of work to promote, organize, and host events like this, but I am lucky to work with a talented and engaged bunch of people who love sharing out history stories.

Remember you can see lots of event pictures in our Flickr sets.

Homecoming Open House: a report from the field by Mike D

The 2013 OSU Homecoming game against Stanford may have not been the biggest success of the season, but SCARC’s open house event certainly was! Saturday, October 26th was a memorable day here in the reading room. Karl McCreary, Trevor Sandgathe, and Mike Dicianna played host to some excited patrons and alumni with a display of OSU Homecoming history in the SCARC reading room.

Throughout the day, visitors spent quality time with ephemera, yearbooks, and OSU Barometers highlighting homecoming history. Early in the day, a couple of OSU alumni from the early 1980s showed interest in our Memorabilia Collection (MC). They asked about our original documents from the Land Grant legislation, and were able to see some original OSU history. In speaking with them, I found they were OSU Marching Band alumni and she spoke of the band playing the alma mater after each game, a tradition that needed to be reborn, she added. I retrieved our original sheet music of “Hail to Old OAC”, written in 1914 by Harold A. Wilkins. This file in the MC contains a number of original copies of the music, probably used by the OAC Cadet Band of the era. I was gratified to see how profoundly moved this patron was to see these artifacts. I do believe her hands were trembling a bit as she handled this original score. This is what the Memorabilia Collection is all about!

The highlight of our day however, was an enthusiastic group of alumni that descended upon the reading room late in the day. The Class of 1959 contingent arrived in full Beaver regalia, and they were enthralled by the display of “their” history. The OSU Barometer bound editions we had on display were a huge hit! The stories from their years at OSC started to flow, and memories rekindled by the yearbooks and Barometer articles, entertained us for the rest of the afternoon.

We learned that the campaign for student body officers during the era was quite a contested affair. The Shamrock Ticket was standing before us! Harlan Smith, Dave Socolofski, and Jane Sailing all ran for ASOSC office for the 1959 year. And there, in the bound version of the Barometer on the table, was the news coverage of the race!
We also learned that the 1959 ASOSC administration was involved in the process to designate Oregon State College as a full University (finalized in 1961). These were the folks that helped make OSC history. Unfortunately, the Shamrock ticket was not elected that spring of 1958. Some interesting stories of the hard fought campaign were shared, involving toilet seats all over campus. Harley Smith served as the ASOSC First Vice President during the 1959 school year.

The alumni from the Class of 1959 were a joy to interact with. They were truly appreciative that SCARC would preserve the history of their college. Dave Socolofsky, Junior Class President of 1958 was especially interested in our collections. He had no idea that we would keep this stuff! Yes, Mr. Beaver Alumni, we do indeed. He took pictures with his I-Phone (cool guy) of the memories before him in the Barometers from 1958.
I have to admit my motives for the day were kind of self-serving. I was fishing for Oral History subjects for my OSU history project. Capturing the campus life stories of students from the different decades is my primary goal. This group of enthusiastic alumni was all interested in contributing! These stories of OSC/OSU are being captured in video interviews and will be part of the university’s 150th anniversary celebration.

All in all, the SCARC Homecoming Open House was a huge success! I can hardly wait until next week’s display for Dad’s Weekend! Maybe we can snag some more subjects for the oral history project!

Friday Feature: a new photo of the finial

Weatherford Hall – New Photo of the Tower Finial! Super student researcher Mike Dicianna has given us another fun post about OSU history.

One of the most iconic buildings on the Oregon State campus is Weatherford Hall. Completed in 1928 as part of a massive building program began by Oregon Agricultural College President William Jasper Kerr, the new dormitory would house 344 male students for the growing institution. The newly completed building cost $460,000 – including furnishings! The university financed the huge project by means of a bond issue that was retired gradually with usage fees paid by the men who lived in the dorm. The residence hall wings were named after Austin T. Buxton, Daniel V. Poling, Thomas J. Cauthorn, and Curtis L. Hawley. From the beginning, the men of these dorms were known as “independents,” that is not affiliated with the fraternities on campus. Watch a video history of this picturesque building on YouTube.

Weatherford Hall served as a dormitory and focal point for the university for many years, but time was not kind to the stately building. Leaks destroyed plaster in the interior, wiring and plumbing became dated and dangerous, and the building was deemed unsafe. The dorm closed at the end of the 1993-94 school year. In 1997, a renovation of the historic dorm was planned, and Weatherford reopened in 2004 as the new home of the Austin Entrepreneurship Program.

Recently, a donor called SCARC with a question about a photograph from her grandfather, Lloyd Bonney’s estate with a possible connection with OSU. Nan Harrison, of Springfield, Oregon described a photograph of her grandfather with the new “copper finial to be placed on the new O.A.C. Dormitory, Corvallis, Ore.” The copper finial was manufactured by Strobel & Miller Metal Works, of Eugene, Oregon. Nan agreed to send SCARC the original photograph and negative to include in our collection.

My first thought was it possibly could have been the decoration for the first men’s dorm, Cauthorn Hall (now Fairbanks) dating just before the turn of the century. Upon receiving an initial scan of the photo, I could tell it was later than 1892, but where could this finial have been installed? Searching through SCARC’s collection of historic O.A.C. photographs, the huge copper finial revealed itself! The tower of the new dormitory, Weatherford Hall sported the beautiful creation. The date of the photograph was confirmed as 1928!

This one photograph enhances our collection of Weatherford Hall in a special way. There are a few construction images from 1928, and numerous photos throughout Weatherford’s eighty-five year history, but this individual detail shot of the finial is a true find. As a thank you to our donor Nan and her family, I spent some time restoring the old photo digitally. Removing cracks and stains, the original “patina” of the photograph was retained, and a high resolution copy was made available to the family.

Sometimes it is the small things that excite an archivist. This single photograph revealed a part of OSU history that has been undocumented in our collections. Weatherford Hall was built exclusively by Oregon sub-contractors during 1928, something the Architect firm of Bennes & Herzog was proud to feature. And now, through this donation of a single photograph, the firm of Strobel & Miller of Eugene can be documented as part of this achievement. The photograph is available for researchers in Harriet’s Collection (HC), at OSU Special Collections & Archive Research Center.

Friday Feature: new finding aids for student and sports collections

You may not give much thought to the tremendous amount of work that goes into describing collections and putting that information online. Not being the one who works at that end of the archival workflow in SCARC, I can tell you that the staff and students are hard at work!

Participants at Phi Delta Theta barn dance (1950s), from MSS Choate.

You may also not give much thought to the steady stream of materials we are lucky enough to receive each week. We have alumni, department staff, and many others who are looking out for collections that would make great additions as we work to document the history of our university. I wanted to share a sampling of the collection guides that SCARC staff have updated or created over the past couple of months. Though these fall in the “students” and “sports” categories, because that’s what on my mind these days with the new school year and exciting football season, there are many more gems that now have new guides!

One thing to note: you’ll see two links and may wonder why… We have guides on our SCARC site, but also in the Northwest Digital Archives (NWDA), a database of collections from around the northwest. If you are interested in a topic or person, and want to see if there are other research possibilities in our region, NWDA is a great place to explore.

From the Football Photograph Colection

Football Photograph Collection, 1894-2000 (P 004)
http://nwda.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv94665
http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/p004/index.html

This collection consists of approximately 800 photographs of football games, practices, players, and coaches. Images of athletic facilities such as Bell Field and Parker Stadium are also included. An item-level list of the images, with links to those images that are available online, is part of this guide.

Arbuthnot, James G., Photograph Collection, 1909-1915 (P 191)
http://nwda.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv69671
http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/p191/index.html

These photographs document Arbuthnot’s life and activities in and near Corvallis as well as Oregon Agricultural College athletic teams and sporting events. James G. Arbuthnot was Athletic Director from 1906 to 1918 and the coach of the wrestling team in 1911-1917 and 1920. The collection includes 318 photographs.

Smith-Western Co. Photographs of Oregon State College, c. 1955/56 (P 164)
http://nwda.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv02270
http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/p164/index.html

This collection of 89 photographs consists of images (primarily negatives) of Oregon State College campus buildings and sorority and fraternity houses. The negatives were printed as postcards and sold in the College bookstore.

Lepper, Helen, Diary, 1938-1931 (MSS Lepper)
http://nwda.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv99447
http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/lepper/index.html

This diary documents the daily activities of Helen Marie Lepper during her student years at Oregon State College. She attended OSC from 1927 until 1930 and studied music.

Choate, Virgil L., Collection, 1953-1957 (MSS Choate)
http://nwda.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv21252
http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/choate/index.html

The Choate Collection consists of ephemera and photographs assembled by Choate during his student years at Oregon State College. Virgil L. Choate earned a BS in Agricultural Education in 1958. The collection includes 25 photographs, primarily depicting activities of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.

Mason, Donald L., Photographs, 1915-1935 (P 290)
http://nwda.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv56347
http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/p290/index.html

The Mason Photographs depict the Oregon State College foundry facilities, items made in the foundry, and students in foundry classes. Donald L. Mason earned a BS in Industrial Arts from Oregon State College in 1937 and was Foundry Instructor in the Industrial Arts Department until 1943. The collection includes 51 photographs.

Oviatt, May, Collection, 1903-1912 (MSS Oviatt)
http://nwda.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv91265
http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/oviatt/index.html

This small collection documents Oviatt’s work as a public school teacher in Benton County (Oregon) and includes certificates and contracts. May Oviatt earned a BS in Household Science from Oregon Agricultural College in 1908.

October is Oregon Archives Month — and this year it’s going to be a doozy!

Tis the season to celebrate and highlight the importance of archives and all the ways that historical records enrich our lives. Yes, it’s time to enjoy Oregon Archives Month.

We’ve had good fun in past years, but I think this month will be especially fun. Read all about our events and activities on the SCARC site. All are free and open to the public — and we’d love you to join us!

Click on over to the page for this year or visit Flickr to see what we’ve done in days of yore.

Friday Feature: Hello, My Name Is…

Mike Dicianna gives us another fabulous feature this Friday — enjoy!

We have all worn these from time to time. They are usually scribbled on with a sharpie with your name, sort of readable, and maybe a title or hometown. By the end of the conference or event, these name tag stickers are usually torn off your jacket, folded in half and stuck in a pocket, only to be found months later…

VFW Encampment badge, 1938

Perhaps the “golden age” of name tags has gone the way of cheap convenience in recent times. SCARC’s recent accession of the Governor Douglas McKay collection (MSS McKay) contains a wealth of artifacts and ephemera that highlights the elegance of personal identification of decades past. Convention attendees of the 1930s and 40s would sport some of the most decorative nametags to their gatherings. These badges were something you kept as a remembrance of attending that special meeting, convention, or in McKay’s case – the 15th Annual VFW Encampment.

AFL Labor Convention, 1950

Douglas McKay was the 25th Governor of Oregon, 1949 through 1952. His political career dates back to the 1930s in Salem, Oregon where he was Mayor and State Senator.  All of these activities necessitated his attendance at meetings, special events and political conventions. The McKay artifacts represent this career in a tangible way.  Some of the name tags include his title, Governor, but most are simply typed with his name. And yes, no scribbled sharpie names, they were typed, on a good ole’ Underwood or Royal manual typewriter.

During World War I, McKay served with the American Expeditionary Forces (the US Army) in Europe, where he advanced to the rank of First Lieutenant.

American Legion 15th Annual, 1933

On October 4th, 1918, about a month before the end of WWI, he sustained severe injuries in battle to his leg, right arm and shoulder, for which he was awarded the Purple Heart.

His involvement with veteran’s groups in Oregon is represented in the collection through convention nametags. McKay was an active member of both the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars organizations. Badges from “encampments” during the 1930s were quite decorative, and became souvenirs of the events. Our collection contains examples from both of these groups.

I took the time to check the Webster’s definition of ephemera, and found it to be contradictory to a historian’s sensibilities:

ephem·era noun \i-ˈfe-mər-ə, -ˈfem-rə\ : things that are important or useful for only a short time : items that were not meant to have lasting value.

The value of the McKay artifacts to the researcher is only magnified by this rather depressing definition.  We are lucky to have these items in the collection. Ephemera can help to tell the story of a person’s life. Boxes of dusty old records or scrapbooks are important tools to all researchers, but pausing to experience a box of artifacts in a collection can bring the story to life. Granted, collections as rich as MSS McKay are not the archival norm, but when you find gold…mining is in order.

Benny the Beaver visits SCARC – and transforms into Benny the Researcher!

OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center had a special patron in the 5th Floor Reading Room. Yes, Benny the Beaver! Benny was touring campus with Zoe from the College of Liberal Arts filming a new student orientation video. Mike was there to snap some pictures when Benny stopped by and shares the story!

Not surprisingly, Benny wanted to learn about university history and his Beaver heritage.

 The current Benny the Beaver has a long lineage reaching back over 60 years to the days when he was one of the first mascots active at events on the west coast. The logo to the left was designed by Arthur Evans and was approved by Oregon State College in 1951.

Like any diligent researcher looking into the history of his university, Benny planned to spend some time looking through our collections. He followed good researcher procedures and protocols by contacting us to make arrangements in advance, letting staff know he would be visiting and what he was interested in investigating.

We wanted Benny to be able to connect with his “roots” so we brought out our original Benny the Beaver sailor hat, which is in the style the original Benny wore from 1951 to 1998. Benny reverently placed this historic hat upon his head and was visibly moved by the experience. Actually it was kind of hard to tell how he was feeling, but we would like to think this was significant to our special patron. It’s safe to say that Benny knows the value of primary source documents for his research.

Benny found other fun vintage OSU memorabilia to look at, including a 1915 Oregon Agricultural College pennant and photographs of the 1984 Football team. He also looked through Beaver yearbooks and bound copies of the OSC Barometer. 

Benny’s visit was all too brief, but it was an honor to have this VIP patron in our reading room. Benny is now a registered researcher and on his next visit is set to continue his journey through our collections of OSU history.

Looking for a few more pictures? Fear not, you can find a set on Flickr!

Index for the Oregon Stater now online!

We are happy to report that Kevin Miller of the Oregon Stater has shared an index his office compiled — essentially the entire run of the magazine beginning in beginning in 1915! And yes, we’ve put the entire thing online.

The web version is linked on various pages on the SCARC website.

This online resource unlocks a lot of potential that has previously been buried in the card catalog. Not only will we be able to use the  Stater more effectively, but the document itself (all 537 pages) provides a great source of searchable text that will enable serendipitous finds by us and our researchers.

Archives of the OregonStater are available on the OSU Alumni Association site from April 2000 to the present; however, they include only excerpts of each magazine until the April 2006 issue and after are full PDF versions of the magazine as published.

Founded in 1915 by OSU alumnus E.B. Lemon, the Oregon Stater is published by the OSU Alumni Association three times a year (Fall, Winter, Spring) and distributed to all alumni households, and non-alumni members of the association.

Friday Feature: WWII OSC “Yank” Collection to be featured at Adair History Day this Saturday

Mark your calendar, free up your Saturday. This Saturday (September 7th) the WWII-era OSC “Yank” Collection will be featured at the Adair History Day Mini Conference.  And guess what? There is a fabulous new Flickr set of Stock US Army Signal Corp photographs of Camp Adair 1943-44.

During the war, many OSC alumni served in all theaters, all over the globe. The OSC Yank was a quarterly newspaper sent to OSC servicemen from 1943 through 1945. Graduate students Mike Jager and Mike Dicianna will highlight this collection in a presentation about the war effort on campus and in the Corvallis community during WWII. But in advance of the event, Mike D. wrote this blog post as a teaser…

MSS Yank is one of our most poignant collections from the war years. Every letter tells a story, and each Yank issue is a window into what was happening at home and with Beaver alumni in service to their country.

Elaine Kollins Sewell and Jane Steagall, OSC graduates, wanted to provide their fellow Beavers with a little taste of home to boost morale. They published the first Yank as a 4-page newspaper-style Christmas greeting with news and gossip about OSC men and women in the service. They received many letters praising the publication and asking for more. It was expanded to 16 pages and published quarterly through November 1945. The collection includes this correspondence consisting of letters, telegrams, postcards, and V-mail. V-mail was a popular way to correspond with those serving overseas.
Participants at the presentation this weekend will have the opportunity to send their own “V-Mail” message to today’s Beaver military personnel on authentic WWII style V-Mail stationary.

A very special debut of a collection of Camp Adair photographs will also be presented on Saturday. These previously unseen images of the Adair Cantonment are part of SCARC’s new Governor Douglas McKay Collection. Last month, OSU brought the extensive collection of one of their famous alumni home to OSU. Douglas McKay was a 1918 Graduate of Oregon Agricultural College (and Student Body President) and a veteran of WWI.

McKay petitioned to re-enter the US Army when WWII broke out. He was reinstated as a Captain and was put in charge of the artillery range at Camp Adair. The collection of US Army Signal Corps images of life at the base during WWII was part of this new accession. Over 150 photographs surfaced in this vast collection. The majority of these images have never been seen here in the Willamette Valley history community before. This is an epic find! Adair historians will have the opportunity to research this sub-group of the MSS McKay collection when the entire collection has been processed. A representative sample of the new Adair photographs will be available as a slide show to whet the appetites of WWII Adair researchers.

The Mini-Conference will be held from 1:00 – 4:00pm at the Santiam Christian School, Mario & Alma Pastega Room, Library Building, 7220 NE Arnold Ave, Adair Village, OR. The event is sponsored by Adair Living History, Inc.

 

Friday Feature: Portraying Forest History

I love new projects that celebrate new collections! Last Friday, August 16, we released nearly 5,000 digital images of the Siuslaw National Forest (SNF), which date from 1908 when Siuslaw was first established as a national forest to the present. A highlight of the collection is a series of photographs taken by Corydon Cronk during his time as an assistant ranger on the forest in 1910-1911.

Aerial Central coast N. from Cape Perpetua

Kevin Bruce, SNF Heritage Resource Program manager, approached Larry Landis and Ruth Vondracek nearly a year ago with the exciting proposal to create the Siuslaw National Forest Collection. The collection represents the first step in a long-ranging joint project between the SNF and the OSU Libraries and Press’ Center for Digital Scholarship and Special Collections & Archives Research Center.

Heritage Resource Program manager Kevin Bruce says

“Ranging from early 20th-century homesteading activities to modern stream restoration efforts, the collection includes a wide array of topics that reflect the changing management, landscapes, and people on the Siuslaw National Forest.”

Making forest history more publicly accessible is the goal of the project, and this project also involved the public. The images were digitized and described by volunteers in the Passport in Time Program, a volunteer archaeology and historic preservation program of the U.S. Forest Service. Under the supervision of former Siuslaw National Forest Heritage Program manager Phyllis Steeves, volunteers scanned images over the course of a decade, and even developed the database to store the associated information. Maura Valentino, from the OSULP Center for Digital Scholarship played a significant role in making the images available as through the OSULP digital collections.

See the Siuslaw National Forest Collection.

Read the OSU press release.

Enjoy!