On September 24th, in celebration of Latino/a Heritage Month 2016, Yamhill County hosted “Sabor Latino” at the Chemeketa Community College Yamhill Valley Campus – and the OMA project Nuestras Voces y Herencia was there to share the stories gathered so far!
It’s the beginning of a new academic year and the beginning of OSQA’s 3rd year! We were thrilled to be invited by the OSU Pride Center to participate as part of its PC Connect event. OSQA shared a table with the Queer Studies Program and spoke with over 50 attendees! Our table included OSQA flyers, printed blog posts of our many events and collections, and i-Pads featuring the collections’ digital content.
The kitchen at the Paulings’ original Deer Flat Ranch cabin, 1958.
In 1955, Linus Pauling and his wife Ava Helen headed to Berkeley, California from their home in Pasadena to attend a meeting of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation. On the drive back from this event, the couple decided to take the scenic route along Highway 1 down the California coast. Passing through the Big Sur area, Pauling noted a point of land projecting into the ocean with a cabin and barn and a herd of grazing cattle. He suggested to his wife that such a location would be ideal as a country home for rest and relaxation. Ava Helen smiled and directed his attention to a For Sale sign on the side of the road.
Herman T. Bohlman standing in a field with a the sky full of gulls. Klamath Marsh, 1905.
OHS Research Library, Org. Lot 369, Finley A1713.
Herman T. Bohlman sitting with young burrowing owls. OHS Research Library, Org. Lot 369, Finley A1751.
In this month’s installment of our ongoing series, Reuniting Finley and Bohlman, about our efforts to digitize the collections of nature photographer William Finley, we shift our focus to explore the life of Herman Bohlman, Finley’s childhood friend and partner in crime on his earliest photography endeavors.
Herman Theodore Bohlman was born in Portland, Oregon on April 15, 1872. Friendship kindled between Finley and Bohlman shortly after the Finley family’s move to Portland in 1887. In high school, Bohlman and Finley’s interest in ornithology and collecting inspired them to start a side business selling biological specimens, including bird skins and eggs, to scientists and private collectors. By the late 1890s, however, the impact of over-collecting on bird populations led to a shift in public sentiment on the practice. The pair traded their collecting kit for a camera and embarked on a decade long partnership of artistic and scientific works. Between 1899 and 1908 Bohlman and Finley photographed and wrote about thousands of birds on expeditions throughout Oregon and California.
Bohlman passes Finley a glass plate as they are perched on a branch high in a tree photographing an eagle nest near Mission Peak, California, 1904. OHS Research Library, Org. Lot 369, Finley A441.
Of the two, Bohlman is often credited with having the more artistic eye behind the lens and some of the most iconic images to come from their collaboration bear only Bohlman’s name on the copyright. However, both men had cameras in the field and often worked in tandem to capture photographs from some truly precarious of vantage points. Bohlman’s photographs appeared in several U.S. and international publications, including Finley’s 1907 book, American Birds.
Herman Bohlman and Maud Bittleston on their wedding day in 1908.
OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center, Herman T. Bohlman Photograph Collection, ca. 1898-1925 (P 202)
Bohlman’s partnership with Finley largely came to an end in 1908 with Bohlman’s marriage to Maud Bittleston and the birth of their son, H. Theodore Bohlman. After that point, while their friendship endured, Bohlman shifted his focus to domestic responsibilities and his work within the family plumbing business. While he continued to be an active member of what would become the Oregon Audubon Society and to maintain his interest in birds, Bohlman rarely accompanied Finley into the field after marriage. He did, however, continue artistic pursuits through his love of oil painting later in life.
To see more examples of Bohlman’s photography, be sure to visit the Reuniting Finley and Bohlman Collection on Oregon Digital throughout the year as additional materials are uploaded.
This blog series is part of a yearlong partnership between the Oregon Historical Society Research Library and Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections and Archives to digitize the Finley and Bohlman photograph and manuscript collections held by our libraries and to unite them online through Oregon Digital and the OHS Digital Collections website. Stay tuned in coming months for future installments about Finley, Bohlman, and their birding adventures around the state.
Herman T. Bohlman and a pelican walking side by side near Klamath Marsh, 1905. OHS Research Library, Org. Lot 369, Finley A1796.
This project is supported in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the Oregon State Library.
The OSU Library had a table at University Day this year ~ and look who showed up!
Ida Kidder, first university librarian
There was also a nice array of goodies.
And of course Benny was there.
And so were we…
Earlier this month, on Tuesday, August 2, Ahmed H. Zewail, a world renowned Nobel laureate chemist and Caltech’s Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Physics, died at 70 years of age. As a major figure in the field of chemistry and a personal friend to Linus Pauling, Zewail’s passing is honored and mourned here at Oregon State University.
There’s a lovely four part “Pauling in Memorium” that concluded last week. It’s quite lovely, so I recommend setting aside some time!
Linus Pauling giving an interview at Deer Flat Ranch, September 1993.
Look no further — here’s what happened in July!
J.C. Clark Papers, 1893-1967 (MSS ClarkJC)
J. C. Clark with colleagues at Shanghai YMCA
This collection documents Clark’s 40-year career with the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in the United States and in China as Boy’s Division Secretary and World Brotherhood Secretary. The papers also document elements of his personal life, including his marriage to Oregon State Dean of Home Economics Ava Milam. These materials were previously described as part of the Ava Milam Clark Papers and were separated to form this collection in 2016.
Fred Eckhardt Papers, 1879-2013 (MSS Eckhardt)
Fred Eckhardt with the beers he loved, 1992
This extensive collection covers a broad range of topics related to craft beer brewing as well as sake and wine making. Otto Fredrick (Fred) Eckhardt was a well-known advocate, critic, educator, mentor, and historian and a beloved member of the brewing community.
William H. Galvani Rare Maps Collection, circa 1570-1909 (MAPS Galvani)
Adirondack Survey 1873 – Specimen of Preliminary Reconnaissance Sketch Showing the Approximate Positions and Names of Thirty Nine Ponds or Lakes Important and New to the Maps (Pl. 11), circa 1870
The Galvani Maps include maps and atlas pages depicting various regions of the globe during the 16th to 20thcenturies. Many of the items in the collection document military history in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially during the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the United States Civil War, the Crimean War, and the Russo-Japanese War. Galvani bequeathed his private library, including his map collection to the Oregon State College Library in 1947. These items were recently transferred from the Library’s historical maps collection to the Special Collections and Archives Research Center.
Helen E. Plinkiewisch Papers, 1888-1995 (MSS Plinkiewisch)
Helen Plinkiewisch, 1920s.
The Plinkiewisch Papers document the education, music teaching career, and related activities of this music educator. The collection includes diaries and journals, teaching records, musical compositions, a sound recording, and photographs. Plinkiewisch graduated from Oregon State Agricultural College in 1929 and had a long and successful career as music educator in the public schools of Garden City (Long Island), New York.
More films for you to enjoy — online and from the comfort of wherever you are!
“Discover Universatility,” OSU student recruitment video, ca. early 1980s.
Athletics
Presidents of OSU
Promotional Films
Research
Thanks to SCARC Natural Resources Archivist Ruth Vondracek for this post!
Peavy Hall Awaiting Demolition 2016
What happens when a College decides to demolish an existing building and rebuild? How do you relocate everyone and what happens to the 45-year accumulation of papers, research data, films, videos, photographs, slides and CDs, carefully tucked away in closets and storage rooms, or faculty offices? Well, you call in the archivists (and others of course, but we are mostly concerned with the archivists.) That’s exactly what happened last year when the College of Forestry decided to build a new Peavy Hall on the site of the old building.
The current Peavy Hall, constructed in 1971 and dedicated in 1972, created much needed space for the fast-growing School of Forestry. It was noted then that the School of Forestry “took a big leap of progress this year moving from the old forestry building built in 1917 to Peavy Hall, an attractive and modern structure… ” Since then hundreds of forestry students, faculty members and staff have passed through its halls. At least one retired faculty member, Mike Newton, remembers when Peavy Hall was built and when he moved into his first office in the building.
Dean Carl Stoltenberg and T.J. Starker Peavy Hall Groundbreaking 1969
Peavy Hall 1972
Last May, Ruth Vondracek, SCARC’s Natural Resources Archivist, began discussions with College of Forestry departments and faculty members about what materials might be appropriate for the SCARC collections. As can be expected the last months before the move-out were hectic as long-stored collections were revealed and transferred. Ruth and Karl McCreary, SCARC’s Accession Archivist, made many round trips between Peavy Hall and SCARC, loading and unloading boxes. They reviewed and transferred over 15 separate collections to SCARC. Included in the transfer were faculty papers from John Bliss, Loren Kellogg, Mike Newton, Bill Ripple, and Steve Tesch, among others. Additions to the Office of the Dean, Research Office, Environmental Remote Sensing Applications Laboratory (ERSAL) Records, Forest Fire Research, Communications (Publications) Group, and the College’s Photograph Collection also made their way to SCARC. Because of the volume of the transfers it may be awhile before the collections are processed and made available.
Karl Wrangling Reprints