Category Archives: Faculty

Remember Ozymandias

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Ramses II

Image from http://energyblog.nationalgeographic.com

If worries about the future life of your past weigh heavily on your mind, read on!

An 1818 poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley recently inspired me to think of a way to communicate the services available through archives. The poem contains the lines
“‘My name is Ozymandias*, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!'”

The irony is that Shelley was reflecting on the ruins of a great civilization. The lines beg the question: What  will remain of the work we do?

The programs and services of the University’s archives include research assistance with IWU’s collections. We advise on what among the works we produce are important to retain and how these works, whether physical or digital, can be preserved. We also have an Oral History program that allows us to go beyond just the products of our daily lives and helps preserve the context they were created in.

The way people view their experiences at IWU add dimensions to our historical records that statuary never will. Meg Miner, your archivist, stands ready to help preserve your legacy today!

*Ozymandias was an Anglicized version of the Greek’s name for Pharaoh Ramesses II.

Visit the Mini Museum on the Quad this Saturday!

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Visit Tate Archives & Special Collections on the Ames Library's 4th floor or online at https://www.iwu.edu/library/archives

Visit Tate Archives & Special Collections on the Ames Library’s 4th floor or online at https://www.iwu.edu/library/archives

Help kick off the Society of American Archivists’ archives awareness month by stopping by the Mini Museum Tent on the Quad during Homecoming! On Saturday, October 1st from 8-11:30 AM, I’ll be out in the tent with a condensed view of IWU’s 166 year history.

So stop by for a glimpse of what’s in your University’s Archives: artifacts, photos, yearbooks, event programs, Argus issues and more!

Emily Dunn Dale and the ERA

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The death of famed conservative activist and constitutional lawyer Phyllis Schlafly brought to mind an IWU connection from the 1970s. The University Archives contains a recording of a faculty member rebutting a position Schlafly took on the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).

Dr. Emily Dunn Dale, 1988

Dr. Emily Dunn Dale, 1988 Wesleyana p. 134

Apparently WESN aired an anti-ERA piece by Schlafly and then Anthropology & Sociology Professor Emily Dunn Dale provided a rebuttal to Schlafly’s points. The Schlafly recording is not part of the archives’ collections, but the Argus published an opinion piece by Schlafly that seems fairly close to the points Dale takes up in hers.

A 19 minute recording on reel-to-reel tape contains Dale’s remarks. We had it digitized several years ago out of concern for its condition and you can listen to the whole thing in a collection of historical materials online. Here’s an excerpt from the larger recording, with the text for just this segment below.

“What I have found out, in the process of being a professional breadwinner for my family, is that I had a lot more to gain in terms of self-respect, than I lost in security. As a matter of fact, I found out what most men have to discover: that performing and providing for those who are dependent on you, is a deep source of ego-fulfillment and self-satisfaction. One of the major reasons why I am in favor of the equal rights amendment is that I feel men have paid a terrible price for overprotecting females like Phyllis Schlafly.”

So what was this all about? The Argus contains a two-part series on the pros and cons of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution on January 12, 1973 Argus and January 19, 1973.

A March 22, 1974 Argus article covered a campus forum on the amendment. Dale and IWU alumna, later professor of English, Pamela Muirhead relate their personal experiences of gender inequality in commercial settings.

The cartoon below and a short opinion piece appeared in the February 12, 1982 Argus when the issue surfaced again.

Feb 12, 1982 Argus p. 3

February 12, 1982 Argus p. 3

Congress actually passed the ERA in 1972 and then the states had to ratify it…22 states did so almost immediately but 38 were needed. After a lengthy struggle, detailed on a website devoted to this topic, the proposals failed to be ratified by the extended deadline of 1982. Successive efforts have not advanced as far since then.

Presidential Biography: William J. Davidson

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Davidson was born on a farm near Carthage, Illinois. He received his B.S. degree from Chaddock College in 1893, his B.A. from Wesleyan in 1894, and his S.T.B. from Garrett Biblical Institute in 1897. He later returned to Garrett as a professor of religious education for ten years. He served as president of the Board of Trustees for two years and was then executive secretary of the Commission on Life Service of the Methodist Episcopal Church and was also the Chancellor of Nebraska Wesleyan University. He assumed office in September 1922, making him the ninth President of IWU, and the second alumnus President. His term ended in 1932.

William_J_Davidson

Presidential Biography: Theodore Kemp

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Kemp was the serving pastor of the Grace M.E. Church in Bloomington before being elected the 8th president of IWU in 1908. He was born near Rising Sun, Indiana on April 16th, 1868 and moved to Illinois with his parents in 1883. He graduated from DePauw University in 1893. He was an instructor at Wesleyan for a year before becoming president. His presidency ended in 1922.

Kemp, Theodore

Presidential Biography: Clinton W. Sears

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Sears was the first official president of Illinois Wesleyan University and served from 1855 until 1857. He was born in New York in 1820 but spent most of his life in Ohio. He graduated from Wesleyan University in Connecticut in 1841. Before his presidency, he held the dual position of librarian and Professor of Ancient Languages and Literature.sears

According to the 1998-99 President’s Report*, one notable contribution Sears made was ensuring there was a “‘substantial sidewalk’ linking the school and town. Sears noted that when it rained, the roads became so muddy it was impossible to get into town from the school ‘out in the country.’ In fact, he was so determined to connect Illinois Wesleyan with the growing community of Bloomington that he spent $500 of his own money to build the sidewalk.”

*Quoted from “Part 1-The Beginning,” One Building, One Sidewalk: 1850-2000, Past is Prologue. 1998-99 President’s Report, A Sesquicentennial Preview (p. 5). University Archives Record Group 5-2/7.

Research Files: Sociology Department history

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This post summarizes changes noted in the Sociology Department by examining the Catalogue of Courses. Course catalogs from 1851-1954 are available online; the rest are available in print in the University Archives.

The 1898-99 Course Catalog contains the name of the first faculty member affiliated with the discipline: “Sain Welty, M.A., LL.B., Political Science and Sociology.” (See his photo at https://bit.ly/2ZAbG13) A Non-resident M.A. in Sociology was awarded to Joseph Cookman Nate the same year.

The first course in sociology found in the 1899-1900 catalog is offered under Political Science. The same catalog provides a description of the course and its proposed frequency (pp. 54-55):
“A course in Sociology will be offered in the spring of 1900, and thereafter on alternate years with Economics (1). The course will necessarily be brief, Gidding’s text being used as a basis.”

Sociology continues with the same listing/requirements (“to be taken Senior year and then alternating years with economics”) in the following:
– 1900-1901 Under the direction of Oliver Lincoln Lyon, PhD, Instructor in Sociology and Economics and with a fuller description:
“The purpose in sociology is to trace the evolution of society from its primitive forms to its present state of complexity, to note the reciprocal adjustment of life and environment, to see how forces both subjective and objective have operated to bring about a normal state of society and to examine the forces which are now tending to change its structure.”
The catalog lists three courses: An Elementary Study of Social Principles and
Phenomena, The Principles of Sociology, and Seminary. The latter carries this description: “A study of such sociological problems as Organized Charity, Socialism, Communism, Crime, Urban Life and Social Selection, Negro, Immigrant, Sociological Study of the Family, Social Teaching and the Influence of Christianity.”

– 1905-06 Julius Christian Zeller, B.., A.M., B.D. is Professor of Philosophy and Sociology in the 1905-1909 catalogs.

In June 1906 James Robert Lincoln Diggs became the first African-American in the U.S. to earn a Ph.D. in Sociology. He graduated from IWU’s Non-Resident degree program. [More information about him is available in this post.]

– 1910-11 Course offered under Social Sciences and led by Ross Lee Finney, Ph.B., A.M., S.T.B., who also teaches in Education, Psychology and Religion.
– 1912-13 First time there is a Department of Social Sciences listed. There are courses as diverse as Economic Theory, Money and Banking, Railroad Transportation, Trusts and Monopolies, Problems of Labor, Social Theory and more.
– 1917-18
– 1919-20
– 1921-22 Listed as the Department of Economics and Social Sciences and led by Carl W. Strow, A.B., A.M. This is the first time a description is listed for the department:
“The general aim of the Department is to educate for enlightened citizenship, for alert membership in society, for socialization of the individual. Systematic courses seek to accomplish this end by providing accurate, scientific information concerning social conditions and by the inculcation of scientific social attitudes.”
– 1924-27 Frederic M. Thrasher, A.B., A.M., and two years of additional graduate work, continues as Professor of Economics and Sociology.
– 1926-27 Sociology has its own department, headed by Thrasher, and offers this description:
“The courses presented in the department of sociology deal with the interplay of human personalities and groups and the problems arising therefrom. They are designed to afford to the average college student a broad understanding of social life and of human nature in its related and interacting aspects. Qualified students may pursue a course in this department designed to prepare them for teaching social science in high school or college or for technical training in social work.”
– 1928-29 Professor Samuel C. Ratcliffe, A.B., A.M, Ph.D. listed as department head and by 1931 carries this description:
“The courses presented in the department of sociology deal with the relationships between persons and groups and with the problems which arise therefrom. Each course contributes toward a more adequate understanding of some phase of social life and thus
promotes a more intelligent citizenship. Students who plan to enter any phase of social welfare work, as a vocation, should major in this department.”

In 1933 Edelbert Rodgers became the first African-American to graduate from IWU’s residential program with a Sociology degree. More information about him is available in this post.

[Research into this department’s development ceased with this year.]

New online collection

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Last spring, our archives was selected for participation in a digitization project sponsored by the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI). I chose the IWU Catalogue of Courses from 1851-1954 for this project, and it just went live as the 200th collection added to CARLI’s digital collection database for member libraries.

The Main building at IWU, shown in the 1876-77 Catalogue at http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm/ref/collection/iwu_catalog/id/8885

The Main building at IWU, shown in the 1876-77 Catalogue available at http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm/ref/collection/iwu_catalog/id/8885

Course catalogs may not seem like the most compelling artifacts to have available online, but they have a lot to tell us about changes in personnel and physical attributes of campus, not to mention the curriculum!

A little known fact about these sources is that up until 1954, our catalogs contained an “enrolled” student list for the range of degree and certificate programs being offered.

So from the standpoint of the kinds of questions people direct to the archives, a significant benefit of this effort is that our last large collection of print material needed for finding people associated with IWU is now searchable!

Of course, all of the originals and the more recent catalogs, from 1955-present, are available in print in the University Archives.

From the 1941-43 Catalog available at http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm/ref/collection/iwu_catalog/id/7456

From the 1941-43 Catalog available at http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm/ref/collection/iwu_catalog/id/7456

For this project, CARLI worked with the Internet Archive, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization to make these materials freely available to CARLI libraries and the world, through the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/carli_lib.

You can access our catalogs there or though the CARLI-hosted search interface. The smaller collection I created through CARLI makes it easy to search just our collection rather than having ours along with the millions of items already in the Internet Archive.

Find out more ways to research IWU history through the page of sources I created or by contacting me!

Research Files: The Founders’ Gate/West Gate

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Guest posted by Melissa Mariotti

IWU West Gate. Found on IWU Website.

IWU West Gate. Photo copied from IWU Website.

As most students and faculty know, there are several main entrances into Wesleyan’s campuses. There is the North entrance on Franklin Avenue, the South entrance by Empire Street, the East entrance by Park Street, and the West entrance by Main Street. There is not much known about the latter entrance. It stands between Pfieffer and Gulick Halls and bears the inscription:

“We stand in a position of incalculable responsibility to the great wave of population overspreading the valley of the Mississippi. Destiny seems to point out this valley as the depository of great heart of the Nation. From this center mighty pulsations, for good or evil, must in future flow, which shall not only affect the fortunes of the Republic but reach in their influence other and distant Nations of the earth.”

The West Gates, looking north toward the Women’s Dormitory. From a 1931 booklet of pen sketches of Illinois Wesleyan University.

The West Gates, looking north toward the Women’s Dormitory. From a 1931 booklet of pen sketches of Illinois Wesleyan University; RG 4-16/2/4.

Upon further research, it was discovered that the gates were ”erected and presented to the school by the Bloomington Association of Commerce in 1921” (Founders’ Day Convocation, 1999). There are two differing theories about where this quote came from. According to the 1960 Wesleyana, it is “an excerpt from the report on education to the annual meeting of the Illinois Conference held in Springfield in 1854.” But according to an Argus article from February 13th, 1940, it was said on December 18th, 1850 from the “Conference Record.”

The quote (see image below) was verified in the Methodist Conference Record of 1854 by the archives that holds the Conference Record for 1854: The Illinois Great Rivers Conference Archives at MacMurray College, Jacksonville, Illinois. There is more to the quote than was summarized on our West Gates, but the spirit of the passage resonates just as much today as it did for our Founders.

Students around the West Gate in 1951. From the 1951 Wesleyana.

Students around the West Gate in 1951. From the 1951 Wesleyana.

The quote that is inscribed on the gate is said to represent “the ‘incalculable responsibility’ the founders of Illinois Wesleyan felt in the work they had undertaken” in establishing Illinois Wesleyan as an “institution of learning” (President Wilson, Founder’s Day Convocation Remarks, 2006). It describes the passion that the Founders had for teaching and learning, along with the many obstacles they had to face into creating the school. This inscription is referenced many times during Founders’ Day Convocations, and is evident in the care and consideration of all who work to sustain and advance that goal today.

Education Committee Report

Education Committee Report, 1854 Central Illinois Conference Journal

The text is as follows: “The Methodist Church, in the West and Southwest, stands in a position of incalculable responsibility to the great wave of population overspreading the valley of the Mississippi. Destiny seems to point out this valley as the depository of the great heart of the nation. From this center mighty pulsations, for good or evil, must in future flow, which shall not only affect the fortunes of the republic, but reach in their influence, other and distant nations of the earth. The advances herein reported which are being made by the Methodists on the subject of education in the bounds of the Illinois Conference, flatter the idea that, in so far as our section of the church is concerned and especially the division of it embraced in the Illinois Conference, cheering success will attend our future efforts to contribute our share towards the general education of the great masses. In addition to all other motives conspiring to lead us forward in this noble work, patriotism or the love of country is not the least. The nature of our constitutions and laws demands it. The tenure and price of our liberties are involved in it. The sovereignty invested in the whole people imperiously requires it; and recent events, as they have been connected with the civil questions which have agitated the nation, some of which questions have sprung from the tide of foreign emigration setting in upon American soil, call loudly for the work of education to go forward-the education of nothing less than the whole American mind; an education, too, that shall be American in all its essential principles.”