Tag Archives: cultural memory

Where was Old North located?

Posted on by
Reply

Old North, 1856-1966 (click any image to enlarge)

The first building erected on IWU’s campus is referred to as Old North and was built in 1856. The purpose of this post is to clarify confusion about its location on campus.

People often say that it was located where State Farm Hall is today, but it was actually to the East of that and would have stood even a bit East of what is now the sidewalk leading to the entrance of the Center for Liberal Arts (CLA).

Quad Duration Hall. Approximate date 1964 or ’65 due to presence of Old North on right and Sheean not yet started.18-1/17 Aerial Photographs

This can be seen in this slightly elevated view of the Quad (likely taken from the top of McPherson Theatre), when it still held the building known as Duration Hall. Only part of Old North is visible in the upper right of this view, but the shorter building beyond it is what we now know as CLA. Before the remodel that transformed the facade it was called the Sherff Hall of Science. You can also clearly see the dorm we call Magill beyond that. Looking fro the same point of view today, State Farm Hall would block that view of Magill.

To further orient yourself, the street in the foreground is now a sidewalk, but the Hedding Bell and Powell Monument with flagpole are in the same location today. Duration Hall was actually the foundation of IWU’s second building, originally called the Main Hall/Old Main and later renamed Hedding Hall in honor of IWU’s commitment to the alumni of Hedding College when it closed in the 1930s.

Below are three aerial views of the Quad: two with Hedding in the center, on the south side of the East-West sidewalk from where State Farm Hall is today. Note the location of Stevenson Hall (aka, the School of Nursing), built in 1910, and the long sidewalk leading to the entrance of Hedding Hall. Use these as a reference point in the photo above and the one on the left below. Note also the position of Old North in the first and second photos below. The third photo clearly shows the sidewalk leading to the empty space once occupied by Hedding Hall and on the North side of the E-W sidewalk is IWU’s first free-standing library, called Sheean Library. It was in use from 1967-2002, when Ames Library opened, but it remained in that location until it was demolished in 2011 and replaced by State Farm Hall, which opened in 2013.

In the aerial photo below, it is clear that the only thing in the footprint of Sheean/current-day State Farm Hall was a short drive to an expansion of the parking lot that probably served Old North, Old Main, Stevenson and the tennis courts north of Stevenson.

1949 aerial with parking lot north of Duration Hall and adjacent to Stevenson with short drive connecting northeast to Old North.

 

Exploring mistakes in primary sources

Posted on by
Reply

Back in 2015, I asked one of the archives’ student assistants to research and write a blog post about the gate at the West entrance to IWU’s Quad that is known as the Founder’s Gate. The South pillar of the gate contains an excerpt from the Education Report, Journal and records of the … session of the Illinois Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1854, p. 19. The report was submitted by the Chairman of the committee that year W. D. R. Trotter and J. L. Crane, Secretary. (A complete copy of the report I obtained from the Methodist Conference Archives is available on request.)

Architectural features are considered primary sources, but like any other source we can’t take the informaton they hold at face value. The gate that stands at IWU’s West entrance offers valuable lessons that illustrate how trustworthy (or not) primary sources are.

Mis-quoting & implied attribution: As the earlier blog post notes, the quote on the South column of the gate is an abbreviation of the quote in the actual Conference Record. Here is a copy of the complete quote:

Complete quote

This is the text as it appears in the Education Committee Report in the 1854 Conference Record {click to enlarge]

By revising the first clause to read “We stand in a position…” rather than “The Methodist Church, in the west and south-west, stands…” and positioning it next to a column with a dedication to the Founders, the implication is that IWU’s Founders made this the statement as part of their reason for creating the University. Any evidence that they did so at all, let alone in 1850, has yet to surface. However, the chairman of the 1854 Education Committee, W.D.R. Trotter, was one of our Founders, so it might be attributed to him but he is not listed on the North column!

Mistaken transcription: The dedication plaque on the North column of the gate reads “In Memory of the Founders of Illinois Wesleyan University, 1850.”

It then lists the following names that, by implication, were all of the Founders: “James Allin, J.E. McClun, Linus Graves, Thomas P. Rogers, H.H. Fell, Ezekiel Thomas, W. H. Allin, Isaac Funk, John Moon, Jesse W. Fell, C.D. James, Silas Waters, C.P. Merriman, David Trimmer, John Magoun, James Miller, John W. Ewing, Jesse Birch, A. Goddard, W.C. Hobbs, David Davis, Peter Cartwright, John S. Barger, Henry Coleman.”

However there are some spelling errors in this list and some other names are missing. The author of a book published for IWU’s 100th anniversary, Elmo Scott Watson, provides a list of all the names and notes that some of the misspellings may have come from an inaccurate transcription in the 1895 history of IWU by William H. Wilder.

The reader can see the names and signatures in the 1850 document known as IWU’s “Birth Certificate” (aka, the Certificate of Incorporation). The 30 listed are:
“James C. Finley, James Miller, James Allin, John E. McClun, John Magoun, William C. Hobbs, Thomas Magee, Charles P. Merriman, Ezekiel Thomas, Thomas P. Rogers, Linus Graves, Peter Cartwright, James F. Jaquess, William J. Rutledge, Calvin W. Lewis, James Leaton, John Van Cleve, Silas Watters, Isaac Funk, David Trimmer, John S. Barger, C. M. Holliday, W. D. R. Trotter, W. H. Allin, William Wallace, W. H. Holmes, J. W. Ewing, Lewis Bunn, Kersey H. Fell, Reuben Andrus.”

Mistaken citation: Both columns contain attributions for the information on them:

  1. On the North we can see “Erected 1922 with Funds donated by the Bloomington Association of Commerce, Arthur L. Pillsbury, Architect”
  2. The day at the bottom of the South column is quite worn but an Argus article from February 13th, 1940 claims that it is “December 18th, 1850.” [n.b., The date on the “Birth Certificate” is December 3, 1850.]

The date on the South column, especially when juxtaposed with the dedication to the Founders on the North column, could lead people to believe that the statement was made by IWU’s Founders in 1850. By checking the original sources, we established that the quote was incomplete and was actually published after a meeting of the Central Illinois Methodist Conference four years later.

It is also important to consider why the Bloomington Association of Commerce erected this Gate in 1922.* That was the year that IWU declined an offer by business interests in Springfield to relocate the University. (see descriptions of this plan on p. 104 the Myers/Teichman book on IWU history and pp. 152-54 of Watson’s.)

In their desire to honor IWU’s Founders, and perhaps as a sign of their belief in the importance of IWU’s presence in the community, the Bloomington Association of Commerce used an excerpt from this powerful sentiment in what IWU leaders often cite as an inspirational call to service (one example is in President Wilson’s February 8, 2006 remarks at Founders’ Day).

President Minor Myers, jr. relates the story of how he went to the Gate to copy the inscription, describes its presumed origins, and notes its addition to the new Ames Library’s Rotunda at the 2003 Founders’ Day Convocation.

Since it is an excerpt, it is appropriate to attribute any use of the abbreviated quote to the Gate and not the Conference Record.

Founder's Gate 1922

The quote from the Gate is also available in The Ames Library’s Jown Wesley Powell Rotunda, where it serves as a reminder to all in the IWU community of their purpose.

*For more on the topic of examining the purpose behind monuments, I often recommend the book Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Got Wrong (1999) by James W. Loewen.

New is a relative term in the archives!

Posted on by
1

More than a decade ago we transferred photographic formats like negatives, contact sheets and slides from offices and storage areas in Holmes Hall. This kind of old collection transfer is new-to-us in the sense that researchers and the campus community at-large may not know it even existed. This is a central goal of the archives: make everything old new again through preservation and information-sharing actions.

This fall we transferred what I *think* will be the last group of unorganized photos and the next-to-last large amount of printed records relating to athletics and campus news offices (amounting to approx. 33 linear feet, unprocessed). In the spring we will be bringing over an additonal 20 linear feet of large storage cabinets filled with faculty, subject and photo files organized for use by the University Communications staff.

Two archives student assistants* have been sorting, rehousing and filing just the photographic formats from this large transfer so that they will be both accessible and preserved in a better environment. When that is complete they will start on the printed materials, many of which are related to the campus publicity and the sports information departments.

inital sort of printed photgraphs

inital sort of printed photgraphs

*The students are Savannah, sorting printed photos, and Arlo, working on photographic negatives. The latter are complementary additions to the 2011 accession that was lacking negatives for many of the contact sheets we added then. The negatives alone account for approx. 4 linear feet of this new accession!

Homecoming Museum 2022

Posted on by
Reply

This year IWU Homecoming was all in person for the first time since 2019! That means we were able to resume support from the University Archives’ collections for the museum tradition that started out in a tent on the Quad in 2010. Hard to believe it was just in 2018 that we moved indoors to the Eckley Lounge in the Memorial (Student) Center! (See photo gallery below).

Each year I have ways for attendees to interact with the exhibited materials and share their insights into campus traditions and to name the people in our largely unidentified photo collections. This year one alum solved a mystery that’s “bugged” me for a long time. I added the newly-recovered details to the photo of a car in a building that we now know was Gulick.

The earth in front of The Ames Library

Posted on by
Reply

A view of the brick-laying equipment in front of the library taken from the northwest corner in 2001.

NW-side-view-2022

The same view in June 2022.

It’s been 21 years since the steps to the Ames Library first rose up from the ground level. It sure isn’t pretty right now but safety for our community is the goal! Crews are working to resolve the buckling issues that developed on the plaza and at the head of the stairs.

It took a truly monumental effort to lay all the brick and stone for this building! Danny Sylvester, the mason who was the foreman for J.J. Braker & Sons (Morton, IL) in the spring of 2001 donated a collection of 25 panoramic prints he took during the project.

A view of the north facade, before the build-up of steps from ground level.

Two kinds of scaffolding are visible in the photo below: the yellow is “Morgan scaffolding” and was used for working inside the cupula. Sylvester said these were operated with hydraulics and purchased specifically for this project. Tube scaffolding is visible on the outer circumference. Sylvester described this as his “most intriguing project” since it is unusual to make round building features with stone and brick.

Scaffolding being prepared for laying brick of the cupula.

Follow this link for more birds-eye views like this one in the days when Sheean Library still stood to our north and there were no windmills on the horizon!

Chinese works translated!

Posted on by
3

In the last post, I announced that our work making a collection of Chinese art available was complete. I am pleased to announce that due primarily to efforts by current students we now have more information to share about these works! This post contains individual images of the works, their translations, and details the students found on some of the artists. I will also add information to the works in the descriptions in the online Campus Art Collection.

Special thanks for providing English translations of these works go to
Dawn Mengheng Wang, Class of 2022;
Esther Siqi Yang, Class of 2023;
and Amber Ruofei Shuang, Class of 2025.

Dawn’s father, Yuhua Wang, who is a Professor of Chinese History, identified the traditional Chinese characters on the paintings.

Thanks also to Dr. Tom Lutze, IWU Professor of History, for finalizing the translations of the poetry. Dr. Lutze notes that, as with any attempt to translate poetry from one language to another, more improvements would be possible.

What follows is a gallery of six images that contain brief text about the works. Two pieces with poetry are shown individually below the gallery.
[Click on any image to enlarge.]

mountain and temple scroll

Artist: XU Shi
Date: Winter, 1987
Location: Suzhou

 

The waterfall cascades down from the rock,
the timbre of pine needles blends with the tenor of water–a chorus of nature
(万壑涛声巌下瀑)
The mountain rain gathers into clouds,
the billows envelop the house where the hermit lives
(千峰雨气屋头云)

 

 

 

 

 

 

For this last work, our students offer two possible translations.

Bamboo and Orchid

Title: Bamboo and Orchids Original ink wash artist: ZHENG Xie (commonly known as ZHENG Banqiao).             The Rongbaozhai workshop, located in Beijing, created this print.

Translation (#1) (written as the artist completed the painting):

Every day, I drink with my friend on the red bridge.
(日日红桥斗.酒)
Everywhere, peaches and plums present their beauty.
(家家桃李艳芳)
Yet only orchids and bamboo adorn my home
(闭门只是栽兰竹)
They mark my independence–I follow no trend to change my lifestyle.
(留得春光过四时)

Translation (#2):

Day after day, in the beauty of spring, I go to Hongqiao to drink with friends.
(日日红桥斗.酒卮),
House after house, everywhere I look, peach and plum trees blossom in beauty.
(家家桃李艳芳姿).
Yet in my yard I prefer to grow elegant orchids and bamboo.
(闭门只是栽兰竹).
I thereby stay true to myself, refusing to conform to the ways of the mainstream.
(留得春光过四时).

Our students also provided these additional details about the original artist and the printer of this work:

ZHENG was a significant figure in Chinese art history. Born in 1693 (Qing Dynasty), he was known for his love of bamboo, a central feature in many of his paintings. He also drew attention for his non-conformist anti-conservatism and was identified as one of the “Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou.”

This painting is an original piece of Rongbaozhai’s woodblock watermark art. Woodblock watermark art is a centuries-old copying technique that itself is a skilled art form, involving painting, carving, and printing to create extremely high-quality reproductions of traditional Chinese paintings and calligraphy, both vivid and colorful. Rongbaozhai is an art workshop with a long history in Beijing, one of whose specialties is the preservation from generation to generation of the skills of producing woodblock watermark art.

Memorial Gym/Hansen Student Center Time Capsule Revealed!

Posted on by
2

(click to enlarge all images)

In a previous post I shared images and information on the time capsule that was recovered from the Memorial Gym. This photo shows an exhibit I installed on the main court of Hansen after the opening last night. The exhibit celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Gym and 20 years of its transformation into Hansen.

When the campus photographers’  images and video of the opening are available I will link them here. For now, here is a close up view of the side that shows just the time capsule contents.

The first item removed from the box was a Bible and the second was a packet of paper that turned out to be several sheets of paper that contains different facts about IWU and names of people involved in different parts of campus. The first sheet, though was this description of what was placed in the time capsule.*

Prior to the opening, I invited people to submit guesses about what we would find and two people guessed right!

  • First year student Liam Killian’s submission included newspapers and dust, dirt or rust. I am happy to say there was no moisture so no rust! All the dirt and dust was on the outside, but there were LOTS of newspapers.
  • University Librarian Stephanie Davis-Kahl’s submission included newspapers and photos. The one photo in the box was an 8×10″ of the 1921 football team. Unfortunately it had to be folded into quarters to fit in the box. It is cracked at those folds but the image is sharp!

It is amazing how much was in the small box. As the students kept removing more and more booklets, pamphlets and paper, the image of a circus car with endless clowns exiting popped into my head! When I remove the exhibit on October 11 I will do a more thorough assessment but these few photos can act as a teaser.

*The list of contents is as follows:
Copy of Bloomington Bulletin, November 4, 1921.
Copy of Bloomington Pantagraph, November 5, 1921.
Copy The Christian Advocate, October 27, 1921.
Copy Northwestern Christian Advocate, November 2, 1921.
Copy Epworth Herald, November 5, 1921.
Copy Wesleyan Argus.
Copy Articles of Incorporation of the Wesleyan.
Copy Catalogue Illinois Wesleyan University, 1921.
Copy Alumni Roll Illinois Wesleyan University.
Copy Spaulding’s Football Rules, 1921.
List of Faculty and students, current year.
List of student organizations.
Copy of Discipline Methodist Episcopal church, 1920.
Copy Year Book Methodist Episcopal Church, 1921.
Copy Minutes Illinois Annual Conference Methodist Episcopal Church, 1921.
Photograph of Football Team, 1921.
Copy of Holy Bible.

A virtual walk through IWU history

Posted on by
Reply
ca 1940 aerial photo

IWU ca. 1940

Curious about what changes have taken place to IWU’s campus over the years? Interested in exploring locations related to campus lore? The University Archives is pleased to offer a few insights on an interactive map.

Pandemics can’t keep us down! Visit this online walk through IWU history!

 

At the bottom of each entry’s description is a line that starts with “Permalink” and contains a link to that location’s “Pin.” When you open that page there’s a comment box. Leave a memory, post a selfie, or let me know if I got something wrong!

100 year old time capsule

Posted on by
Reply
dedication day

(click to enlarge) The man in the light colored jacket who is facing the camera is famed local architect Arthur Pillsbury

This photo shows a large crowd gathered on November 5, 1921 to place the cornerstone in the Memorial Gymnasium. Look to the left of the man standing below the tip of the flag and you will see a small box resting on top of the stone. That time capsule will be opened Sept 30, 7PM on Kemp Commencement Plaza.*

Anyone who came to IWU after 2002 would know the building as the Hansen Student Center. The building was originally dedicated to the memory of IWU personnel who died in World War I, hence the name Memorial Gym.

This post is dedicated to honoring the efforts it took to locate that small box in a stone that’s 48″ wide x 25″ high and 17″ thick. The thickness of the cornerstone was unknown up until this week! There is a program for the event with a line that says E. Mark Evans would be “placing box in cornerstone” (pictured below).

dedication stone

The photo of the crowd (at top of this blog post) and another one from the same vantage point but without people are the only visual clues about the time capsule and stone in the University’s archives.

view with no crowd

Director of Physical Plant Jim Blumberg assigned the work of pinpointing the time capsule’s location to John Zmia, a mason with Western Specialty Contractor. After testing the thickness by removing bricks at the top of the stone on the outside of the building, Zmia determined that extensive brick removal would be needed. In consultation with our Physical Plant personnel, they concluded that the best approach was to work from the back of the stone.Memorial Gym time capsule removal

Blumberg said the effort to find the box’s location in the stone took about 12 hours over two days and then 3 hours of chiseling the cornerstone to get to it. Blumberg took this video of Zmia removing the time capsule from the stone on August 31, 2021.opening the box

This is the third time capsule we’ve recovered since 2011** and it is our tradition to pre-open the box for safety reasons and then hold a public event to remove the contents. This time the work of opening fell to Manager of Maintenance Kenton Frost (on the left) and Supervisor of Building Trades Matt Gentes.

Because the building is now a student-centered space, Student Senate is conducting the opening event. Stay tuned for an event announcement!

*Student Senate is hosting the event and we are hoping Tom Hansen will be on hand since the Gym-to-Hansen renovation is 20 years old. The event will be livestreamed as part of virtual Homecoming activities, so be sure to sign up!

**The other two were removed from Sheean Library and the Mark Evans Observatory, which was named for the person who placed the time capsule in the Memorial Gym!

“HOURS” was a codeword for WOMEN’S Curfew

Posted on by
1

Editor’s note: This story was published in the June 2021 Class of 1971 newsletter  “Remembering our College Days” and is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

Guest post by Judith Schulz, Class of 1971

In our 1967-68 student handbook they were called CLOSING HOURS. That is when the dorm entrance doors were closed, and Locked. Hours really meant “curfew.”   It was a form of in loco parentis.

I didn’t think anything about these rules when I arrived at IWU as a freshman in Sept 1967 at age 18. Those were the rules, so those were the rules.  Both the 1967 and 1968 IWU student handbooks had the same closing hours listed for Women (but not for men students!) (Men had NO closing hours.)

excerpt from1968-69 IWU student handbook

(click any image in this post to enlarge)

WOMEN STUDENTS HAD TO BE INSIDE BY 10:30 pm
On weeknights we had to be inside our residence hall/dorm by 10:30 pm, Friday & Saturday by 1 am, Sunday night by 11 pm. It didn’t matter to me anyhow during my first semester as I was tired, had homework or was working late hours in the Dug Out as a short order cook/ order taker.   Men did not have any of these rules, just we women. (hmmm.)  Obvious double standard. HOURS were an issue at many colleges around the USA at the time.

DORM BED CHECK?
I lived in Pfeiffer Hall, second floor East wing and right after 10:30 there was a “bed check” where an assigned student living in the dorm came around and checked your name against the list to make sure you were in your room.… we didn’t actually to have to be “in bed.”   Just writing this on paper, I mean on the computer, makes we wonder why we didn’t question this.

AFTER 10:30 pm
Sometimes after the bed check there would be a “house” meeting, party, holiday activity or gathering in the first-floor lounge. (I see they called it a “parlor” in the handbook, but we called it “the Lounge.”)  These after- hours gatherings helped us to make friends and become part of the residence hall “family,” but it also functioned to distract you from the fact that we were under a strict curfew, even though we were of adult age.

IF YOU WERE LATE: LATE MINUTES!
And if you were late coming into your residence hall, after hours, “late minutes” resulted in punishment.

One Saturday night I signed out for a 2 o’clock, but was late just 2 minutes getting back inside Pfeiffer Hall. This was considered very serious. (And whoever was working the desk had to wait up until you came in.)

– Pfeiffer’s House Council voted to restrict me to the dorm for the entire next weekend, only being allowed to go for a short visit to the commons to eat meals. It was called “dorm pro” for probation.  I was also required to contact the house mother regularly, proving I was in the dorm.    I thought this restriction was extreme and absurd, so I called the house mother every hour throughout the weekend and even late into the night to report in, hoping frequent calls would make a point.  (They did.)

IN THE SPRING of 1968, the idea of changing or getting rid of “hours” was a topic of discussion everywhere. Was the university really supposed to be in the role of parenting, and supervising students who were of age?  Student Senate made motions, there were “university studies” and a growing frustration among students.

May 15, 1968 handout, Q&A about hours & a protest

POSTERS were hung up around campus and talk of having an after-hours protest was everywhere.  The protest was to be at 10 pm Thursday, May 17, 1968 and last until 11:30 pm—AFTER HOURS!— We would definitely be breaking the rules!  And think of it: more than 60 LATE MINUTES?

While I agreed 100% with the cause and the protest, it made me nervous.  I knew what late minutes meant, and we would all be more than 60 minutes late if we attended the protest.

Note: I have this original handout (above) and poster (next image) 8.5×11” paper. Copies were made on an old fashion ditto duplicator machine in purple lettering. (not old fashion at the time.)

May 17 flyer

May 17, 1968 Original poster, 8.5×11” ditto

That night I heard many students encouraging others to attend saying “they can’t make the late minutes stick” which matched the posters that were also all over campus.

It was a time to think for yourself, and support what you believed in.  I was still very nervous walking over, even with so many others, to the outdoor stage of McPherson.  I recall Wenona Whitfield encouraging everyone in the group I was with while walking over to the protest.

May 17, 1968 Argus coverage

IWU ARGUS newspaper story May 17, 1968 – note both stories

 

Women's hours protest

May 17, 1968 Hours Protest, after hours- IWU Archives

Women students and men students attended the hours protest, even a few IWU staff.  There was a band, and 4 students spoke: Vicki Wentrcek, Marcelle Wilkins, Brian Spears and Connie Husson.

WERE YOU THERE? Did you stay out 1 hour past “Hours” and get any “late minutes?” Please share your stories and memories about hours in the reply box below.

~ Watch for the stories of what happened next…..
what changed and what didn’t.

~ SEE you at our 50th Class of 1971 reunion in October 2021!

The actual posters shown here, MORE artifacts and photographs from this time will be on display at our 50th IWU Class of 1971 reunion October 2021.

       ~author Judith Schulz, Pfeiffer Hall resident, IWU class of 1971(and in the crowd in the photo above) written June 2021 for the Class of 1971 Alumni newsletter

Research info from Judi Kasper Ballard, Mark Sheldon, IWU archivist Meg Miner, Vicki Wenger Warren, and Judith Schulz

Images from Judith Schulz’s collection and IWU Archives