Research Files: Gwendolyn Brooks @IWU

Posted on November 10, 2017 by Meg Miner

In honor of this year being the centennial of Gwendolyn Brooks’s birth, Ross Hettinger from the English Honors Society Sigma Tau Delta contacted the archives about putting together an exhibit based on her connection with our campus. As a result of that request, archives’ staff found news articles and photographs that document her five visits to campus between 1972-1999. Ross created an exhibit that will remain in the library’s entry level rotunda until November 30th. This post provides links to news stories and a selection of photos found in response to this query. All black and white photos were scanned from University’s collection of negatives and the color photos were scanned from slides.

Brooks and unnamed individuals heading towards her reading during the 1972 Fine Arts Festival

A March 3, 1972 front page Argus story details the plans for the March 9-21, 1972 Fine Arts Festival. The story states that Miss Brooks “will head a list of dignitaries” who would be visiting campus.

Brooks and unnamed individuals during the 1972 Fine Arts Festival

The Argus published on the 24th provides a detailed recap of her reading.

The 1972 Wesleyana also contains photos of Brooks and others who shared their talents during the Festival.

Brooks with President Eckley prior to Commencement 1973. Former president Bertholf is on the left.

The following May The Argus announced that Brooks would be the Commencement speaker for 1973. Only a small photo made it into the IWU Bulletin that summer and fall but details on her remarks are lacking, except for a brief mention in the 1973 Wesleyana.

Brooks being vested with an honorary doctorate during Commencement 1973

Brooks giving a reading in March 21, 1979

There was speculation that Brooks would return for her third visit during the Black Fine Arts Festival according to the March 2, 1979 Argus at the invitation of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. The March 23, 1979 Argus carried a photo and caption on p. 1 showing that she did.

Brooks signing an autograph for an unidentified attendee during a reading in March 21, 1979

Brooks speaks with students at Evelyn Chapel, February 1988

In 1988 the February 12 Argus stated that the English Department and the Student Senate were sponsoring Brooks’s visit on February 18 at an event to be held at Evelyn Chapel. A follow up article on the 26th described her visit in detail. She titled her presentation “Life, Love, Laughter, Liberty and Laceration.”

Brooks speaks with students at Evelyn Chapel, February 1988

Brooks speaking at the Shirk Center for the Soul Food Dinner, February 7, 1999

Her final visit to campus was as the speaker at IWU’s annual Soul Food Dinner. Her appearance was announced in The Argus on February 2, 1999. A follow up article notes that IWU student Teri Lahmon, Class of 2000, introduced Brooks and read one of her own poems at Brooks’s request.

Brooks at the Shirk Center for the Soul Food Dinner, February 7, 1999

The Argus also ran an obituary for Brooks on December 8, 2000 which briefly recounts her 1999 visit and mentions that IWU awarded her an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree in 1973.

Maude Essig in World War I

Posted on May 11, 2017 by Meg Miner

undated Maude Essig portrait

While researching her own Great Aunt Agnes Swift’s involvement with the American Expeditionary Forces WW1 hospitals in Contrexeville, France, Molly Daniel of Charleston, IL came across the diary of Maude Essig’s experiences, who worked with Swift in the same facility. Maude Essig was Brokaw School of Nursing Director (ca 1923-56). The Brokaw Hospital School was the forerunner of IWU’s School of Nursing.

In writing to ask about using a photo of Essig on her website, Daniel shared comments about her research process that others may find instructive as well: “I have especially appreciated having access to Maude’s journal as well as the academic article about her published by her former student [and former IWU School of Nursing Director], Alma Woolsey. Her journal helped me put into better context the information in my great aunt’s letters to family members.”

Daniel shared the biographical sketch of Essig she compiled and that will be included with Daniel’s submissions for the U.S. Centennial website commemorating the Army Nurse Corps.

Daniel also discovered a picture in the National Library of Medicine’s Digital Collections that has a caption indicating it is from Base Hospital No.32, Vittel, France but she is “confident that it comes from the Contrexeville hospital” based on her research. Daniel also believes Essig may be the second nurse from the left–the only one shown with glasses. Additional photos of Essig from the University’s archival collections are below.

For information about the School of Nursing program’s development, see “Nursing Education at Illinois Wesleyan University: 1923 to 1976” by Lori Ann Musser, Class of 1992.

Maude Essig, ca. 1925

Maude Essig with students, ca. 1928

This photo is identical to the composite she is in with the Brokaw Hospital Class of 1933 http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm/ref/collection/iwu_histph/id/2786

Our digital collections are now part of DPLA!

Posted on January 21, 2017 by Meg Miner

Thanks to our membership in the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI), the collections they host for us are now part of the

Visit their homepage at https://dp.la

In 2010, DPLA was founded with the idea of providing “an open, distributed network of comprehensive online resources that would draw on the nation’s living heritage from libraries, universities, archives, and museums in order to educate, inform, and empower everyone in current and future generations.”

As of this writing, DPLA holds the records for 15,247,823 items. Of that total, 8,033 were acquired from our own IWU collections and through our outreach to campus and community partners. DPLA also contributes records to European organizations that work in these collaborative ways. It is an honor to be in this mighty company!

Rather than hosting content themselves, DPLA took on the task of pulling together collections held on individual and consortial websites in order to bring them together into one searchable location. As they do this, they are able to leverage the power of our work on descriptions that provide individualized but structured data.

Look to the top of their pages for ways you can visualize and search for interesting connections to your past!

Ways to change browse features.

Martin Luther King, Jr. at IWU

Posted on January 15, 2017 by Meg Miner

Students today may not know that their predecessors were responsible for bringing the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to campus twice in the 1960s. The first time was in 1961 for an event sponsored by the Religious Activities Commission. Articles in The Argus and Wesleyana offer details. In a Letter to the Editor published a week after King’s assassination, IWU alumna Sara Ellen Long recalled her role in the 1961 group that invited King (April 12, p. 2).

program for the event Dr. King spoke at in 1961

The University Archives received a special copy of the program for this event just a few years ago. The story of how this artifact came to the archives is told below the pdf version of the program.

back of Religious Emphasis Banquet program

Dr. King visited a “Principles of Sociology” class during this visit and is shown below talking with Sociology professors James K. Phillips and Emily Dunn-Dale.

Dr. King with IWU faculty during his 1961 visit.

Dr. King speaking during his 1966 visit to IWU

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is shown here with Coretta Scott King and Elizabeth Lindblom on the speakers’ platform.

In 1966 Dr. King returned at the request of the Student Senate’s Convocation Commission. This event took place after Dr. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and was held at the Fred Young Fieldhouse to accommodate the crowd. IWU student Elizabeth Lindblom was Chair of the Commission and provided an introduction to the event.

Other photos from the 1961 and 1966 visits are also available. Alumni shared their reflections on these visits during a panel on the topic at Homecoming 2016.

University Communications maintains a series of web pages with a transcript of the 1966 event and a link to a recording of a broadcast from local radio station WJBC. The University Archives holds an audio cassette tape of that broadcast, photographs and the other records of Dr. King’s two visits to IWU.

Exhibit with maps, real & imagined

Posted on December 19, 2016 by Meg Miner

1882 Atlas

A recent donation is on exhibit in The Ames Library, just past the entry level rotunda, now through the end of January.

The volume complements our manuscript and monograph collections on John Wesley Powell and the American West. The atlas is large–approximately 2′ wide when open–and has many colored maps, created by the ever-authoritative US Geological Survey. western-pt-of-plateau

A few other maps on display are “real” renditions (we can and should debate the depiction of reality in any author’s work), intended for serious illustration of travel narratives like

This foldout map in Birbeck’s 1818 “Notes on a Journey…” is separated at the top fold but complete.

Morris Birbeck’s 1818 Notes on a Journey in America, from the Coast of Virginia to the Territory of Illinois, or in educationally-minded works like Thomas Harrington’s 1773 A New Introduction to the Knowledge and Use of Maps.

The latter volume is from the Book Arts Collection part of Special Collections that celebrates the artistry used in making books, not for art’s sake but for many elements of the craft that are almost incidental to what we understand of the purpose for books today.

atoz

Others in the exhibit are intentionally imagined landscapes, used to navigate a story, as in Lars Arrhenius’s A-Z. Interestingly enough, the book had its origin in a large-scale exhibition. The volume in Ames is from our Artists’ Books Collection and is used in an avant-garde literature course.

Two others on display are autobiographical in nature, by book artist and fine press printer Andrew Huot, and represent his explorations of self-discovery: Navigation and Exits West.

See http://andrewhuot.com/section/104877-Navigation.html

See http://andrewhuot.com/section/80223-Exits-West.html

These works and more are available year round for anyone interested in exploring the many varieties of material culture in Tate Archives & Special Collections on The Ames Library’s 4th floor!

IWU after Pearl Harbor

Posted on December 6, 2016 by Meg Miner

Headline, three days after http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm/ref/collection/iwu_argus/id/18410

Note the location of “Classes Dismissed…”
http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm/ref/collection/iwu_argus/id/18410

Three days after the attacks on Pearl Harbor the student newspaper shows measured responses to the events leading to our country’s entry into WWII. The front page story about dismissing classes, nearly below the fold, describes how students heard President Roosevelt’s address to Congress and states that faculty were telling students to “carry on in the regular routine….”

IWU’s President Shaw had the same message, adding that “the greatest service” was to be “ready for the demand which will be upon us in the days ahead.”

An editorial on page 2 began on a note of sympathy, making clear who these students thought the real enemy was. 1941-12-10_p2_editorial_cropped

The Editorial Board goes on to call the attack “treachery on the high seas” that used “premeditated, knife in the back tactics.” The commentary also commends students for their calm response, saying this is “proof of an intelligent and educated [student] body.”

IWU Black Fine Arts festival

Posted on March 11, 2016 by Meg Miner

In an Argus article published on October 18, 1968, the newly formed Black Students’ Association announced its purpose and goals. Among them were plans to hold a Black Fine Arts Festival (BFAF): “This festival would attempt to show blacks and whites the
quality and diversification of black artists.”

The first event BSA organized was called “Black Resurrection (Pure Suffering)” and received extensive coverage in the alumni publication called The Bulletin. Several photos of the evening’s performances are in the archives and available online. The Argus also contains a photo of the event.

The first week-long event was announced in The Argus on December 3, 1971 and it took place Feb 6-12, 1971. The BFAF was held annually through 1981.

The photo shown here is of a performance by Ernest Kachingwe and his family. Kachingwe was the number one recording artist in Rhodesia, and the only African student at IWU at the time.

Research Files: IWU’s Tigress-Slaying Alumnus

Posted on October 29, 2015 by acalhoun

Guest post by Ashlyn Calhoun, Class of 2016

We have a lot of interesting things here at the Tate Archives and Special Collections in the Ames Library. We have old letterman jackets, the shovel used for almost every building’s groundbreaking since Presser, and an old student publication issue that included a packaged condom! Recently, we discovered what has got to be the most interesting Archival discovery of all time: the whiskers from a man-eating tigress slain by an alum during his time in India! How cool is that?

These tiger whiskers were folded into a letter written by 1907 Wesleyan alumnus Frank D. Campbell that was in his biographical file.

Campbell, his wife, and daughter lived and worked as missionaries in Jagdalpur, India for close to 20 years. Campbell’s daughter, Eleanor, told the tale of her father’s slaying of the tiger in a file obtained from the
Illinois Great Rivers Conference Archives at MacMurray College. Eleanor told how her father, a Methodist minister, shot the tigress, who had killed over 150 people, after a Sunday church service!

If you’re interested in learning more about the Campbell family’s time in India or about the man-eating tigress herself, head up to Tate Archives & Special Collections on the fourth floor of Ames! We love the company!

Campbell Tigress Letter Page 10-edit COPY resize

Excerpt from documentation verifying Campbell as the tigress slayer. Held in the Archives Record Group 13-1.

Research Files: Sociology Department history

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Meg Miner

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.]

Research Files: IWU’s First International Students

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Meg Miner

Photo scanned from a scrapbook held in IWU archives. The person is unidentified but the book belonged to an 1895 graduate.

Photo scanned from a scrapbook held in IWU archives. The person is unidentified but the book includes named graduates from classes in the years after 1890.

In 1890, Wesleyan’s first two international students graduated from IWU’s Law School. Their names were Yeizo Osawa and Kashiyira Tanaka. They were from Tokyo, Japan, and were in residence on campus when they graduated. Stories in our student publications relate how they shared their culture with IWU’s campus, such as delivering lectures and describing some of the customs of Japan. Their presence among the graduation class of 1890 was even noted in local newspapers and in the Chicago Tribune.

Even earlier, other graduates with international addresses received degrees through our Non-residential program, meaning they did not have to attend classes on our campus. This program is described the following way in an 1895 publication:

The object of this step was to furnish lines of systematic study for those
professional men and women whose duties and environments are such
as to make a resident course of study an impossibility, and yet who
earnestly desire systematic study.

Sounds a lot like what online learning programs promise today, doesn’t it?

An early graduate of the program with an international address is Rev. John Oakly Spencer of Japan, who graduated with a Ph.B in 1888. One wonders about the possibility of Osawa and Tanaka meeting Oakly and finding out about our small school in Central Illinois!

Other Non-resident graduates living abroad in the same time period were Rev. Myron Chesterfield Wilcox of China who also graduated with a Ph.B in 1886, and William Groves of Uruguay who graduated with an M.A. in 1897. William C. Armstrong and Frederick W. A.Meyer, of Ontario, Canada and Arthur Thomas Carr of Birmingham England all received M.A. in 1896.

These men were not international students in the same way we think of today, but they demonstrate our current philosophy has long-standing roots: bring the world to Wesleyan and Wesleyan to the world!

To learn more you can visit Tate Archives and Special Collections in the Ames Library or contact us at archives@iwu.edu!

Archives & Special Collections

Collection highlights and information about IWU's Tate Archives & Special Collections

Tag Archives: primary sources