Collins Unbound

As we wrap up the semester, the Archives & Special Collections is thrilled to announce that A Sound Past now holds over 3,000 images documenting the history of the University of Puget Sound.  The Archives & Special Collections holds about 20,000 photographs in the form of prints, slides, and negatives, the majority of which have little to no information about the people, places, and events seen in them.  Thanks to the hard work, dedication, and professional sleuthing of John Finney ‘67, the vast majority of the photographs in A Sound Past now have detailed information on the events, people and places in each.

This semester John added 637 new images almost exclusively from the 1953-1954 academic year.  These images document the opening of the music building; homecoming (including queen and king selection, the downtown parade, football game, dance, and more); registration for classes in Memorial Fieldhouse; several home football games; the freshmen “hot seat;” the installation of national Alpha Phi and Chi Omega sororities; the Frosh One-Acts; Deep Creek Lodge; the Sadie Hawkins dance; faculty portraits; the Christmas play; the international relations club; Adelphian Concert Choir Christmas parties; the Madrigal Christmas concert; Burmeister Oratorical Contest winners; freshman and sophomore class officers; and more, much more.

In the spring, John will participate in the Behind the Archives Door series to share how he uncovers information on each photograph he encounters.  Stay tuned for more details!

To try your own hand at solving mysteries from the photograph collection, visit our unidentified photographs, and email archives@pugetsound.edu, with anything you discover!

Have you ever wanted to read a tiny book? How about a rare, tiny book? How about a rare, tiny book full of puns? If none of those trip your trigger, then I don’t know what to say except “this tiny rare book might change your mind.” It’s called The Wars of the Words, written by Willard R. Espy. It’s 3 inches by 2 3/8 inches (very small), and is the 56^th of 200 copies published. This little book is an English aficionado’s dream, with personified adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and interjections in a medieval feudal system, along with whimsical illustrations by Charles C. Hefling, Jr. It begins with detailing the civil war between the Objects and Subjects of the Nouns. However they soon come to realize that they are interchangeable and reach peace. Following this we learn the different roles each part of speech plays, starting with the verbs and then moving on to the pronouns, the adjectives, etc. Overall, it’s an amusing read, if not a bit short. Mr. Espy himself was a Washington native, born in Olympia and raised in Oysterville. He was renowned as a master of wordplay. As a parting message, the author leaves us with Espy’s law: “The less you know, the safer you are,” which to anyone familiar with the habits of words and how they behave with one another is very true.

By Morgan Ford

Because you probably don’t. While the archives is home to a whole array of historical and cultural materials, as well as the missives, meeting minutes, and miscellany that document the entire history of the University from 1888 to the present day, we also have an extensive collection of photos, most taken by University photographers.

And boy do we have a lot of them. Photos, that is, not photographers.

Three full filing cabinets, another cabinet as tall as I am and three times as wide for the stuff that’s too big to put anywhere else, a few drawers full of photos that were rolled up 50 years ago and are (almost) too delicate to unroll, and that’s not even counting pictures of people and events published in newspapers and other printed materials kept in their own boxes and folders for a hundred different things, people, and places.

We’ve got portraits of every faculty member ever, aerial photos of campus spanning from the 1920s to present day, pictures of students studying, lounging, and living from the whole of the history of the University, campus events, sports, drama, and music, and on top of it all is the considerable documentation of the construction of nearly all the buildings on campus. If you ever wanted proof that the Thompson Hall clock tower did not (as some claim) spontaneously appear overnight during an unseasonable thunderstorm in 1973, we’ve got the court admissible evidence right here.

So if you’re ever in the mood for it, check out the Archives & Special collections during our open hours (Wednesdays 1 to 7 pm and Thursdays 9 to 11:30 am), and make your own fantastic, photographic discoveries about the history of the University.

By Zebediah Howell