From the Archives & Special Collections: Happy 130th Birthday, Puget Sound!

Posted on March 21, 2018 by jmkyoung

This past weekend we celebrated the 130th anniversary of the date – March 17, 1888 – that Puget Sound was founded. At the first conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in this region, Bishop Charles Henry Fowler suggested the creation of a college within the geographical bounds of the conference. Two years later, the conference voted to establish the new college in Port Townsend, Washington, but that plan failed to materialize. In 1888, the city of Tacoma pledged $22,000 and land for the proposed college, and the Articles of Incorporation for Puget Sound University were signed on March 17, 1888. The university originally included an academy, or prep school, and a liberal arts college. The first classes were held on September 15, 1890 with 88 students enrolled. In honor of this significant anniversary, please enjoy some photographs and ephemera from Puget Sound’s earliest days!

The Archives & Special Collections is open on Monday through Thursday from 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. or by appointment.

By Laura Edgar

Puget Sound University’s first building was constructed specifically for the school’s use and was occupied by the university during the 1890-1891 school year. Due to financial issues, the university moved to a new location the following year and this building was leased and later sold to Tacoma Public Schools. The building has since been torn down and is now the site of McCarver Elementary School.

 

This is the Oiumette Building, on the corner of Yakima Avenue and South 10th Street, where Puget Sound University held classes from 1891 – 1895. This photograph was taken much later, in 1937, after the building was converted to apartments.

 

Puget Sound University’s first graduating class of academy students, 1891.

Early pamphlet from Puget Sound University, describing the history of its founding, circa 1890.

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Booklyn: Supporting Artists’ Books and Social Justice, April 12, 11:30am-12:30pm, Archives & Special Collections Seminar Room, Collins Library

Posted on March 19, 2018 by jmkyoung

Marshall Weber, founder of Booklyn, will be sharing examples of the most recent work of artists. Booklyn’s mission is to promote artists’ books as art and research material and to assist artists and organizations in documenting, exhibiting, and distributing their artworks and archives. Booklyn helps artists document, exhibit, and distribute their artwork and provides the general public and educational institutions with services and programs involving contemporary artists’ publications and works on paper. Booklyn assists artists in inventorying and cataloging their archives and collections and finds institutions to acquire, conserve, and provide access to these resources. Booklyn has created a global network connecting hundreds of artists and educational organizations.

Marshall Weber lives in New York City. He has significant bodies of work in the media of: artists’ books, collage, drawing, printing, video, and public endurance performances. He has curated 100’s of exhibitions around the world since the 1980’s and he is known for his outspoken advocacy for artists and cultural organizations that work outside of the conventional academic and commercial art world. Weber received his MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1981, and went on to co-found Artists Television Access, one of the longest (still) running alternative media art centers in the US. Weber was an Interdisciplinary Arts Fellow of both the New York Foundation for the Arts and the McKnight Foundation. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and Art Matters. In 1999 he was co-founder and is now Curator of the Booklyn Artists Alliance, where he has recently organized several innovative funding projects for activist arts organizations, including co-producing a fine art print portfolio to benefit the Occuprint Project of the Occupy Wall Street movement and working on arts projects with: Bulletspace, EZLN (Zapatistas), Food Not Bombs, IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War), Justseeds, World War Three Illustrated and many other organizations. He designed Booklyn’s international archive program which helps underrepresented artists and organizations catalog and place their archives in appropriate educational institutions. In 2012 he and Xu Bing curated the acclaimed Diamond Leaves exhibit which was the first major museum exhibition of artists’ books in China. It has since become a Triennial event. In 2017 Weber was the keynote speaker at the Codex Foundation Symposium.
(source: http://booklyn.org/archive/index.php/Detail/Entity/Show/entity_id/792)

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Data-Equity: Open Data Workshops in April at the Library

Posted on March 19, 2018 by jmkyoung

Data Equity: WORKSHOPS: April 4 – What is Open Data? April 11 – How Can I Use Open Data, April 18 – Tell a Story with Open Data, April 25 – Answer Real-World QuestionsCollins Library is excited to share an opportunity that we’re offering for our undergraduates. Puget Sound is beta testing an Open Data curriculum developed by Data-Equity Main Street, a collaboration between the States of Washington and California funded by the Knight Foundation.

Librarians will be leading a series of four sessions that will help students understand how to define, use, creating narratives, and answering research questions using Open Data.

The workshops will be held every Wednesday in April (4/4-4/25), 5-6pm in Library 118.

April 4 – What is Open Data?
April 11 – How Can I Use Open Data
April 18 – Tell a Story with Open Data
April 25 – Answer Real-World Questions

For more information, email btucker@pugetsound.edu.

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The STS program and Collins Memorial Library proudly present Frankenweek! Celebrating the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein

Posted on March 19, 2018 by jmkyoung

Frankenstein’s History
Monday, March 26, 12:00-1:30pm
Thompson 193
Join us for a discussion of the novel’s literary and film history, and its connections to science and society. Speakers include: George Erving (English), Kristin Johnson (STS), Susan Owen (Comm-unication), and Amy Fisher (STS).

Shelley and Frankenstein:
In the Makerspace
Wed., March 28
3:00-5:00pm
Collins Library
Make a lithophane, explore electrical circuitry, learn the art of book binding, and more!

Frankie, the Safety-pins Keeper:
In the Makerspace
Thurs., March 29
5:00-6:00pm
Collins Library
Make a pin cushion, check out the book display, and more!

Please join us in celebrating the 200th Anniversary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818)

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Research Tip #7: Learn the shortcuts! Use Boolean logic (AND, OR, NOT) in your searching to pinpoint your results!

Posted on March 19, 2018 by jmkyoung

Learn the shortcuts! Use Boolean logic (AND, OR, NOT) in your searching to pinpoint your results!

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From the Stacks – a few of our favorites – 1906: The Jungle

Posted on March 19, 2018 by jmkyoung

Originally written to illustrate the life of a Lithuanian immigrant, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle became more well-known for its depiction of the unsanitary and unsafe practices of the meatpacking industry. Descriptions of horrors such as workers falling into the grinding machines and being sold as lard resulted in public outcry for government intervention and regulation of food production. This work became associated with other works aimed to expose corruption or exploitation to the public and Sinclair became known as a “yellow journalist” or, as Theodore Roosevelt coined, a “muckraker”.

As a direct consequence of public pressure resulting from The Jungle, the United States government became involved in the regulation of the food industry and still is today.

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Discover the truth behind the Hazel Wood…

Posted on March 9, 2018 by jmkyoung

Alice Proserpine has spent most of her seventeen years of life on the road with her mother, a step ahead of their bad luck. That is until Alice’s grandmother, an author of dark fairy tales, dies alone at her estate, the Hazel Wood. Alice discovers how bad her luck can get, when her mother is taken by a figure that claims to come from the cruel world that her grandmother wrote about. The only lead Alice has about her mother is a note saying, “STAY AWAY FROM THE HAZEL WOOD.” Now with no choice left, Alice must team up with her fairy-tale super fan and classmate, Ellery Finch, who just might have his own agenda. Traveling into the Hazel Wood, Alice discovers why her own story went so wrong.

Check this interesting book out in the Popular Reading Collection!

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From the Archives & Special Collections: Campus Life 50 Years Ago

Posted on March 7, 2018 by jmkyoung

Do you ever wonder what campus was like back in the day? Here in the Archives & Special Collections, we have lots of material about campus history, which gives us an opportunity to look back on our university’s history, and how much it’s changed. Today, we’re looking back 50 years to the 1967-1968 school year.

From left: Thompson at Thompson Hall, 1968; 1968 Tamanawas, page 72.

1968 Tamanawas, page 139.

Did you know that back then…

… tuition for the whole year only cost $1,150?

… 32 Puget Sound students were named to Who’s Who among Students in American Universities and Colleges, which honored students who demonstrated exceptional scholarship, citizenship, and involvement?

… homecoming included a parade through the streets of Tacoma, the election of a royal court, and a trike race?

… someone put soap in the fountain in Jones Circle?

… we had an organization called House of Critics who met occasionally to discuss “topics of debatable interest”? During the 1967-1968 school year, these topics included the draft, deferred recruitment for Greek life, and birth control.

… elected ASUPS officers included a Song Queen, Songleaders, a Yell King, and Cheerleaders?

… construction on Thompson Hall was completed, making it both the largest and tallest building on campus?

… campus organizations included a synchronized swimming team called the Silver Seals?

… KUPS was founded? It became fully functional the following school year, but after two years of work, they secured funding, equipment, and a location on campus during the 1967-1968 school year. (The Trail, May 24, 1968)

… the athletics department’s colors were green and gold, not maroon and white?

… activity credits included ice skating, skiing, and posture?

Some things, however, haven’t changed much. Many of our current student organizations, including Greek chapters, academic and pre-professional organizations, and musical groups, were active on campus by the 1967-1968 school year. You could take classes in many of the departments that we still have at Puget Sound, and many students today would recognize the names of past faculty members such as James R. Slater, John D. Regester, Raymond S. Seward, and, of course, President R. Franklin Thompson, all of whom have given their name to places on campus. Most of the dorms had also been completed by then and were occupied by students.

All information was taken from the 1967-1968 bulletin and 1968 Tamanawas unless otherwise noted.

The Archives & Special Collections is open on Mondays through Thursdays from 10:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m. or by appointment.

By Julia Masur

 

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Research Tip #6: Mine bibliographies.

Posted on March 6, 2018 by jmkyoung

Research Tip #6: Mine bibliographies. Once you’ve found a credible source relevant to your topic, review the bibliography for additional sources that may be useful.

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From the Stacks – a few of our favorites – 1897: From the Land of the Snow Pearls

Posted on March 6, 2018 by jmkyoung

The title of this book:  From the Land of the Snow-Pearls: Tales from Puget Sound is so enchanting who could resist further exploration. The book is a collection of short stories that reflect the natural beauty of the area and a statement from the frontispiece of the book says it best:

Puget Sound lies in its emerald setting like a great blue sapphire, which at sunset, draws to its breast all the marvelous and splendid coloring of the fire-opal. Around it, shining through their rose-colored mists like pearls upon the soft blue or green of the sky, are linked the great snow-mountains, so beautiful and so dear, that those who love this land with a proud and passionate love, have come to think of it, fondly and poetically, as “the land of the snow-pearls.”

The front cover of the book is decorated in gold with a beautiful four leaf clover.

The author Ella Higginson’s papers are located in the Western Washington University
Center for Pacific Northwest Studies.

A short biographical statement from the web site is as follows:

“Northwest poet and writer Ella Higginson (1861-1940) was born Ella Rhoads in Council Grove, Kansas. She moved to Oregon with her parents as an infant, spending her youth in Portland and Oregon City. She attended public school in Oregon, and also received private lessons from Oxford trained S.D. Pope, then one of the most renowned educators on the West coast. In 1885, Ella married Russell C. Higginson (1852-1909) in Portland Oregon. The couple moved to Bellingham, Washington (then the town of Sehome) in 1888, where they opened a drug store on Elk Street. It was during this period that Higginson’s writing career began to flourish, with her poetry and short stories published nationally by journals including McClures, Harper’s Monthly, and Colliers. Her best known work, a poem entitled “Four Leaf Clover,” was first published by West Shore Magazine in 1890. Higginson’s novels and collections of short stories include Mariella-Of-Out-West, Alaska the Great Country, The Flower that Grew in the Sand, From the Land of Snow Pearls, and The Forest Orchid and Other Stories. In June 1931, she was made poet laureate of Washington State.”

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