In 1999, Curator Terri Goldich joined Mrs. Billie M. Levy’s program “Children’s Books: Their Creators and Collectors”.  The show, which began in 1993 on West Hartford Community Television, hosted hundreds of well know authors, illustrators and collectors over the years.  Billie Levy, a retired librarian, children’s book collector and host of the popular show, is well-known to the UConn Archives.  Her donation of over 10,000 children’s books is the backbone of the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection (NCLC).  And on a personal note, her southern hospitality brightens up any room she joins. 

In this video from the archives, courtesy of the University Libraries’ new video streaming service, you can hear from our own NCLC Curator, Terri Goldich, just shortly after the new facilities of the Dodd Research Center were dedicated in a plea to authors and illustrators to “Save That Draft“.   

Two men from UConn’s early history share March 2 as their birthday.  So we offer up best wishes to the memory of Theodore Sedgwick Gold, an unsung founder of the Storrs Agricultural School, and George W. Flint, second president of the school when it became Connecticut Agricultural College.

Theodore S. Gold

Gold, one of the first trustees of the school when it was established in 1881, was born on March 2, 1818 in Cornwall, Connecticut.  In 1845, he joined his father, Dr. Samuel Gold, in founding an agricultural school for boys, the Cream Hill School, in West Cornwall. Even before the school closed in 1869, Theodore was a champion for establishing a state agricultural school for boys, and, in his 50^th anniversary history of Connecticut Agricultural College in 1931, Walter Stemmons wrote that “Gold was in a position, at least after 1866, to impress his educational ideas upon the Storrs brothers. The striking similarity in form and substance between the Cream Hill School and the Storrs Agricultural School is evidence which cannot be ignored.” As a member of the state school’s initial Board of Trustees, Gold headed a subcommittee charged with the new school’s organization. For many years he was secretary of the board, and in 1900, he wrote the first history of the college. A copy of that history is part of the Gold family papers in the University’s archives.

George W. Flint

George Flint’s tenure with the college was much briefer than Gold’s, and a good deal more controversial. During his first year as president, Flint saw what had been Storrs Agricultural College since 1893, become Connecticut Agricultural College in 1899. But by then, he was at the center of a dispute that became known as the “War of the Rebellion.” Flint’s interest in classical education over agricultural, and his efforts to incorporate them into the curriculum of CAC brought him into direct conflict with members of the faculty. 

 The “war” was played out, in part, through letters-to-the-editor columns of newspapers in Connecticut New York, and Boston. Long-time faculty resigned, and, at the request of trustees, Flint resigned in 1901.

Rufus Whitaker Stimson, hired in 1897 as professor of English and Literature, was appointed acting president of Connecticut Agricultural College on 5 October 1901.  Stimson, a graduate of Harvard University and the Yale Divinity School, was appointed president just over a year later.  Stimson utilized his noted eloquence to publicize the activities and programs of the young agricultural school as well as advocating an expansion of the courses offered and increasing enrollment.  Details of the accomplishments of Stimson’s tenure are available in Walter Stemmons’ Connecticut Agricultural College–A History, available in the University Archives.  “On February 20, 1908, Rufus Whitaker Stimson presented to the Board of Trustees his resignation as president, the resignation to take effect at the close of the college year.  President Stimson had been connected with the college for eleven years, four as professor and seven as acting president and president.” (Stemmons, p. 130-131)

Flyer from Gay Pride Week, San Francisco, California, 1975

The Foster Gunnison Jr. Papers is one of the most significant collections of homophile and early gay liberation materials in the United States.  From 1963 to 1975, Foster Gunnison Jr. collected the records of the Eastern Conference of Homophile Organizations (ECHO), an early coalition of organizations seeking the creation of a national homophile organization. Gunnison also collected the records of gay and lesbian organizations throughout the United States. He founded his own organization, the Institute for Social Ethics (ISE), “a libertarian-oriented research facility and think tank for controversial social issues,” in the early 1960s.  In 1967 Gunnison authored the pamphlet, An Introduction to the Homophile Movement, which outlined the history, aims and objectives of the movement and profiles of organizations active in the movement.

The collection contains correspondence, fliers, and information from many of the most important gay and lesbian organizations of the time, including the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee, the Gay Activists Alliance, the Kalos Society, the Mattachine Society, ONE, and the Student Homophile League.

The finding aid for the collection is available at:https://archivessearch.lib.uconn.edu/repositories/2/resources/413

The Cheney Brothers Silk Manufacturing Company Records is not a new collection — we’ve had it in the archive since 1984 — but it is a solid collection of extraordinary historical materials that draws a steady line of researchers from genealogists and textile historians to UConn’s undergraduate and graduate students and secondary school students.  The collections provides strong materials documenting this Manchester, Connecticut, company’s rise, in 1838 as the Mount Nebo Silk Company founded by six Cheney brothers, to its status as a leading producer of silk in the 1880s, to its peak in the 1920s when it produced silk for fashionable French garments, and then follows its decline after World War II (when it produced parachute material for the war effort) to its sale in the 1950s to J.P. Stevens & Company.  The Cheney family was renowned for their paternalistic attitude to their workers and for providing housing, schools, and recreation facilities for its workers.  An extraordinary component in the collection is a large set of employee cards from 1900 to 1940 where details of each worker — his or her country of origin, languages spoken and read, levels of education — are available, making that an amazing resource for ethnic history research.

This image from a 1929 brochure shows how the company marketed its fashionable fabrics.  Tres chic!

You can find more images from the Cheney records, of the Paris fashions, in our digital repository at https://archives.lib.uconn.edu/islandora/object/20002%3A860650148#page/1/mode/2up

At the Farmer’s Convention that was held between the 15th and 17th of December 1880, Charles and Augustus Storrs announced their intention of offering property and funds to the State of Connecticut for the establishment of an agricultural school for boys. The property in question was located in the rural, eastern portion of the state and included about 160 acres of land, farm buildings and a residence that had originally housed the Connecticut Soldiers’  Orphans’ Home, constructed in 1866 by Edwin Whitney.  The original Deed to the property was not clear and necessitated further legalities over the next several years but within the year, the State of Connecticut accepted the gift and the Storrs Agricultural School was established.

Duplicate of Storrs Deed, 1887

Storrs, Deed, p. 2

To tide you over for the next few winter weeks while the Dodd Research Center is closed for the winter break, we’d like to highlight a sampling of books from the Stephenson Collection of books on ice skating.  The collection includes everything from novels to how-to manuals.

Hand-in-Hand Figure Skating by N. G. Thompson and F. L. Cannan, published in 1896, gives an overview of different hand holding positions while skating, including face to face, the link, side by side, and the echelon, all with illustrations.

Figure Skating for Women, by James A. Cruikshank, was published in 1921.

“It is not extravagant praise of figure skating to say that it is probably the finest sport available to the majority of American women.”  — James A. Cruikshank, page 9.

And finally, Ice Rink Skating, by T. D. Richardson, from 1938.

We wish you a happy and peaceful holiday season.

A New Haven Railroad dining car employee serves Thanksgiving dinner to a passenger.

A SNET employee is served Thanksgiving dinner at the New London office cafeteria.

Tucked inside is Grace Murray’s famous dressing.  See recipe on Page 27.”

Of course we wouldn’t leave you hanging and not give you the recipe.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Course of Study, 1881

With the 2009 Thanskgiving Break beginning at the end of the day on November 20th; the UConn campuses are much quieter.  The majority of the undergraduate students have left for a week-long break. Only a few days after their return finals begin.

We tend to forget that it wasn’t always like this.   A quick look in the Archives is enough to demonstrate how much things have changed at the University. 

On October 7, 1881, 12 young men began their agricultural studies at the new, small school nestled in the hills of northwestern Connecticut.   Their course of study was prescribed and the daily schedule had little variety. 

Daily Schedule, Academic year 1881-1882

 In comparison, this past August, 20,812 undergraduates (men and women) settled in on the University’s 6 campuses across the state to begin the Fall 2009 semester.  Hundreds of courses are available to leading to one hundred possible majors. Not to mention, the daily schedule is no longer prescribed and varies tremendously across the campuses and student body.   

The one thing that probably hasn’t changed much is the pervasive question that settles on the campuses this time of year–is it over yet?

Mary Travers, part of the legendary folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, whose protest music helped define the 1960s passed away in Danbury, Connecticut on Wednesday. 

The interview below is from the December 20, 1976 issue of the socialist newspaper, In These Times, part of the Alternative Press Collection.

From the interview:

“All art forms reflect society.  Music does not create the revolution.  It articulates it maybe, but it is not a lasting force.  Something has to be happening in society first.”

“’I think the country suffered terrible blows in the latter half of the ‘60s, she says, ‘with all the assassination and the unresponsiveness of the government—unresponsive in a way that it had not been unresponsive before.  In previous times, when there was extended pressure from people over periods of time, the government moved off the dime.  And that didn’t happen in the ‘60s.’   The election of Jimmy Carter, a ‘well-meaning person’ may make some difference, Travers believes.  ‘In order to have change you have to have someone who pivots, someone who is responsive to change.”’

The Alternative Press Collection is one of the oldest and largest collections of alternative press materials in the United States. The Alternative Press Collection (APC) was founded in the late 1960s out of student participation in activist movements for social, cultural and political change.  Currently, the APC includes thousands of national and international newspapers, serials, books, pamphlets, ephemera and artifacts documenting activist themes and organizations, particularly focusing on underground and counter culture publications from the 1960s and 1970s. 

For more information about the Alternative Press Collection, please go to https://lib.uconn.edu/location/asc/collections/alternative-press/

Patrick B. McGinnis in the cab of a New Haven Railroad locomotive, 1954

August 14, 2009, was the 46th anniversary of the indictment by a Federal grand jury in Boston, Massachusetts, of former New Haven Railroad president Patrick B. McGinnis on a charge of obtaining personal profit from a deal involving the sale of railroad cars while he was president of the Boston & Maine Railroad. McGinnis was president of the New Haven Railroad from April 1, 1954, to January 18, 1956, and was controversial from the outset. He won the presidency through a proxy fight, ousting President Frederick “Buck” Dumaine, Jr., and during his tenure he was regarded as controversial for deferring maintenance and buying expensive new motive power at a time when the New Haven Railroad was experiencing diminishing ridership and the effects of extensive floods in August 1955, in which hundreds of miles of track were damaged. Immediately upon being ousted as President of the NHRR McGinnis became President of the Boston & Maine Railroad, but was indicted a few years later for graft and served time in a federal prison. Those who worked for the railroad or have studied the history of the New Haven Railroad still today debate the dastardly deeds of this flamboyant railroad president.

This photograph shows Patrick McGinnis in 1954 in the cab of a New Haven Railroad locomotive, from the Charles Gunn Papers in Archives & Special Collections.