Posts with the tag: campus history

The Archivist’s Nook: CUA Bulletin Chronicles Catholic U

Posted on by William J. Shepherd
CUB chronicled an illustrious visitor, newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt, v. 1, n. 5, July, 1933. CU Bulletin, Special Collections, The Catholic University of America.

Since the nineteenth century American colleges and universities have published annual reports, yearbooks, newspapers, and other promotional materials chronicling their institutional related events and accomplishments to faculty, students, alumni, and other interested parties. Many of these, such as yearbooks and newspapers, while sanctioned by administrators, are produced by students. Others, generally targeted at alumni and other potential donors, are official institutional publications, often citing institutional archives. The award winning CatholicU magazine, published since 2017, is the latest incarnation of The Catholic University of America’s official publication. Earlier versions include The CUA Bulletin, First Series (1895-1928), CUA Bulletin, Second Series (1932-1968), Envoy (1971-1990), and CUA Magazine (1989-2017).

CUB reported on CU Physics faculty and their new “atom smasher” obtained with assistance from The Carnegie Institute, v. 8, n. 6, September 1941. CU Bulletin, Special Collections, The Catholic University of America.

Previous blog posts have featured the early years of Catholic University’s yearbook The Cardinal and student newspaper, The Tower, both digitized, while this one is focused on the CUA Bulletin, Second Series, and its recent in-house digitization. The first manifestation of the Bulletin was more of an academic journal in format and content, though including newsworthy items. It is largely scanned and online in several places due to the lack of copyright. There were 34 volumes in a 6” x 9” format. There were 4 rather thick issues per year through 1908, then 9 more slim issues 1909 through 1925, then back to 4 issues for the final three years, 1926-1928.  The pages were consecutively numbered for all but the last volume when each of the four issues begin pagination all over again.

CU students, like so many others in wartime America, support War Bonds, v. 11, n. 2, September 1943. CU Bulletin, Special Collections, The Catholic University of America.

The second series, the subject of this post, was published in 36 volumes, 1932-1968, but in the glossy magazine format more recognizable in similar and later alumni focused publications at Catholic University and elsewhere. As historical objects, such publications reflect the customs and perspectives of their time and may seem offensive to contemporary views. We have chosen to retain the digital content intact for historical accuracy though we do not necessarily endorse views depicted in this online archive now available to the research community and broader public.

CUB details Mullen Library expansion to address the annual addition of over 14,000 new books, bound periodicals, and pamphlets, v 24, n 1, July 1956. CU Bulletin, Special Collections, The Catholic University of America.

Regarding the original print format, individual issues of the first seven volumes, November 1932-August 1939, were 14 pages each and sized 7.75 x 9.75 inches.  The remaining issues through 1968 were sized at 8 x 10.5 inches, though the number of pages per issue rose to 16 for volumes 31-34, 1963-1966, but was reduced to 6 pages for the last two volumes in 1967-1968. Oddly, the last two volumes are numbered 1 and 2. A particularly erratic feature of this otherwise very professionally produced publication was the number of issues per volume, ranging from 4 to 6 for the majority of publication, but with only 2 for volume 34 but 7 for the second volume 1 for 1967. Future plans in Special Collections include digitization of the aforementioned successor publications Envoy, CUA Magazine, and Catholic U.

The last issue of the C.U. Bulletin, May 1968, v 1, n 2, reports on the Commencement address of D.C native, Senator Edward Brooke. CU Bulletin, Special Collections, The Catholic University of America.

Future plans in Special Collections include digitization of the aforementioned successor publications Envoy, CUA Magazine, and Catholic U. For more on Special Collections see the folowing post and our web site.

The Archivist’s Nook: The Mysterious Case of the Utopian Ghost Car

Posted on by Shane MacDonald
The Ghost Car parked outside Gibbons Hall, 1953. Real specter or merely a photographic trick?

Question of the week – where’s the Ghost Car? As you ought to know. a mysterious foreign ghost limousine haunted the campus for a few days early this week, and then, just as mysteriously, slipped away to Valhalla. – Tower, October 30, 1953

Once upon a time, the Catholic University of America campus was haunted by a specter so otherworldly and so unpredictable that it moved from building to building with the aid of a society of followers known as the Utopes. What message did this ghostly automobile wish to convey? What was its unfinished business? Why, it was there to advertise the 1953 Hayshaker Brawl dance!

The Hayshaker Brawl was a dance hosted by the Utopian Club – later renamed to the SIgma Phi Delta fraternity – held every other year at Halloween. It was an informal dance – in the 1960 posting for the Brawl, guests were warned, “But whatever you do, don’t you dare wear a coat and tie!” Costumes were encouraged, and the night’s events were marked by the occasional square dance set.

Founded on March 14, 1923, the Utopian Club was among the many social organizations that populated the Catholic University campus during the early twentieth century. Among the various clubs were the Senators Club, the Abbey Club, the Dod Noon Club, and (by 1935) the Cave Dwellers. In 1945, the Columbians would join these ranks as the first all-female social club on campus. All these organizations acted as communal societies, organizing everything from formal galas to, well, Hayshake Brawls. A previous blog discussed the origins of their Homecoming and Thanksgiving galas, but there was so many shaking traditions! Often these organizations would even partner up for a dance, with the Utopians and Columbians working to establish memorable outings such as the 1956 “Cloak and Dagger Drag”, an espionage-themed dance!

Look if you dare! The only known surviving image from the 1953 Hayshaker Brawl.

Party favors were offered to guests, and there was a best costume prize awarded at the end of the evening. The 1949 prize went to,  “Ginny Bradley, dressed as a ‘Flapper’ of 1929,” who “received a homemade television set as a prize for the best costume.” We cannot say for sure whether a homemade television was a real treat or some Utopian trick!

But perhaps the trick of the 1953 dance was its phenomenal promotion. The ghost car was a hit with students. After the Utopians had placed it outside Gibbons Hall, the Tower reports, “various outlanders, enchanted by the old girl, entered the act, and unbeknownst to the Utopes, old Ghost Car made the campus rounds, ending up in McMahon lobby.” Understandably, there were a few people on campus unhappy with this new, indoor parking space and an exorcism of the ghost commenced, with the Ghost Car vanishing to be never heard from again.

Despite the disappearance of the Ghost Car, the 1953 dance managed to remain in the minds of the campus community. As the Tower acclaimed, “we hereby give [the Utopians] the prize for the most original, if not most aesthetic, contribution to the field of advertising, which has been raised to the status of a fine art at the university.” But the car was not the only form of promotion that was deployed. Utopians spread it via word of mouth and through local ads. One of which proclaimed:

The 1949 Hayshaker Brawl experienced its own strange scenes.

Hear ye, hear ye! Be it decreed to all campus kats and kittens that the coolest conclave of the sorcerers’ season, the 15th annual Utopian Hayshaker Brawl is this year set for the misty hills of Northeast Washington.

The 1953 dance became such a legend that its organizer, Michael Clendenin, was heralded in the Tower 3 years later when he was about to graduate. (Of course, being the Tower editor maybe had something to do with the praise…) Clendenin described “his work with…the Utopians as the most rewarding and socially satisfying” during his time at Catholic University.

As for the Utopians? Like the Ghost Car, they have faded from campus and entered memory. In 1956, in honor of its long-time mentor, Fr. Ignatius Smith, O.P, the Utopians changed their name to the Sigma Pi Delta Fraternity, which ceased to be active at the University by the late 1980s. The Archives holds a small collection of Sigma Pi Delta material from the 1960s and 1970s.

But if you find yourself in McMahon Hall on a chilly October night, listen closely. Perhaps you may hear the engine roar of the Ghost Car as it idles the ages away.

The Archivist’s Nook: The Tower Reports, You Decide

Posted on by William J. Shepherd
Twelfth anniversary issue, November 1, 1934, detailing efforts to bottle up ace Western Maryland (known since 2002 as McDaniel) football player, one of my imagined kinsmen, William Leroy ‘Bill’ Shepherd (1911-1967). Shepherd nevertheless led his team to victory over Catholic U. in Brookland Stadium two days later. The Tower Archive Online.

American student newspapers began appearing on Ivy League campuses such as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale in the 1870s. It took a while longer for their Catholic colleagues to follow suit, with the founding of the Tribune at Marquette University in 1916, The Hoya at Georgetown University in 1920, and The Tower at The Catholic University of America in 1922.  Named after the center tower portion of Gibbons Hall, the latter debuted on October 27, 1922 as a four page weekly intending to “serve no individual, no group, no class; it is a publication in the interests of all students.” It also eloquently stated “The Tower is now a living being on the Campus, and will be kept as such only thru the wholehearted co-operation of all the students.” ¹

With a price of ten cents per copy or $1.50 a year, the Tower was initially funded by the University and later by the student government, but also increasingly by advertising.² It became more independent over time and in the 1960s reported in the midst of the tumult over University attempts to fire dissident professor Fr. Charles Curran for teachings contrary to the Church and the resulting student strike on campus. Tower reporters were also front and center for such notable events as the historic visits of presidents and popes to campus, including Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 and John Paul II in 1979. Interestingly, in the 1970s and 1980s, before the advent of email, the unclassified section, where students could print anonymous messages for $1, was quite popular.

Pope Francis during Papal visit, September 23, 2015, for first ever canonization on American soil, of St. Juniperro Serra. The Tower Online.
Cartoon by Tower news staffer and future Oscar winning actor Jon Voight, Class of 1960, January 10, 1958 issue. ‘The Tower Archive Goes Digital’ Brochure, 2009.

The first editor was W. T. Keavny, Jr., Class of 1923, a Law major from Connecticut. Jimmy Cassidy, Class of 2018, a Media and Communication Studies Major from Maryland, who has served since 2017, is the 123rd editor. The first woman to be editor was Mimi Reisman, Class of 1957, a biology major from Pennsylvania.³ Many student contributors went on to later fame (or infamy), including renowned photographer Fred Maroon, Oscar winning actor Jon Voight, Pulitzer prize winning New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Washington Post Sunday editor James Rowe, former Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Ed Gillespie, and problematic NBC news anchor Brian Williams.

The print edition of The Tower has changed size several times in its venerable history: twelve by nineteen inches from 1922-1923 to 1925-1926; fourteen by twenty one inches from 1926-1927 to 1931-1932; seventeen and one half by twenty three inches from 1932-1933 to 1941-1944; eleven by seventeen inches from 1946-1947 to 1972-1973; eleven by fifteen inches for 1973-1974 to 2003-2004; and twelve by twenty three inches 2004-2005 to the present. The Tower transitioned to a digital layout in 2003 and in practice has become increasingly digital-only, with occasional print issues as advertising revenue permits.

University archives staff worked in 2008 with several campus departments, including Mullen Library and the Student Association General Assembly, as well as an outside digitization company, Olive, to get archived copies of the newspaper digitized and accessible online. The years 1922-1991 had previously been microfilmed, so these were relatively easy for Olive to scan. Print copies for 1992-2003⁴ were digitized and the combined digital collection web site went live in 2009. Additional years have been added thereafter so that coverage on the Olive site is currently 1922-2013. The most recent years can be accessed on The Tower’s web site. The library stores backup digital copies and the Archives retains three sets of print copies whenever possible.

The first April Fool’s issue, The Towel, with prank headlines and other absurdities was published in 1927. Above is a humorous example from 2009: ‘Catholic University March Madness,’ with reference to an apparently overachieving student named Wynn.

¹ The Tower, 10-27-1922, pp. 1, 4.

² The Tower, 10-24-1997, p. 1.

³ The Tower, 1-14-1955, p. 1.

⁴The Tower, 4-16-2004, p. 3.