Rice History Corner

What a lovely way to spend a late Sunday afternoon in the fall. I would go to all of these, if only for the chance to ask questions afterwards.

Bonus: Do you see what I see?

This is what the ideal university is: a committed teacher and engaged students. This is what we are when we’re at our best. Everything else is noise.

Godspeed Dennis Huston and thank you. Enjoy your retirement!

Remember these rascals from a few weeks back?

While I was looking for pictures of the back of Cohen House I stumbled upon a batch of fantastic images of their fifteenth reunion. The class reunions usually took place around commencement and they sure do seem to be dressed for summer.

I’m a little worried about that palm tree.

There’s quite a bit to look at here and I have not exhausted all the possibilities. To state what I’m sure is obvious, in the first picture we can see William Ward Watkin seated at far right:

The best thing in this one is the view of the backstop for the tennis court although the light fixture installed on the top right corner of the building also caught my attention. That wasn’t always there:

And there’s Dr. Lovett in his straw boater sort of jammed into the corner and math professor Griffith Evans standing right under that precarious palm:

They look like they’re enjoying each other’s company, don’t they?

Bonus:

the literary societies were actually literary societies. I found this completely–completely!–by accident. Every single thing about it is interesting:

More to come . . .

Bonus: Speaking of interesting. Zoom in for a good look at the signs.

Remarkably, Rice remained closed for all but essential personnel again today. I can’t remember this ever happening before but if you’ve been paying attention you know why: it finally stopped raining but there’s still water all over the place. This was really a bad one and, ominously, I can hear thunder again right now.

Here’s a striking photograph taken by our friend Neil Brennan on the day after a big rainstorm in 1942. It’s sort of pretty but it’s not hard to imagine how Rice got its reputation for harboring massive swarms of mosquitos back in those days:

Better luck tomorrow, everybody.

Bonus: I just like the way it sounds.

From an Elizabeth Baldwin Literary Society scrapbook:

It’s rained out today too. The library is closed for the morning (at the least) and I wasn’t going to try to drive in anyway. So I’m being responsible, staying home and catching up on things that I’ve neglected. If I’ve owed you an email for three weeks this might be your lucky day.

Bonus:

Campus Map, 1966:

When I used this photo of the Woodson in a post last week I stopped for a moment and thought about how much I love the library and how wonderful it is to have such a calm and lovely place to work.

This is what the space looked like when I first arrived, circa 1991:

Ghastly but I loved it then too.

Bonus: See that framed piece on the wall at left? It’s from the Illuminated Sacred Music Manuscript Collection and if you go here you’ll find a fantastic story and podcast from 2013 about how Rice grad student Melisa Palermo figured out exactly what it is.

Extra Bonus:

About a year ago the Houston Endowment donated the papers of Jesse Jones to Rice and they are, of course, housed in the Woodson. (Click here for the Rice News story about the generous gift.) It took some time for the archivists to process the enormous collection and just about a week ago I finally had a chance to look closely at some of the boxes. I was drawn immediately to the photographs, which provide an immensely rich picture of the city of Houston as it evolved over several decades.

Here’s one that caught my eye and held it for several reasons, as you will surely see. It’s labeled “Texas Medical Center, 1967”:

I don’t even know how to begin speculating about the markings except to note with a smile the tract labeled “U of T 100 A.” That wasn’t the first thing I noticed, though. What jumped out at me was how much surface parking there used to be in the Med Center!

Once I calmed down I realized that the open space in the foreground is Rice. It’s interesting for two reasons. First, it’s a nice shot of the back end of the bleachers that were recently replaced at the track and soccer stadium. Even better is the tiny sliver of the entrance gate you can see towards the left of the photo. That’s one of the things that I’ve never been able to get a real handle on. At first that gate had a semicircle of hedges around it, as in this 1931 image:

Then at some point they tore out the hedges and built squared off brick gates that were pulled back from Main Street. That’s what you can just see a glimpse of in the Jones picture. I’m not sure when or why that happened, but this will eventually help me figure it out.

Bonus: