Rice History Corner

It’s Homecoming weekend and I hope everyone in town for the events has as much fun as these two young gentlemen celebrating with a beverage way back in 1934:

Bonus: If you’re looking for something fun on Friday night, think about checking out the Houston Folk Music Archive video screening put on by the Woodson. Here’s the link to the description.  This is an amazing collection, well worth your time.

While we’re at it, here’s the link to the collection itself.

Extra Bonus: There have been a lot of changes on campus in recent years but they’ve made it really easy to find your way around.

I really hit the jackpot this week and once again completely by accident. There was a box from the Association of Rice Alumni collection sitting on a book truck in the back room of the Woodson, an irresistible attraction if there ever was one. I did in fact expect it to be interesting but I certainly didn’t expect to find the answer to one of those small questions that bounce around in my head, sometimes for years.

Here’s a photo I scanned a long time ago, taken by the both the setting and the people. It’s dated 1941:

Left to right are Ed Dupree ’16, Dr. Lovett, Hattie Lel Red ’16, and my old friend Carl Knapp ’16. What was bothering me all this time was this–what has Knapp got rolled up in his hand?

In the ARA box I found a second copy of this photo and next to it lay the answer to my question. In 1941 Dr. Lovett became the second recipient of the ARA Gold Medal and with the medal came a scroll. The language on that scroll was worked and carefully reworked by the alumni. There are several drafts in the folder and here’s the last one:

My heart skipped when I felt something heavy at the back of the folder that turned out to be a packet of negatives:

Full of hope I scanned the negative entitled “scroll” and my hope was rewarded. Here’s exactly what’s inside that rolled up paper in Carl Knapp’s hand (note how the photographer kept it flat!):

And just to show off I’ll tell you how much it cost:

Hang on to your hats, folks. We have not yet reached the end of this journey. More to come.

Bonus: Just another day on campus.

A loyal reader sent me a link this week to the recently published National Academy of Sciences biographical memoir of Jim Kinsey ’56 ’59. I’ve read dozens of these pieces over the years and although I can’t pretend to understand the chemistry I do know that this one, written by Bob Curl ’54, Bruce Johnson, and Fleming Crim, is one of the best I’ve ever come across as a portrait of a man’s personality. I can add little to it except to say that seven years after his death I still miss Jim keenly. Just click on it to read the whole thing.

Bonus: That portrait makes him seem very stern but this is how I usually saw him. I took this on October 12, 2012, by the way, and he was very happy he didn’t have to robe for the big centennial procession.

Extra Bonus: Another loyal reader sends evidence that life goes on.

Wow! Look at this:

It’s relatively small and not all that sharp, a picture of a postcard, but I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. It had to have been taken sometime between 1931, when the two wings were added to the field house, and 1938, when this stadium was replaced by what I call the New Old Stadium.

The only other good look at this I’ve ever found was in the scrapbook of Mary Jane Hale Rommel ’37. It’s an aerial taken from the opposite direction and it makes me think the date on the first image is closer to 1931 than 1938 just based on the size of the trees. I’m hoping that someone (hello, Marty Merritt) will be able to identify the cars to help narrow it down a bit.

Also, who remembers the discussions about gas stations in this vicinity? The Gulf station must have been off to the right of the person who took the picture of the intersection.

Bonus: Several more cypresses have been taken down this week, including all the leaners. Against my better judgement I find myself hoping someone will see this as an opportunity.

When I first saw this image (another eBay find, by the way) my reaction was a small snort of surprise, followed by a good laugh. Dated at the end of January, 1970, we have here Norman Hackerman, then president of the University of Texas, beaming at Frank Erwin, then chairman of the UT Board of Regents. (Why do I think they were both squeezing as hard as they could?)

One of the malign results of the 1969 Masterson Crisis was that once Bill Masterson was out, we couldn’t  find anyone who wanted to wade onto the still tense campus and take over as president. Frank Vandiver of the History Department was Acting President but the fit was not an especially good one and in any event he made it clear to the board that he didn’t want the job permanently. The new search was not going well, as the residual anger and hostility between the trustees and the faculty left potential candidates uneasy. But the Rice board had learned at least one productive lesson from the catastrophe of the previous presidential search and this time listened to the faculty committee that they authorized to help with this one. Sometime near the end of 1969 Mechanical Engineering professor Franz Brotzen, who chaired the faculty committee as he had done last time,  quietly suggested to the board’s search committee that they go talk to the president of the University of Texas, who was caught up in a nasty political situation on the 40 Acres and might be open to a job change. This, of course, was Norman Hackerman. By the time this picture was taken in January 1970 rumors that Hackerman would be Rice’s fourth president were swirling on campus. The rumors were of course correct and his appointment was officially announced in April.

The nasty political situation at Texas was in fact one of the nastiest I’ve ever come across in three decades of researching the history of southern higher education, although some might argue that the only really unusual thing about it was that it broke into public view. There’s no way I can possibly explain it here. However, here is a link to a 2011 piece by Ronnie Dugger in the Texas Observer, a review of Ken Ashworth’s fascinating book Horns of a Dilemma. Dugger describes the cast of characters, including Erwin and Hackerman as well as Harry Ransom, John Silber, and Mickey LeMaitre, and gives a succinct account of the whole ugly episode. Reading it one is tempted to conclude that when he came here Norman was simply fleeing Austin. I know I thought that for a long time. But I spent a lot of time with him over the years and any time I raised this notion he firmly rejected it, saying he came to Rice because he wanted to come to Rice. This just didn’t seem realistic to me. But after many conversations, after some growing up on my part, and especially after spending a solid year working in his papers I realized that I believe him. He would have been fine if he had stayed at UT, whether as president or as a faculty member in the Chemistry Department. And although I certainly had my  differences with him (as I told him repeatedly, to his great amusement) I think he has been underrated as a president at Rice. I’ll have more to say about this.

(Side note: I was once talking with Silber about an unrelated matter and the name of one of the people involved in this brouhaha (not Norman, by the way, who he clearly respected) came up. The insult he uttered was a thing of beauty. Its combination of highly evocative language with pinpoint accuracy of the observation was devastating.  Once in a while I still roll it around in my mind in wonder.)

Bonus: They’re leaning in all directions!

But quite a few have been taken out. Last time I was there only two remained on the Rayzor side. I eagerly await next developments.

I’ve been totally slammed the last two weeks but I did find a really interesting photograph and just haven’t had time to think carefully about it. So rather then posting something half baked I’m going to make you wait. Which is a long Rice tradition, dating back to the twelve years between William Marsh Rice’s death and the opening of the Institute. From the outside it looked like nothing was happening and people started getting chippy about it, as seen in this cartoon, which I actually find quite amusing:

This editorial from almost a year later gives a pretty good sense of the impatience around town. (Note especially the reference to getting Charles Weber to sell his property!)

I won’t make you wait more than a few days.

Bonus: A loyal reader sends these images, noting that the academic quad is beginning to take on a certain Seussian aspect. I confess that I find this quite amusing also.

We really could harbor no reasonable expectation of beating Houston in 1979 but I admire the spirit. It was the last game of the season and we had only won once. The Cougars, on the other hand, were having one of their best years ever. They went 11-1, won the Southwest Conference and the Cotton Bowl against Nebraska and ended the season at number 5 in the final AP poll.

They thrashed us, 63-0.

We’ll surely lick ’em this time.

Bonus: And we’ll do it on our nice new turf. Here are a couple articles about the initial installation of astroturf in 1970 that I ran across last week in an old scrapbook. (There are some better images of this in a post I wrote way back in 2011.)

This looks to be part of the 1970s era recycling effort on campus. Believe it or not the first thing I noticed was the car in a spot where I wasn’t expecting to see a car. Next I saw the aggressive implements being used to load the cans into some sort of truck. And finally I gave in and spent quite a bit of time staring at the cans themselves. You could probably date this pretty close just by the cans. So much Tab!

Bonus: It’s the northeast corner of the Physics Amphitheater.

Extra Bonus:

After last week’s post I got several comments from people reminiscing about their time as freshman servers. In one of those routine coincidences that I’ve come to expect, I’d  scanned this document on that exact topic just a few days before. It isn’t dated and I couldn’t even make a guess from context but . . .  that font. Does it suggest maybe 1970s?

Student wait staff in the dining halls was a tradition at Rice for a very long time, going all the way back to the beginning. You can see them standing at attention in this shot, taken in the commons in 1912:

Rice Institute Commons, dining area

And here, a jovial bunch gives us a good look at their uniforms, circa early 1930s:

I take it this is no longer a thing but I’m not clear on when it went away. As always, clarification is most welcome.

Bonus: Who knows where this is?

Well, even though we’ve gone back to on-line classes it seems there was no stopping O Week this year. They are back and bubbling over with enthusiasm, sending me into hiding until it’s over. I recently came across this short report produced by a student-faculty committee that studied how best to manage freshman orientation. It was written just at the moment the college system was about to come into existence. It’s dated February, 1957 and the move into the colleges happened that March. The genesis of the college system was not welcomed by everyone, and in fact there was pretty stout opposition from some students. It took several years for loyalty to one’s class year to be replaced by loyalty to the colleges and this report reads more or less as though the dominant social groups would continue to be the classes. (And note that it’s signed by Burt McMurtry, who served on the committee that recommended the switch to the college system and provided the original design.) Which shows us nothing, I suppose, except that it’s very hard to anticipate precisely how change will play out.

The other thing that jumps out of this document is the repeated insistence that there be no hazing and that participation be absolutely voluntary. Hazing of freshmen by sophomores had been a feature of student life at the Institute from the beginning but the 1956 deaths of two students who got trapped in the Campanile brought great resolve to the effort to do away with it. It’s my sense that it did largely disappear, but only gradually.

Bonus: The new field turf looks really nice!

The old stuff awaits disposal: