Rice History Corner

While I was looking for that football program with Huey Long on the cover I came across this unlabeled, undated image of what must have been an athletics award ceremony, sometime in the mid-70s by the look of those outfits:

The young man with the shotgun must have won the George Martin Award for the most valuable player on the football team. Until his death in 1962 George Martin, the owner of Ye Old College Inn and a fervent supporter of Rice athletics, chose the winner himself. After that it was done by a vote of the team members, making it a high honor indeed. I don’t know who he is, but I bet some of you do.

Also, the scariest thing in this picture isn’t the gun. Check out the shoes on the fellow at the far left.

Bonus: For your enjoyment, I now present the meat aging room at Ye Old College Inn.

I admit that sometimes I get so caught up in the past that I miss things that are happening in the present. I was thus caught by surprise when I read yesterday that Rice is going to play LSU in football in 2018. It is, of course, a return to an old and very long rivalry. The teams played almost every year from the early 1930s through the 1950s and each game was a major event.

My favorite piece of ephemera from this long relationship is this program cover from LSU’s visit to Rice in 1932:

I don’t have time to look it up right now but my sense is that we won this game.

As governor, Long was a huge booster of the LSU football program (and it’s marching band as well) and frequently arranged for trains to bring large numbers of fans to away games. It could be a bit of a scene. One would expect events surrounding the 2018 contest to be less colorful but this being Louisiana you can’t rule anything out.

Bonus:

This is an extremely impressive group:

Left to right are Gene Hackerman, Judy Ley Allen, Josephine Abercrombie, and Martha Lovett, all of them committed supporters of Rice, each in her own way.

I don’t know the occasion or where they were, but it seems to have been a luncheon.

Note also the tiny reproduction of Willy in the center of the table! I have one of those in my cubby in the Woodson and I recollect that they were given out to big donors sometime in the ’70s, which would make sense with this photo. For a while I was taking it out around campus with me, as seen here and here. I’d forgotten now much fun that was. It might be time to trot him out again.

Bonus:

I got a lot of input in both the comments and my email about the stairs on the west side of the Physics Building. I went looking for a better view and I was surprised to find this exceptionally clear shot, dated 1916:

And here’s an even better look at how the staircase was put together circa 1925:

It’s definitely different now, both the railing and the landing at the top, but I don’t know when or why they changed the set up. My best guess is that something broke and this was the easiest and cheapest way to fix it:

There just aren’t very many photographs of this spot. My favorite is this one of a young Franz Vander Henst, who came to Rice in 1920 to take charge of the Physics shop and was here long enough to have worked for many years in the Bonner Lab:

Bonus: Out of town today, be back tomorrow.

Who doesn’t?

No date but it must be sometime in the ’70s, when Sid and Mary Lee Burrus were at Lovett. Charmingly, these two miscreants were awarded the ARA Gold Medal in 2007.

Bonus: Inside the Physics Amphitheater this afternoon.

I am quite taken with this image. I’ve never seen another one like it, which is always interesting, and it has the added pleasure of beautiful ironwork:

I wasn’t immediately sure where it was taken, largely because of the ironwork, which is surely long gone. (Note that it’s similar to the decorative metal on the quad side windows of Lovett Hall.)

At first I thought it was the back of Physics but realized that it wasn’t ornate enough. A quick walk over and it was clear that it was the west side of the building, which now has duller metal work:

What the class of 1919 would have been looking at that day was the small frame building that Professor H.A. Wilson used for his nuclear work:

They’d likely be a bit bewildered if they could see what’s there today:

Bonus: That’s Sarah Lane at the far left in the bottom row and Pender Turnbull right next to her!

Extra Bonus: For those of you who are, like me, tormented by loose ends I can now tell you that this was written by H.A. Wilson.

This 1948 Thresher article is the earliest reference I’ve seen to students evaluating faculty at Rice in an organized way:

I’m particularly interested in the way the faculty members are talking here. The tolerant tone has the feel of a verbal pat on the head for the youngsters but I do think that Professor Camden sticks his finger–gently–right into the heart of the problem.

Bonus: This young man is Christian Hauser, a very recent Rice grad who has been working with me in the Woodson on a major project. Over Christmas break he and his young family were involved in a serious car accident. He and the little one are fine but his wife was very badly injured and had to be airlifted back to Houston. She’s currently hospitalized here and is doing better but they have a long, hard road in front of them. A GoFundMe account has been set up to help with what will be their considerable expenses. The link is here for anyone who feels able to contribute. It will be greatly appreciated.

This made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. You can almost hear the bugle, can’t you?

I believe it was put up on the message board that hung in the Sallyport.

Bonus:

Just before Christmas break we had a patron in the Woodson who was researching in the Julian Huxley papers, one of our most used collections. Since the boxes were already out I could do no other than look in them. I’ve never found anything really earth shaking in this group as regards the history of Rice, but all sorts of interesting minor tidbits have turned up this way.

And yet again I was rewarded, this time with a small scrap of paper that held a small scrap of poetry:

Interestingly, I don’t know who wrote it even though I feel sure I’ve seen the handwriting before. It could even be Huxley himself, I suppose, if he were making some effort to write legibly. His normal hand was absolutely atrocious, sometimes reaching nearly Hackermanesque levels of incomprehensibility.

Bonus: The new semester doesn’t start until next week but I dragged myself in to campus for an hour or so today in an attempt to mitigate the shock. I’m really glad I did it, too. It was a glorious day, crisp and sunny with an enormous clear blue sky. We don’t get that many like this.

Extra Bonus: They’re freshening up the inside of the Brochstein Pavilion and it looks like a circus tent in there. Which is rather appropriate, really.

I came across this undated photo the other day while trying to organize all the images I’ve saved over the years. (This will never be accomplished, by the way. I’m far too easily distracted.)

It’s clearly one of those fancy New Year’s Eve parties the Cohen’s used to host at Cohen House and that’s English professor Will Dowden sitting right in the middle with the big smile:

I feel like I also recognize the woman to the right but I’m not at my absolute sharpest this morning. Is she Mrs. Cohen?

Happy New Year, everyone. I’m confident that this will be the year I finally start getting it together.