Rice History Corner

As regular readers can probably tell, I’ve been very interested lately in the World War II era at Rice. A little while ago a researcher was working in the papers of Congressman Albert Thomas (’20) and so I too went through those boxes. In them I found the genesis of the Navy’s presence at the Institute–and the genesis of some long-gone buildings on campus, including the rifle range that we searched for a little while ago.

It was largely Thomas’s lobbying that got us this unit, the beginning of a huge boon that kept classrooms full for the entire duration of the war. This is a “note to file” from the spring of 1941. (As an aside, I got a chuckle out of this: “Uniforms worn only on drill days which are twice a week.” Thomas, of course, was a veteran of the Great Rice ROTC Uprising of 1918, which centered on student objections to inappropriate military discipline on campus, prominently including uniform regulations.)

What I’m really interested in here is the last sentence: “Rice agreed to construct some buildings for their use.” We find this expanded on in a newspaper clipping from later that summer, also in Thomas’s papers:

Temporary quarters would be in Room 208 of the Chemistry Building (Oh, how I love the specificity!) while workers rushed to complete the $18,000, single story, “modernistic” permanent facility. I was most surprised to learn that the building had been designed by William Ward Watkin. I did a quick search through his papers and found no reference to it, but there are quite a few other places to check.

Here it is:

I think the top one is the front but I really don’t know that.

Bonus: Faithful reader owlcop “took advantage of of contractors with a lift to take pictures of the tiny owl carved into the covered walk way between Lovett and Herzstein.”

I am a strong believer in taking this sort of advantage every time you can. Much appreciated, owlcop!

Here’s the picture that led me to drag my bemused family all over campus on New Year’s Day. I know from context that it was taken sometime in the early to mid-1930s. It’s not a very good photograph–it’s a bit of a blob–which allowed me to overlook it in the past. When I ran across it again right before Christmas break, however, it stopped me cold.

What the heck? I’ve never seen that phone booth before. Where could it possibly be??

At first glance there doesn’t seem to be much to go on, but that first impression turns out to be wrong. It’s clearly in a corner and that corner is right next to a doorway. That still doesn’t sound promising, but let me tell you something I learned while looking for this spot: when you go out and inspect every building that was standing on campus in the 1930s, you will find that there are almost no two doorways the same. The patterns of stone and brick and the material and cut of the door jambs and headers vary wildly even on the same building. (Again I marvel at the Physics Building. Next time you have a chance go look at the three doors that face the quad.) The problem, though, was that while I could eliminate doorway after doorway, I couldn’t find the right one.

By Friday I was nearly berserk. Sadly, I could hardly think about anything else. I went back and started again from the beginning. Finally, in desperation, I began to look inside the buildings even though I was sure it had been taken outside. You just don’t see stone like that on Rice interiors. (This was kind of amusing, by the way, as most of the buildings were locked and I had to work hard to get in.) Nothing, nothing, nothing. And then there it was. I took this next picture through a back window of locked South Hall (aka Will Rice):

Luckily, Joyce, the Will Rice Coordinator, was in her office and she graciously unlocked the door for me. Here’s a close-up of the corner:

Trust me; it’s the same spot. Every single crack is in the right place.

Of course, I immediately began to wonder if there’s any other shred of evidence that there had been a phone booth in South Hall in the early 1930s. In fact, there is. Here’s a charming glimpse of student life from the December 21, 1934 issue of the Thresher:

Now I can rest.

From a Sophomore Class outing in April, 1955: Here are some girls wearing bathing suits of their own choosing. Quite different.

I’m pretty sure at least a couple of them are the same ones from yesterday’s photo:

By the way, these two pictures come from completely different collections.

A couple of years ago I was asked to give a talk about the history of women’s athletics at Rice. That sounded kind of interesting and I didn’t know much about it, so anticipating some enjoyable research I readily agreed. After running into one dead end after another, though, I wound up giving a talk about how, apart from the tennis club, there wasn’t much evidence of women’s athletics at Rice until the 1940s. Ever since this episode I have been assiduously collecting every reference to Rice girls playing sports that I’ve come upon and there actually are quite a few, although they are scattered all over the collections. This is one of the earliest I’ve seen–a 1919 plea for physical training facilities for co-eds:

No pool for girls was forthcoming, of course, nor one for boys either. This was long, long before the era when the comfort and amusement of undergraduates was a primary concern of colleges and universities. It wasn’t until 1950 when the new gym opened that Rice students got their swimming facility. It was, predictably, a huge hit and the girls began holding organized intramural races almost immediately.

I think those must have been Rice-issued swimsuits because I can’t imagine these attractive young women would voluntarily wear such things.

Bonus:

Extra Bonus: Look what was sitting on the sign above the carpenter shop this morning! (Many thanks to Hannes Hofer!)

There’s been something nagging at me for several weeks now and it was only today that things quieted down enough for me to try to find the answer. So this morning I dragged my family, including out of town visitors, all of us except the baby in various states of disrepair, over to Rice to look at patterns of stone and brick on old buildings. I don’t believe I’ve yet found what I was looking for but it was so lovely on the empty campus.

I was struck again by the grace and beauty of the Physics Building and I stood in front of it for a long time. This is my favorite building at Rice and my love for it deepens steadily as I understand it better. Not long ago I came across these two images of men doing detail work on the exterior of the building. These pictures are especially interesting to me because they are orphans of a sort–I don’t know where they came from. They aren’t part of the William Ward Watkin collection and are only identified as “Physics construction, unknown source.” I think they too are lovely.

If you turn around on a quiet day like today and look carefully at Sewall Hall, which was meant to reflect the Physics Building, I think you can’t help but feel . . . disappointed. It’s a pretty pale imitation and possibly my least favorite building on campus.

Ah, well. Better luck next time.

Incidentally, it’s been a very wild two or three weeks for me–lots of travel–and if I owe you an email I apologize. I swear I’ll get it together tomorrow.

I’ve mentioned before that for decades George and Esther Cohen threw an exceedingly glamorous and extremely well attended New Year’s Eve party in the Faculty Club every year. I’d come across invitations to these galas in a number of collections but it wasn’t until Mr. Cohen’s scrapbook arrived at the Woodson last summer that I found any photos of the parties themselves. These are labeled “New Year’s Eve, 1967” but I don’t know whether 1967 was coming or going. In any event, they are glorious. The party hats alone are worth the price of admission–very festive–although I must note that most of the big dogs are too dignified to wear them. Here are President Kenneth Pitzer and his wife Jean, Mildred and former President William Houston and Esther and George Cohen:

This is Chancellor Carey Croneis and his wife, Grace:

Mathematician Hubert (’18) and Gertrude Bray:

Mrs. Cohen with Street Fulton of the Philosophy Department and his delightful wife, Edythe:
They apparently made some of the more junior faculty sing for their supper. That’s Frank Hole from Anthropology at the piano and Clark Read from Biology with their wives:

Bonus: The Rice Owls are about to kick off in Memphis. Good luck, boys! Remember where you came from.

Regular readers have listened to me whine about undated photographs for several years now. (I never tire of it!) Recently, though, in the course of a single day I came across two images that were not only dated but on which the exact time was written. Both seem to have been inspired by a sense of occasion. This one was taken at 1o a.m. on Thursday, October 10, 1912, the first day of Rice’s Formal Opening:

This next one was taken immediately after the dedication of Sewall Hall on September 25, 1971. The photographer noted that it was “just after 11:00.”

Bonus:

December 5, 2013, 3:59:59.

Some pretty girls from the 1946 Campanile, also featuring my favorite defunct drinking fountain:

It’s exciting to me, at any rate. See it?

The first thing I do with any image from this era that I haven’t seen before is to look for a train. I can’t tell you how much I wish someone had just gone back there and taken some pictures of them unloading one. It would have saved me a lot of trouble.

Bonus:

One day last week I was looking through President Lovett’s personal papers and I was caught off guard by this newspaper article about the launching of a ship named after a Rice graduate who had been killed in combat and awarded the Navy Cross. I’d never heard of nor seen any mention of this anywhere:

You can see that the upper left corner of the paper is folded over. When I carefully turned it back I found that it was dated December 25, 1943.

I can’t think what to say.

Here is Lieutenant La Prade’s Navy Cross citation:

The President of the United States takes pride in presenting the Navy Cross (Posthumously) to Robert M. LaPrade (0-9775), Second Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps (Reserve), for extraordinary heroism and distinguished service while serving with the SECOND Marine Division during action against enemy Japanese forces on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, on 20 January 1943. Operating behind the enemy lines, Lieutenant LaPrade, in command of a combat patrol which wiped out one enemy machine gun position, was critically wounded twice and his second in command incapacitated by enemy machine-gun fire. Despite his insistence that they leave him behind, First Lieutenant LaPrade was carried back to our lines where, with unfaltering disregard for his own ebbing strength, he continued to give orders concerning directions and formations until he lost consciousness. His indomitable fighting spirit and inspiring devotion to the accomplishment of an important mission were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave up his life in the service of his country.

Here’s the ship that was named for him:

And here he is himself as a member of the Rice Institute Hall Committee in 1942, less than a year before his death in the Pacific Theatre:

I’m taking a couple of days off to celebrate Christmas with my family. I’ll be back probably on Thursday and in the meantime I hope you all have a wonderful holiday. Thanks very much to all of you for taking the time to read and comment here.