Rice History Corner

There are a lot of very dignified Christmas cards in our collections. And then there are the ones that came from the Athletics Department.

Bonus: Metropolitan Museum of Art Christmas tree.

The Institute for Computer Services and Applications issued a warning in its December 1973 newsletter: “Turnaround Slow This Time of Year.” My attention was particularly drawn to the the ominous sounding bit about the Night Owls Time Sharing Service on page 2.

This is my way of telling you that posting may be more erratic than usual for a while.

I almost left out the last page on the grounds that it was boring but then realized that it isn’t, at least if you were a social scientist back in the day:

Bonus: Back room of the Woodson, Christmas 2013.

Over the years, one of the mainstays of Continuing Education at Rice has been photography courses. In particular, serious students return repeatedly to the classes offered by Peter Brown. Last week marked the conclusion of the last such class to be given in the old building, one of the two “temporary” structures built for the Institute of the Arts in 1969. I searched high and low for an old image of these metal building but came up with nothing except this December, 1968 article that details the Menil’s new involvement with Rice. I don’t know how closely the little model pictured here resembles what was actually built, but I do know that it doesn’t look like that now.

In any event, the last class inspired Robert Flatt, one of the regulars, to compose–and, I believe, perform as a rap–a stirring tribute to the decrepit old building on the eve of the move into the new one. I very much regret that I didn’t witness this myself.

An Ode to the Old Metal Building

Our last class in the old metal building                                                                                    Brings tears to our eyes amidst our celebrating                                                                                    It began its life in 1969                                                                                                           Patroned by the de Menils                                                                                                             Using Howard Barnstone for architecting                                                                                     One of two metal buildings referred to affectionately                                                                   As “Barn” and the “Son of Barn” respectively

(Chorus) I am Blue you would be too                                                                                              If you had the Closing Down Blues

Its first featured exhibit was a real success                                                                                     An Andy Warhol show about an installation in progress                                                            It featured a tree ready for planting                                                                                                 That is alive today just outside the building                                                                                      It was home to some owls just a few months past                                                                           No one thought the building would last

(Chorus)

In 1987 it came to acquire                                                                                                               The attentions of Mary McIntire                                                                                                And became the home of continuing education                                                                            And of course the wonderful course,                                                                                         Taught to our class with Peter’s dedication

(Chorus)

The temperature was never exactly right                                                                                        And it took a long time                                                                                                                          To get the tables just right                                                                                                               But it’s been a good home                                                                                                                       For our photography critiques                                                                                                    Getting better & better with each passing year                                                                             The passion to improve is really sincere

(Chorus)

It’s just part of the law of entropy                                                                                        Everything must decay and die someday                                                                                       Even the Astrodome cannot escape destruction                                                                        Please say goodbye to this wonderful old building                                                               With it squeaks and groans and temporary construction                                                          We will miss you some but not a lot                                                                                                 As we enter the new building across the parking lot.

Bonus:

Update: This analysis of yesterday’s Lovett Hall renovation post came in my email. I think it’s about right.

If my recollection is correct, the registrar, cashier, etc., were all located on the second floor of Lovett Hall where the Founder’s Room is now. I think it is true that the Founder’s Room space was also divided vertically into 2 floors of such offices.
Those offices were moved into Allen Center when it opened, and Lovett Hall was remodelled thereafter. Portions of Doug Killgore’s movie “Grigsby, G.” were filmed in what became the Founder’s Room after it had been returned to a single room and was covered with whitewashed wall board  (and not yet finished into what was called by many the “New Orleans brothel” style it sported until the Glanvilles paid for it to be remodelled to today’s appearance sometime before the Economic Summit). Doug’s movie was made, if I recall correcty, during the spring of 1970, and so that is probably a good guess for the date of the photos on today’s blog.  

I found these pictures on a random contact sheet. (I shudder to think about how many of these are still unexamined. It’s impossible to even guess.) When I first squinted at the little images I thought they showed the early stages of the construction of Sewall Hall, but after I scanned them and blew them up I realized that it was something else  altogether.

I really don’t now what this is at all. They’re undated but Sewall isn’t there so I’m guessing late 1960s. All I can think of is that it might be a renovation of the Founders Room, but that’s really just a guess. Anybody?

Bonus: Woodson Christmas Party today. Sorry if you had to wait.

I was more surprised by a newspaper story I recently found in a box of old clippings than anything else I’ve run across in quite some time. The gist of it is this: “The war is hitting close to home to industrious co-eds at Rice Institute, who are giving freely of their time to help the all-out effort. Bridge parties and ‘bull sessions’ have been replaced by extra-curricular training courses and volunteer work, and the girls are preparing themselves for the full time job of winning the war.”

They weren’t kidding around, either. The first image is of someone I knew: Catherine Coburn ’43(later Catherine Hannah, she served on the Rice Board and was a member of the search committee that brought George Rupp to Rice), hard at work learning mechanical drawing:

This next one, though, is just astonishing. Delores Frey and Charlie Trammel, both Rice sophomores, were learning to fly in order to perform Civil Air Patrol duties:

I’ve seen lots of stories about Rice co-eds doing Red Cross work during the war but I’ve never seen anything like this before.

Bonus: Speaking of strong women, it was about 38 degrees when this lovely but sleeveless bride was having her picture taken outside Lovett Hall. She claimed she wasn’t cold so it must truly be love.

I found this in Julian Huxley’s papers. I think it’s a joke.

I mean, he might plausibly have needed an alligator but I can’t see why Berings would stock them.

Huxley was both a writer and a collector of amusing doggerel, by the way, and there’s a great deal of it squirreled away in these papers. The best bit is an obscene attempt to finish Aldous Huxley’s famously unfinished limerick: “There was a young man of East Anglia, whose loins were a tangle of ganglia.” I’m not going to reproduce it here but if you stop me on campus, I might be persuaded to tell you the rest.

I attended a pretty fancy event last evening–the unveiling of the portrait of Rice’s immediate past Chairman of the Board, Jim Crownover (’65). Jim is a good guy and has served Rice very well so it was nice to see such a beautiful painting. Apologies for the fuzzy cell phone picture:

It will, I believe, eventually be on display with the rest of the rogue’s gallery in Allen Center, where you’ll be able to get a better look at it:

Interestingly enough, I have quite a few images of Jim as a Rice undergraduate. A complete search turned up a non-embarrassing one, a team picture of the Pathetics, who, contrary to what you might expect were not pathetic at all. I do note, though, that young Mr. Crownover is clearly out of compliance, wardrobe-wise.

We have, incidentally, a full collection of intramural results, complete with photos, which came out of the gym before it was renovated. This collection has been a source of serious amusement for me.

I understand that in all likelihood I’m the only person who remembers this, yet I’m still going to exult in it.

I wrote a post some time ago that began with this image:

Here’s what I had to say about it before I veered off in a completely different direction:

It’s a very old picture–printed from a glass plate negative–of Rice biologists Julian Huxley, Hermann Muller and Edgar Altenburg. It’s labeled on the back, “Biology faculty, Woods Hole, Summer 1917.” It’s a great picture but I was immediately skeptical about the date. 1917 is surely too late for these three to be there, as Huxley would have already returned to England. So I began trying to figure out when this could have been taken. I think it must have been the summer of 1916.

So we’ve had a young woman from Oxford in the Woodson this week and she’s working with the Julian Huxley collection, which means that I’ve also been poking around in those boxes. Just now I came across an envelope labeled—(wait for it)—“Woods Hole, Summer 1916.” Yes, Melissa. You were so right!

There were about two dozen photos of the town and the facilities and here are a couple, just for your enjoyment:

Huxley deemed only two images in this stack important enough to label more specifically. The first is this one, which he identifies as the famous Albatross, the ship that carried biologist Louis Aggasiz on several important research expeditions:

The second, which I find deeply endearing, is this–“Mrs. Snow’s Shop”–where I suppose Julian Huxley bought his dry goods while in town:

Bonus: Credit where credit is due. The Italian cypress trees on the quad look to be in really good shape these days, both green and upright.

This note showed up in my email box the other night, sent by loyal reader Charlie Szalkowski:

I was at a dinner event this evening when I learned that a longtime friend was related to your post yesterday. Lee Kaplan, who is a former Baker Botts partner and close friend of Alan Shelby (Rice baseball guru), mentioned that his father had won a national championship for Rice.  (We had been talking about Saturday’s game).  This championship was in marksmanship. Immediately I thought of your Dec 5th post and sure enough, Lee is the son of Charles Kaplan mentioned in the news article in your posting. 

Happily, there were a couple of pictures attached. Here’s the 1945 championship certificate:

And this is the letter to Kaplan’s parents, informing them of the award:

Another reader, the estimable Alan Shelby, chimed in with some background about Charles Kaplan:

A third-generation Houstonian, Charles Kaplan graduated from Rice in 1947,
majoring in math and physics.  He served in the Marine Corps during WW II
and the Korean War.  He passed away on September 5, 2011.  
Charles and his wife Celine (who is still alive) are the proud parents of 4
children: Lee, David, Nanette and Jay.  The only one with a degree from Rice
is Jay who earned a Jones MBA in 1980.

Mr. Kaplan’s obituary is here and I urge you to go take a look at it. He sounds like a fine man and he had just a fabulous, mischievous smile. Here’s the same charming smile on display in the 1947 Campanile:

Thanks so much to my great readers for this. I am no longer surprised by what you guys come up with.

Just as a reminder, here’s what Rice looked like from the air in 1946:

Here’s another great shot from 1946, showing how near the edge of town we were even at this relatively late date:

Rummaging through the oversize box, I also found this aerial, which was taken ten years later:

The transformation of the western part of campus was so sudden and so thorough it’s almost shocking. Understandably, we don’t have very many images of the wildness that lasted so long out there and then just vanished. I do have a few, though, which were graciously shared with us by the Garcia family, all taken on campus between 1946 and 1948. It’s a profoundly different world.

Bonus: The Parkings Gods Giveth and the Parking Gods Taketh Away.