Rice History Corner

I found this undated photo in a folder called “Students–recreation” but it looks more like a forced march than anything you could really call recreation:

I have a couple of observations. First, those gym outfits! Wow. Next, where is this? I think it has to be in front of the gym, which to my recollection is the only place on campus that cars could be parked below the level they’re standing on. And finally I may be completely off base but might the master of ceremonies here be a young Jimmy Disch from the Kinesiology Department? Whoever he is, he has great legs.

Bonus: This is from a non-Rice related collection but I’m hoping someone (calling Marty Merritt!) can date the car for me. Thanks in advance!

These two images were among those in the box of little glass plate negatives that Tommy Lavergne gave the Woodson back in 2011. You’ll be able to tell at a glance that they are extremely early–there’s nothing whatsoever in the background. I never used them before today because I couldn’t understand them. If I looked long enough I would actually get dizzy.

The reason for this, I now know, is that I had the images reversed. It only took nine years for me to figure this out. In any event, this is how they’re supposed to go:

Bonus: They’re standing pretty close to where the letter B is on this 1927 drawing.

I’m off to find out whether my next grandchild will be a boy or a girl so I’m a bit rushed. (I don’t care, by the way.)

But this is just delicious. Rice off to the upper left.

What do you think? Circa 1960?

Bonus:

I’ve been looking around in the Early Rice Institute papers this week and, as always, it’s proven to be a cornucopia of weirdness. It’s a deeply confusing collection, both tedious and   haphazard, a jumbled mountain of litigation records, business documents, and correspondence that lay bare the legal and financial underpinnings of Rice and its endowment. When you see a file in there labeled “Miscellaneous” you should pay attention because it’s all more or less miscellaneous. In this context the actual meaning of “miscellaneous” is “I give up.”

I was not disappointed. Here’s a small sample, three items chosen not quite at random. The first is a catalog from an elevator manufacturer:

Next, rather odder, a recipe for fixing a leaky roof. I don’t know what half this stuff is:

And finally, the prize of the bunch, some disturbing doodles made on the back of the cover sheet of a contract for the purchase of 369 acres in Falls County, Texas (which contract is not in the folder):

I could have lived without that.

Note: I’m going to be spending the next four days at an undisclosed exotic location. No internet. See y’all Monday.

Bonus: I didn’t need to see this either.

This is an interesting little map. It came from a 1949 student handbook and it shows several things I wasn’t familiar with, including the infirmary, the numbered stadium gates, and which walkways were paved:

The red handwriting delineate where election signs were allowed. I don’t think this is a thing anymore, or at least I can’t recall seeing campaign signs stuck in the ground, but it was a very big deal back in the day. Here are some pictures from the 1958 election, the first following the advent of the college system, from the collection donated by David Davidson ’58. The transition from class elections to college elections hadn’t really been made yet and would prove to be a bit bumpy but this gives you a good look at how prolific the sign makers were. It’s interesting to note that in 1958 the main site was near Fondren, presumable the center of the most foot traffic:

Bonus: Before Fondren was built all the foot traffic was in and around the sallyport. This is from the 1946 election.

I walked in this morning and was immediately presented with a box of really pretty good pictures taken by a Rice student for a photography class in 2010. (It seems impossible but that’s already ten years ago!) She sent them through the U.S. mail along with this note:

First, I love being addressed as “Dear Rice.” Second, I include this partly because it’s charming but also partly because I want to commend Isabella Gonzalez (who I think is class of 2011) and urge you all to follow her example. If you have stuff you think we might enjoy looking at, send it in.

Just think how much poorer we’d be without this kind of thing:

Bonus: Beer, 1960.

I have no idea how I failed to notice this before. It’s epic:

Every month is its own small miracle but September is my favorite:

2013 was the only one in the folder but I fervently hope this is till a thing.

Yesterday’s post on the 1956 freshman class picnic brought this fantastic photograph from Bill Visinsky ’79. It was taken at the place the picnic was held, the H&H ranch, but I know neither the date nor the occasion. Please chime in if you do. And this wonderful image is worth a few minutes of your study:

Next, I mentioned yesterday how happy I was that both the letter and the list turned out to be in the same place. It doesn’t always happen that way. A perfect example of this is something that has bothered me for years. I would guess, by the way, that it’s of exactly zero importance but there’s something a little delicious about things like this.

Here we have a photo of the front of the Administration Building taken in the summer of 1916:

There are a lot of images that are more or less identical but this one is a bit different. There’s a note on the back:

I’ve checked everywhere I can think of and re-checked at intervals over the years and I’ve never found a single trace of that letter. What I can tell you is that Dr. Shine’s papers are at Texas Tech and in Box 35, Folder 12 there’s correspondence with W.M. Craig. Next time I’m in Lubbock I won’t be able to resist a look but I don’t know if I’d be happy or sad to find the letter.

Bonus: Ever wonder what it’s like in the basement of Lovett Hall?

The Woodson has a pretty thorough collection of commencement materials and over time the individual folders have become a sort of catch-all for all kinds of things relating to each class. Tucked in the back of a file I found this letter from Roy Lively ’60, who describes an intriguing freshman class party activity. (Interestingly, I can’t tell who this was sent to. My best guess is Mary Bixby, who was the director of Friends of Fondren at the time, but I really don’t know.)

I had to dig around a bit but the list was there too. (Things don’t always go this smoothly, by the way. Maybe I’ll post an example tomorrow . . .) Anyway, here are the first couple of pages. The comments are charming. I’m especially fond of “indifferent.”

Bonus: This is the front page of the first issue of the 1957 Thresher. The 1956 issue lacks the neat map that shows  how to get to the H&H Ranch for the picnic.

Last week we received a delightful surprise, the 1920s-era diary of Louie Lee Berry ’25, which was donated by her grandson, Patrick Clegg. We’re extremely grateful to him and his family and also to Rachel Dvoretzky, who had the good sense to send him my way.

I guess it doesn’t look like much from the outside:

Inside, though, this little journal is almost impossibly rich. Each page recounts in vivid detail exactly what it says on the cover–her dates! She went on a lot of them, with a lot of different boys and to a wide variety of places and events–movies, theaters, picnics, club meetings, dinners, beach trips, just riding in cars, and lots and lots of church. (This, I suppose, is what you do when you don’t have television.) I was only a little surprised that I recognized so many of the young men she spent time with, most of whom were also Rice students.

Here’s a small sample of the kind of thing she has to say, taken from a single week during the summer of 1924 when she was seeing a lot of a fellow named Ewing Werlein (who I take to be the future father of U.S. District Court judge Ewing Werlein, Jr.):

It goes on like this for about three years. It’s probably just a coincidence that her engagement and marriage to Melville Miller are recorded just as she runs out of space in the book:

Bonus: I haven’t read all of it yet but I’ve read enough to know that I like her. Which makes things much easier.