Anthony Wright de Hernandez

January 20, 2023 Anthony Wright de Hernandez Physics, Science and Engineering, University History

Virginia Tech Atomic Energy Laboratories

A white man working on a nuclear reactor.

Two white men at a nuclear reactor control panel.

A white man sitting at a computer terminal next to a nuclear reactor, circa 1970s.

Closeup of a nuclear reactor control panel.

Two white men at the controls of the Argonaut nuclear reactor, circa 1970s.

In July of 1956, Virginia Tech became the first university in the United States to install a Nuclear Reactor Simulator. The simulator was installed as part of an atomic energy laboratory in Davidson Hall which was home to the Department of Physics at that time.

The TECHGRAM Vol. XXXIII, No. 7 JANUARY 1, 1956 Tech First University To Get Nuclear Reactor Simulator Device Along With Accelerator Being Built By Staff Will Make One Of Best Instructional Atomic Labs In Country Virginia Tech is the first college or university in the country to have a nuclear reactor simulator. An order has been placed, John W. Whittemore, dean of engineering and architecture, announced Dec. 14. The reactor simulator that will be installed here is similar to the one which the United States exhibited at the Geneva Conference. Leeds and Northrup Co. of Philadelphia has been contracted to build the installation. That company has advised officials here that Virginia Tech will be the first college or university in the country to have such a facility. Delivery is scheduled for spring. It will be placed into immediate operation, Dr. Thomas M. Hahn, Jr., head of the physics department, explained. This simulator with the nuclear accelerator and other equipment that is presently available from outside sources will make the atomic energy laboratory at Virginia Tech one of the most complete of any college in the country, Dean Whittemore pointed out. It will be possible through this equipment and staff at Virginia Tech not only to give the best training for personnel in this field, but also to do many kinds of research for all industries interested in the use of atomic energy. Many of the staff members of the science and engineering departments have had training and experience at atomic energy installations and have made significant contributions in this field. The nuclear reactor simulator is the answer to the question of how nuclear reactor theory and operation can be taught when costly reactors are not readily available. The device consists of a regular reactor control console, a model reactor, and an electronic analog computer. The electronic computer causes the model reactor to respond just as would an actual thermal nuclear reactor, and by suit- able adjustments an operator can obtain experience necessary for operating the various types of nuclear reactors. Despite its tremendous value as an educational installation, the reactor simulator is priced at a fraction of the cost of a reactor, and does not require the special building and large operating budget necessary for a nuclear reactor. The new graduate degree in nuclear engineering physics is in response to suggestions from industry and was set up after much study. Virginia Tech for several years has been offering course work in the nuclear field, and quite extensive research programs have been administered by the Virginia Engineering Experiment Station of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Virginia industries are contributing heavily to the program, and college officials hope that payment for the reac- tor simulator can also be made without the use of state funds. Dean Whittemore reports that the new program, which is dedicated to the specific end of training and research in the nuclear field, is a joint engineering and physics effort. The program is under the direction of Dr. Hahn and will utilize the combined equipment and staff resources of several engineering and science departments. Graduates in either engineering or science are eligible for study toward the new graduate degree. Dr. Hahn states that the plans for the program are in line with the general Atomic Energy Commission policy of encouraging university training of nuclear scientists. Plans are underway for Virginia Tech to be host to a two-day Oak Ridge Regional Symposium to be held during the coming summer in cooperation with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies. Virginia Tech will also offer at that time a two-week short course, featuring lecturers from industry prominent in the atomic energy field. To start up the reactor simulator, Dr. Hahn explained, a trainee operates the same sort of controls as he would if he were at an atomic energy installation. As the rods of the reactor begin rising in the scale-model of the core, recording instruments draw continuous records of the reactor operating conditions. When the reactor-model reaches the critical operating range, this is recorded on the simulator. Then the trainee carries the reactor up to the desired level. As the pile rods rise still higher, the indicating instruments keep the trainee posted on operating conditions. Once the reactor-model is up to the desired power level, servomechanical controls take over. If the trainee fails to judge correctly the various factors and reactor operation threatens to go beyond safe limits, the recording instruments automatically drop the rods. Or, if the student realizes that reactor operation is threatening to get out of hand, he can hit an emergency button on the console with the same results. Also to be used for training in the new nuclear engineering physics program, as well as basic nuclear research, is the two million volt nuclear accelerator now nearing completion at Virginia Tech. This accelerator, although it will be valued at approximately $100,000, has cost the State of Virginia nothing. Funds and materials have been contributed through the Virginia Tech Educational Foundation and Virginia Engineering Experiment Station by Virginia industries interested in the nuclear program. The accelerator is being built by staff members and graduate students working under the supervision of Dr. Hahn, and Dr. Andrew Robeson '50, associate professor of physics. Graduate students working on the machine include John Rogers, of Front Royal, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy who is doing a master's thesis on features of the machine; David Oliver, of Washington, a graduate of VPI, and George Bell, of Berea, Ky., a graduate of Berea College. The Virginia Tech nuclear accelerator, or atom-smasher, will be used to bombard various materials of interest in the atomic energy field. An editorial commending Virginia Tech on its progressive action appeared in the Dec. 15 "Roanoke Times." — Tech First University to Get Nuclear Reactor Simulator. January 1, 1956, *The Techgram*, Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech.

Virginia Tech is first college to own nuclear reactor simulator. July 30, 1956. WSLS-TV News Film Collection, 1951-1971. Special Collections, University of Virginia. https://search.lib.virginia.edu/sources/uva_library/items/uva-lib:2267277

The laboratory also included a two-million-volt nuclear accelerator “built by staff members and graduate students,” and the “first university-owned graphite-moderated exponential reactor”, a sub-critical reactor made possible after the Atomic Energy Commission (now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) approved Virginia Tech to receive “a neutron source and 2,500 pounds of natural uranium metal”.

THE TECHGRAM Vol. XXXIII, No. 19 JULY 1, 1956 Tech Gets Uranium For Reactor A neutron source and 2,500 pounds of natural uranium metal, to be used in connection with expanding instruction in nuclear engineering, have been approved for Virginia Tech, the Atomic Energy Commission announced in Washington June 21. The uranium will be used by Virginia Tech in the construction of the first university-owned graphite-moderated exponential reactor. Commenting on the AEC's action, Dr. T. M. Hahn, Jr., head of the physics department, said, "When completed, the new exponential reactor, along with the 2,000,000-volt nuclear accelerator, nuclear reactor simulator, and associated nuclear equipment, will give Virginia Tech nuclear facilities valued at nearly a half million dollars." He pointed out that all of these facilities have been acquired at a very little cost to Virginia taxpayers. Dr. Hahn predicted that the new sub-critical reactor made possible by the AEC will be completed and in operation by the end of the summer and will "provide an invaluable training and research facility for Virginia Tech's graduate nuclear engineering physics program." This early completion date is possible because college technicians have been at work for two months machining the 32,000 pounds of reactor graphite to be used in this new facility. The exponential pile will therefore be nearing completion and will be a tour feature when Virginia Tech is host to the Eighth Oak Ridge Regional Symposium on Atomic Energy and Science in its first Virginia appearance July 30-31. As a result of the AEC loan, Virginia Tech has acquired the new nuclear facility at minimum cost to the state. The new sub-critical reactor that will be constructed requires no unusual safety controls, expensive shielding or heat removal equipment, and can be maintained on a negligible operational budget as compared to that required for a critical reactor. "Yet such a sub-critical assembly," says Dr. Hahn, "provides a valuable laboratory training device." The sub-critical assembly consists of an arrangement of uranium rods in a graphite moderator. When a neutron source is introduced, a high neutron flux is obtained from nuclear fissions in the arrangement but the reaction can not be sustained without the presence of the main neutron source. The AEC announcement said, "Under a recent amendment to the Commission's assistance policy, neutron sources composed of plutonium and beryllium are now available for licensing to the users of sub-critical assemblies. This type of source is considered superior in many ways to those previously available." Concluded the AEC, "The Commission for some time has been supplying certain materials for these assemblies without a use charge being made, subject to the availability of the materials and to a determination that such loans will result in a net advantage to the Commission's program to assist in alleviating the current shortage of nuclear scientists and engineers." According to Dr. Hahn, plans are already afoot to use the nuclear accelerator, constructed by graduate students and faculty members, as a neutron source for the new exponential reactor, thus making possible more extensive fundamental and unusual reactor research. All of the nuclear facilities at Tech will have a prominent place in the Oak Ridge Symposium July 30-31 and the Short Course in Nuclear Engineering Physics to be given at Virginia Tech August 1-10. Sponsored by Virginia Tech, in cooperation with the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Atomic Energy Commission, the symposium will feature a traveling exhibit from the American Museum of Atomic Energy, a General Electric film "A Is for Atom," and a variety of symposia on nuclear topics. The short course, first and most extensive of its kind in Virginia, will have leaders from major nuclear industries as lecturers in addition to members of the faculty. — Tech Gets Uranium For Reactor. July 1, 1956. *The Techgram*. Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech.

Dr. T. Marshall Hahn, Jr. as Head of the Physics Department, circa 1950s.

According to The Techgram following their interview with Dr. T. Marshall Hahn, Jr., the sub-critical reactor was scheduled to come online in July (only six months after the approval) “because college technicians have been at work for two months machining the 32,000 pounds of reactor graphite to be used in this new facility. The exponential pile will therefore be nearing completion and will be a tour feature when Virginia Tech is host to the Eighth Oak Ridge Regional Symposium on Atomic Energy and Science in its first Virginia appearance July 30-31.”

The symposium hosted by Virginia Tech with support from the Oak Ridge Institute for Nuclear Studies (now the Oak Ridge Associated Universities – Virginia Tech has been a sponsoring institution since 1946) marked the opening of the lab. It included a short course in nuclear engineering physics, a traveling exhibit from the American Museum of Atomic Energy (now the American Museum of Science & Energy), a film from General Electric “A is for Atom”, and various symposia on nuclear topics.

General Electric film “A is for Atom” from the Nuclear Vault YouTube channel.

Two years after the opening of the lab, in 1958, Virginia Tech was awarded a grant from the Atomic Energy Commission that allowed the institution to purchase a 10-kilowatt Argonaut (Argonne Nuclear Assembly for University Training) reactor, a class of small nuclear research reactors based on the one developed at the Argonne National Laboratory. Unlike the sub-critical reactor that was already in operation, the Argonaut was a critical reactor meaning that the nuclear chain reaction would be self-sustaining. Virginia Tech was set to be the first university in the United States to install this new type of research reactor (according to Wikipedia, it’s possible the University of Florida beat Virginia Tech into operation by about six months).

The TECHGRAM Vol. XXXV, No. 19 July 1, 1958 Tech Gets $114,098 In Grant From AEC The Atomic Energy Commission announced June 7 that it has granted VPI an additional $114,098 in support of continued expansion and strengthening of its program in nuclear engineering. The new grant brought to a total of $350,000 the funds awarded Tech by the AEC and the maximum amount available to any academic institution from the commission. According to Dr. Thomas M. Hahn, Jr., head of Tech's department of physics, VPI is one of the first institutions in the country to receive the $350,000 limit. In addition to these funds, the AEC has made available to VPI 2,500 pounds of uranium and other special nuclear materials and equipment. The new grant will be used for the pur- chase of a 10-kilowatt Argonaut reactor which was recently developed by the AEC specifical- ly for college and university use. VPI will be the first institution in the country to install the new reactor. The Argonaut critical reactor will supplement the outstanding facilities already available for graduate nuclear engineering education here. These facilities, which have been attracting graduate students from all over the country, include a nuclear reactor simulator; two exponential reactors; a sigma pile; two accelerators; and well equipped counting, radio-chemistry, nuclear metallurgy, heat transmission, and nuclear engineering technology laboratories. Construction of a new physics building is scheduled to begin at Tech within the next few months. The U. S. Naval Development Center plans to send several of their nuclear staff members to VPI this summer for special experimental training in reactor engineering under a special contract. — Tech Gets $114,098 In Grant From AEC. July 1, 1958. *The Techgram*. Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech.

This new reactor was installed in the New Physics Building (now Robeson Hall) which was about to begin construction. It first achieved criticality in mid-December 1959 and was officially placed into operation on January 6, 1960. The occasion was marked by a dedication ceremony featuring an address by Lieutenant Governor A.E.S. Stephens. Eventually, the reactor’s operating capacity was increased from 10-kilowatts to 100-kilowatts.

Black and white illustration of a large piece of machinery with cutouts to show interior sections. A label at the bottom reads "Figure 3-1. Reactor Assembly" — Illustration of the nuclear reactor assembly from Andrew Robeson’s “Report on Utilization of Nuclear Materials on Loan from U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.” December 1962. Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech.

Black and white photo of a white man in a dark suit kneeling next to an assembly of metal tubes, wires, and concrete blocks. — Cockcroft-Walton accelerator set up for use in polarized neutron experiments. The man is not named but is likely John T. Rogers, Ph.D. student. From Andrew Robeson’s “Report on Utilization of Nuclear Materials on Loan from U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.” December 1962. Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech.

The atomic energy laboratories were expanded again in 1968 with the addition of a van de graaff accelerator. Four years later, on November 12, 1971, there was a “Nuclear Event” and Robeson Hall was evacuated. Our collections include a document called the “Appendix to Report of the Nuclear Event of November 12, 1971”. Despite searching extensively, I have not been able to locate the actual report to which this is an appendix. The document we have includes 161 pages of transcribed interviews with people involved in the event. The document has not been digitized but I’ve scanned the first few pages which include a description of the event by Ronald J. Onega. The full report is available in Special Collections and University Archives (https://catalog.lib.vt.edu/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=603347).

The scram was at 3:05, … Bill attempted to bring the sample up and all the alarms went off. … This was in Room 106 where the experiment was being carried on and the reactor console is in Room 108, so I ran over there to find out if it was serious, if it was real or to see what the situation was. The alarm went on to begin with, as well as I recall, and then it went off and then it came back on. … It was suggested that the sample be knocked loose. We could see that the sample didn’t return, so I think that Keith suggested that we try to dislodge the sample, which was the reasonable suggestion, it seemed to me at that particular time, to dislodge the sample by firing another one in. We did that and whenever we brought the sample back, it was radioactive. It was very hot and so when we discerned this I think Bob Stone went out to get a lead container to put the hot radioactive sample in, and we fired it in again as I recall. We fired this sample in twice in order to try to dislodge this and bring it back, and neither time did the original sample come back. The sample was then – the container to dislodge the original one was then taken out of the rabbit, put into the lead container, as well as the end cap for the rabbit. Bill Raymond went and got another lead container in case we could get the original sample back, and he also got another end cap for the rabbit which I think he got from Room 17 from Furr’s lab. We tried several times to bring the sample back but none of it was successful. Well, after we saw we weren’t going to get it loose, Bob Stone, Sy Meyers, Bill Raymond and myself took some survey meters and we were trying to find out exactly where this sample was hung up. The sample was hung up right at the edge of the reactor shield itself. It was in the rabbit tubing, right at the edge of the shield and whenever we discerned exactly where it was, we got a screwdriver and disconnected the tubing there, taped the end shut and also disconnected the tubing, the other end of this aluminum tube that the sample was in, and taped that end shut. I handed the tube to Bob Stone who was standing on the top of the hot cell and he lowered the tube, with the sample in the tube, down into the hot cell where it still remains. Both ends of the remaining tubing were also sealed shut. … I guess I neglected to say that sometime previous to this, the building had been evacuated. I don’t remember exactly what that time was. I estimate, Bill and I estimated, that the whole incident required, perhaps from the time the sample, from the time the building alarm went off, originally, until the sample was secured in the hot cell may have been around twenty (20) minutes. But that is as good as we can estimate. During this time I also had a pocket dosimeter on, and during the whole business I got 51 millirem of radiation. After the sample was secured, then we tried to discern exactly what the situation was and we saw that we did have a contamination problem. Furr’s lab was used to discern exactly whether fission fragments were scattered around or not, and it was discerned that they were.
“Appendix to Report of the Nuclear Event of November 12, 1971” 1971. Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech.

JACOBS: Dr. Onega, will you give us your account of what happened both before and after the incident which occurred approximately 3:00 p.m. on Friday afternoon. ONEGA: Bill and I (Bill Raymond and I) were in Room 106 and the reason we were trying to do the experiment was because we were trying to measure the energy groups of the delayed neutron of 235U. That's what we were trying to do. We were trying to, previous to this, do some calibration and we had ordered some oxygen 18 and it was not really what we had ordered that came from Oak Ridge, only 8% enriched and so we were getting null results, To determine whether to order more oxygen 18, which is fairly expensive, we decided that we'd make sure that we would have enough neutrons up there in Room 106 to begin with to do the experiment before we ran into any more expense. We had previously made an estimate of the amount that we should see, however. But in any case, we were getting ready to do this and Bill Raymond said that he would have things pretty much ready whenever I got over there at 1:30 in the afternoon. Well, whenever I got over there he was going through the reactor start-up and I think he had asked Keith Furr to sign the reactor start-up form, and then I see that he did (the form was shown to me at the Radiation Safety Committee Meeting). So, he was going through the check up already and was starting up. For some reason or other the reactor, I think, scrammed down to begin with. And so, I was preparing the sample. Bill and I had talked a little bit about this beforehand so I put in approximately a gram. I think it's actually somewhat less than a gram of 235U. It's 93% enriched in 235U. We talked — Appendix to Report of the Nuclear Event of November 12, 1971, Page 1

about how long we should irradiate it for and we - what was going through my mind was to maximize the experimental situation, and since we were trying to measure the energy groups of these delayed neutrons and the longest lived group has a half life of about 55 seconds, we wanted to irradiate, to maximize or to optimize the count rates, so that meant saturating that longest group which would lead me into about a three minute irradiation time. That's how that came about. So, Bill then filled out this form, the activation data form. He was wanting that filled out, so since he had just gotten a license, I assumed that he was familiar with all the details of these things. He asked me if I would sign the paper and I thought that I was actually requesting the form, but you can see from this activation data form that I really signed the senior operator - place where the senior operator authorized him to run, is to sign. But that was unknown to me and the reason it was is because at that particular time Farouk Eltawila was in Room 106 and we were talking about a problem that had come up in one of our courses, and so Bill set this form in front of me and I signed it really without looking very closely at what I was signing. And that was the reason I signed the - I thought I was requesting the irradiation rather than doing the authorizing of the irradiation. In any case, we put the sample in for 3 minutes and tried to pull the sample out. This occurred at approximately 3:15, but we determined - but I think the activation - the log actually says - someone mentioned later to me it was 3:05, if I'm not mistaken. The scram was at 3:05, so it was actually then 3:02 when we put the sample in because it was in there for precisely three (3) minutes. After the three minutes — Appendix to Report of the Nuclear Event of November 12, 1971, Page 1

Other than that incident, the atomic energy laboratories seem to have operated smoothly under both the Physics and Mechanical Engineering departments. The Virginia Tech Argonaut Reactor (VTAR) was remodeled in 1983 with new control panels. Three years later, in 1986, it was decommissioned. It was removed from Robeson Hall in 1989.

Students working on the Virginia Tech Argonaut Reactor being observed by an instructor, circa 1950s.

September 16, 2022 Anthony Wright de Hernandez Faculty, Just for Fun, University History

Inspiration, Comedy, and Drama in the Department of Geology

About a month ago, I had a chance to look through the Byron Nelson Cooper Papers (Ms1973-004) for the first time. I don’t routinely transfer collections of faculty papers from storage just for my own entertainment, but I’ve been exploring collections weekly as part of a live Twitch broadcast, Archival Adventures, for nearly two years (the full playlist of past episodes is on YouTube and the live show airs Wednesdays on twitch.tv/VTULStudios).

I try to include materials from all of our collecting areas on the show and I thought a geology professor’s papers might contain some interesting things. While the collection did have some interesting geology-focused items (including an envelope of actual rock samples), the standout for me was Cooper’s writing. His speeches, lectures, and creative writing feature a strong narrative voice filled with personality and humor.

Note: There’s also a lot of misogyny and possibly some racism (I honestly haven’t had time to fully read Whisky for the Cat, included later in this post, but some skimming of it made me think there may be some Hispanic stereotyping happening.) Since these are historic documents, it’s not surprising to find these types of sentiments reflected as they were quite common at the time. Knowing about these problems in advance, one can look to see what else the documents have to offer beyond the problematic biases while still recognizing that the problems exist.

First, a bit about Byron Nelson Cooper. He was born in Plainfield, Indiana on August 19, 1912. We don’t have any information about his life before college but we do know that he attended a geology field camp run by Oberlin College before graduating from DePauw University in 1934. According to the Geological Society of America’s memorial of Cooper, this was his first introduction to Virginia geology. He then went on to earn master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Iowa with both of his theses focusing on the geology of southwestern Virginia. While researching the region, he established familial ties to the area through marriage to Elizabeth Doyne of Pulaski County. After his Ph.D., Cooper was an assistant professor of geology at Wichita University for five years (1937-1942). He then served as associate geologist of the Virginia Geological Survey for four years before joining Virginia Polytechnic Institute as the head of the Department of Geological Sciences in 1946. As head, Cooper led a two-person department to become nationally recognized. He also consulted for business, industry, and local governments throughout Virginia on geological matters, particularly issues relating to water supply. He died on March 26, 1971, suffering a heart attack in his office on campus at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Untitled Speech, 1964

Reading the text of his lectures, speeches, and other writings, it’s not hard to see how his leadership inspired excellence from the Department of Geology. Cooper is an excellent writer, crafting persuasive phrases that retain the audience’s interest. In Box 6 of his papers, there is an untitled speech from mid-December of 1964. The speech is clearly meant to inspire students in the program to work toward their maximum potential. (The last page seems to be an excerpt from another speech regarding campus unrest and student solidarity which is also quite interesting.)

I don’t know what Cooper’s voice sounded like, but I can almost hear him speaking with conviction the lines he has written.

If you live for tomorrow with the objective of
making today’s dreams come true tomorrow, you
begin to pace yourself and to deny yourself small
rewards in favor of engineering bigger things. In
a matter of months one can gain a pretty accurate
assessment of his personal power and of his capacity for
work, and time enables one to not only
play the game but to keep his own side.

…

Every quarter or semester in a university is
a test of planning ahead. You learn to work,
you learn to meet deadlines, you learn to avoid the pitfalls
of goofing off. You learn how to pilot yourself to avoid
most of the bumps. Each setback only stiffens the determination
to win in the end. The daily lesson is the mind’s food, unless
you feed the mind it doesn’t grow.

…

Some silly students believe you learn in college
what you have to know + then you go out + use your
knowledge. This just is not so. You leave here with a
bullied and bruised head + many facts though they
be filed in your mind will never be recalled. You
do leave even if its by flunking out –
with an enlarged view – of the world + of yourself.

…

The great men of history have possessed a sense
of their histories being even as they lived. If
you tie your wagon to a star + work to reach the
goal you have set – you have given your life meaning
but perspective and some historicity – and in the
process if you do so I assure you that you will have
one helluva good time in the best sense of that
phrase.

Really, this entire speech is quite inspiring (if one can get past the students being constantly referred to as men). If offers some great perspective on what is important in the educational experience and acknowledges the fact that not all learning on campus comes from the details learned in the classroom. You can find a full transcription of the speech on Virginia Tech Special Collections and University Archives Online.

How to Catch a Genius, undated, likely 1957

While exploring the finding aid, two other pieces of writing caught my attention thanks to their titles. The first is How to Catch a Genius, a play in two acts with a prologue and an epilogue. It’s a comedy about a professor (Dr. Claude Sidney Magnabrayne) coming to Virginia Tech for an on-site interview and the unacknowledged and vitally important role that the women of the university community have in persuading potential professors to accept offers of employment despite the clueless behavior of their husbands (Dr. George A. Blurt being an example). Again, this piece is misogynistic in its portrayal of women. It’s also full of stereotypes including ones about politics, brainy-but-clueless academics, stressed-out over-drinkers, and many more. While the play is undated, its portrayal of women and the stereotypes seem to fit the 1950s or 1960s. The play itself gives us a clue about the date being portrayed (if not the date it was created). At the beginning of Act I, there is a bit about a phone number:

As Scene
1 opens, we find Sid leafing the pages in the local phone book for the
Covington, Kentucky Area Code. So he dials 606—-then 5-5-5--
then 1-2-1-2. (For those unfamiliar with Long Distance dialing, what
Sid is trying to do is find out his own phone number which was changed
recently—as a matter of fact about 26 months ago.)

The important part in dating the item is the parenthetical addresed to “those unfamiliar with Long Distance dialing” and the notation that Magnabrayne’s phone number changed 26 months earlier. From the context of the play, it’s clear that we’re mid-20th century. According to the North American Numbering Plan Administrator (NANPA), the numbering plan we’re familiar with today (1-digit country code, 3-digit Numbering Plan Area code, 7-digit local number) was developed by AT&T in 1947 to allow consumers to dial long-distance calls without operator assistance. The plan began implementation in 1951. The NANPA database also tells us that area code 606 was put into service on January 1, 1955. This tells us that the play is set around March of 1957, 26 months after Magnabrayne’s phone number would have changed from something like “Covington-5000” to the 606 number given in the play. Given the 1957 setting of the play (which is probably also near in time to when the play was written), it’s not at all surprising to see the misogyny and stereotypes present in this piece.

The play itself is a short humorous play that would have been entertaining for faculty since it makes fun of a common experience. We don’t know why the play was written, whether for entertainment or some other purpose. Perhaps it was intended as a fun training tool to help orient faculty to the recruitment process for new faculty. I do find it interesting that the play is centered around recruiting a forensics professor. Forensics in this case is referring to public speaking rather than scientific analysis of physical evidence. Given Cooper’s skill with turning a phrase, this evidence of his interest in the field of forensics stood out to me. I think my favorite part of the play comes in the epilogue when Cooper basically suggests that recruiting Magnabrayne was ultimately all Myrtle Blurt’s doing:

Who can say that Mrs. Blurt may not have rendered the telling
act of consummate kindness in driving Sid Magnabrayne back to his
motel after the power went off. You know she just could have called
the Vice President and asked him to cut the power off and thereby
end those awful Beethoven symphonies. Sort of funny the way that
power came on just as she drove her guest up to the motel. He could
have stalked out of the house and headed back for Covington if that power
had not gone off during the playing of the redundant Sixth. Or perhaps
something she said about Blacksburg just convinced Sid Magnabrayne
that B-burg was the place for his Tillie and their six geniuses.
Remember, Sid Magnabrayne just could be President here some day,
and if my surmises are true, wouldn’t Myrtle Blurt have a reason to smile
knowing that she helped get old Sid Magnabrayne to sign.

The play, with a full transcription, is available on Virginia Tech Special Collections and University Archives Online.

Whiskey for the Cat, undated, likely 1960s

The last item I wanted to share today caught my eye because of the title. On the finding aid, it just said Box 6, Folder 28: “Whiskey for the Cat” n.d. (no date). How could I ever resist taking a look to see what this item was? What I found is 85 handwritten pages of what appears to be the first chapter of a novel. While the document is undated, I suspect it is set in (and likely written during) the 1960s based on a sentence on page 84: “In the brief span of the seventh decade of the twentieth century man suddenly begins to understand himself and the world in which he lives.”

As with the play, this story is set on a university campus. This time, it’s set at a fictional university in the midwest. While the book chapter is clearly in a crime or detective fiction genre, I notice what seem to me to be small bits of Cooper’s signature humor that poke through here and there. For example, the fictional university is named Enneagh University (pronounced Any University). Again, this work of fiction seems like it would most appeal to someone who had lived and worked at a university, but it’s also well written. Cooper crafts scenes well, providing just the right amount of detail for the reader to be able to imagine the scene without becoming bogged down in details. It does have some outdated language usage such as referring to the faculty and staff of a university as the “indigenous population” of a university town. Today, the term Indigenous peoples is understood to refer to the earliest known inhabitants of a geographic area and would correctly be applied to one of the many Mississippian peoples who inhabited the region referenced in the text.

Most American universities go into some
level of hibernation during the summer and anyone
who has lived through a summer in the Middle Mississippi Valley
can readily understand why summer is the idling
period of the university year. It is too hot
and sultry in the midwest during the summer for
heavy thinking. The indigenous population in a
university community – the professors and
ancillary personnel ~~who keep the faculty in line~~
have had it after nine months of intensive
association with students and they need time to
regain a modicum of patience and compassion to
fortify them for the next year. The ancillary
personnel need uninterrupted time during the hot months
to clean up the accumulation of junk, paper, the
cigarette butts with their indestructible cork tips, and the
decorative graffiti deposited on desk tops, toilet stalls,
dormitory rooms, and classroom walls has to
be cleaned off or painted over. The university admini-
stration needs the summer to process its final admis-
sions of new students conduct the on-campus visitations of bewildered
parents who want to examine the environment into which
their John’s and Mary’s will move as unprepared children
(or so the parents think).

Given the length of this item, I haven’t yet had time to read it in its entirety; however, skimming through, it seems that in this first chapter (I have not noticed any point where a Chapter II begins) a university professor and his student endeavor to solve a mystery involving marijuana, organized crime, and murder on a typical American midwestern college campus. There are again stereotypes present in the work, with the professor and student being likened to Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. There’s also possibly some racism present in the stereotypes with two criminal characters being Jose Rivera and Steuben Kessel (Kessel being noted in the text as “an alien whose work permit had run out”). But, I get the impression that this story is less blatantly misogynistic than the other works since I didn’t notice it in the portions I have read. A full transcription of this 85 page document is not yet available, but it will be on Special Collections and University Archives Online.

Looking over these three items, I notice a consistent authorial voice while also noting that Cooper can work in different genres and fit into them well. He seems equally comfortable writing a rousing inspirational speech, a situation comedy script, and a detective novel. They each fit their genre well, while still incorporating elements that can be seen in the others. These are just three folders from six boxes of material and I haven’t had time to search thoroughly to find what other stories might be in the collection, but I do hope I can find the time someday because I was very entertained by the inspiration, comedy, and drama I found in the papers of the former head of the Department of Geology.

If you’d like to look through the Byron Nelson Cooper Papers in person, you are welcome to visit us on the first floor of Newman Library. Please note, this collection is housed in off-site storage and you should contact us in advance to request materials be brought to the library for your use.

August 17, 2021August 17, 2021 Anthony Wright de Hernandez Just for Fun, Local/Regional History, Ornithology, Science and Engineering

The Birds and the Bees: or, Murder most fowl

Millard L. Foley was a bird salesman in Salem, Virginia active during the 1950s and 1960s. The M. L. Foley Collection (Ms2012-031) is a collection of correspondence related to his business. It was purchased by Special Collections and University Archives in 2012 for inclusion in our Local and Regional History and the Appalachian South collections and, despite my interest in birds, I had never had occasion to look at it before this summer. When I did look through it, I discovered some interesting correspondence between Foley and clients.

Most of the correspondence is pretty basic and rather what one would expect of correspondence from a small business offering mail-order sales. There are many inquiries from readers of Allen Publishing Company’s Game Bird Breeders, Pheasant Fanciers and Aviculture’s Gazette (also known as Bird Breeder’s Gazette or simply the Gazette). These are typically followed by a customized form-letter response. There are, however, a few series of correspondence that stand out from the rest. And there’s one in particular that caught my attention and seemed like a fun highlight for the blog.

The series of letters begins simply. Henry Safranek of Lebanon, Connecticut sends a simple inquiry to M. L. Foley asking about Elliot’s pheasant hens and Cheer pheasants. It’s short and basically the same as the other correspondence in the collection, but it begins a back-and-forth that is pretty neat to read.

Letter from Henry Safranek to M.L. Foley dated October 17, 1959

Lebanon Conn.
Oct 17 1959.

Mr. M.L. Foley

Dear Sir:

I am interested in buying 1 or 2 Elliot hen phesants, also pair or trio of cheers. Please let me know what you are asking for them.

Thank you
Henry Safranek
Lebanon
Conn.

Foley sent his typical response. In a letter that is all business and responds directly to Safranek’s questions, Foley let him know that he was out of Elliot’s for the year and that he had some Cheers available. Very simple, businesslike correspondence. Nothing remarkable.

October 19, 1959

Mr. Henry Safranek
Lebanon, Conn.

Dear Sir:

Thank you very much for your inquiry on ornamental pheasants. I am very sorry that I do not have any more Elliots. I sold the last pair only yesterday. I have one trio of Cheers, breeders, left. The two hens laid 43 egges this season. But I will tell you that the Cheer cock is afraid of these two hens and will breed only occasionally. Another cock will have to be placed with these hens. I am offering them at twenty dollars ($20.00) for the two hens and with or without the cock.

We would appreciate your order and give it our most prompt attention.

Yours very truly,
M. L. Foley

Things start to get interesting with Safranek’s next letter. Within a couple of days, Safranek’s second letter arrives with further inquiries. He also provides some description of his prior experiences as a bird breeder and an explanation of why he is looking for an Elliot’s hen.

Page 1 of letter from Henry Safranek to M.L. Foley dated October 23, 1959

Lebanon Conn.
Qct 23 1959

Mr. M.L. Foley

Dear Sir:
Thank you for your reply to my letter and am sorry that you have no Elliots hen left. I only bought my pair last spring and lost my hen from eating rat nip. We have been troubled with pack rats this summer and one must have carried a piece of bread into their pen as I lost her the next day.

I don’t know much about rare phesants as this is my first year with them, and although your offer on the cheers is O.K. I don’t know where I could get another cock bird from. So think my best bet is trying to buy a young pair to start with.

My Elliot hen laid about 20 eggs half of which were deformed and which I did not set. Out

Page 2 of letter from Henry Safranek to M.L. Foley dated October 23, 1959

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of the 10 which I did set 5 were good but I lost them after they hatched. I had them with 6 bantam chicks under a bantam hen. I guess that they were much to flighty for her and she killed them on me the second day.

I use to raise 4 to 5 hundred ring neck under bantams each year but no longer have time to take care of that many birds, so as a past time I thought I would try a few pairs of rare phesants.

The only person that I have met that raises rare phesants around here is Mr. Steve Rebello of Sumerset Mass. who has some of the most beautiful phesants I have ever seen. I bought a young pair of Lady Amhersts from him and raised 8 young ones. I was both suprised and happy that they bred the first year.

I see by your ad. in the Gazette that you also have Erckel’s francolins. What are

Page 3 of letter from Henry Safranek to M.L. Foley dated October 23, 1959

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you asking for a young pair as I would like to try raising some.

I would also appreciate it if you could send me the name of any reliable place here on the east coast where I could buy an Elliot hen, as the express charges are so high when you have birds shiped from out west.

Thank you
Henry Safranek
Lebanon
Conn.

Hens dead from apparently eating rat poison? Deformed eggs? A bantam chicken hen murdering all the young pheasants!? The drama in this one letter is amazing. But, the series continues. Foley doesn’t take the bait of the ornithological drama in Safranek’s letter. His response is very businesslike and indicative of his usual style of customer service. He provides the information asked for, the appropriate prices, and an offer of service, but doesn’t delve into the tales of troubles with the birds.

October 31, 1959

Mr. Henry Safranek
Lebanon, Conn.

Dear Sir:

Ralph Meachum of Rockingham, N. C. or Walter Oakie of Winston Salem, N. C. will probably have an Elliot hen for sale. I visited them a short time ago and they had some at that time. I would say that the express charges would be about seven dollars.

Ihave one pair of proven breeders in Erckels and one pair of this years hatch left. Am offering the breeders at $25.00 and the young at $10.00. You should be able to get a Cheer cock from Meachum or Oakie or Rebello for about $8.00. If you should like to have any of these birds, I would be glad to ship them , upon reply from you.

Yours very truly,
M. L. Foley

Then, we suddenly have a letter from Safranek for an order of some Erckel’s Francolins. What’s odd is that this letter is in cursive and the handwriting seems very different from the printed text in the other letters. I thought at first that this might have been a letter from Henry Safranek and that the others were possibly from his son. In researching that, I discovered that the author of these letters was likely Henry Safranek, Junior (born September 1, 1927; died September 17, 1991). So, I was correct that the letters were written by Henry junior but he was 32 years old at the time and, as far as I could find, didn’t have children of his own, so they weren’t written by a child with this one by a parent. I did, however, find that he had a sister and, from a later letter, I know he lived near or with his mother. So, maybe one of them wrote this letter for him? Anyway, other than that, everything seems to be in order. Maybe we’re done talking about dead birds? Is this the end of our dramatic correspondence?

Page 1 of letter from Henry Safranek to M.L. Foley dated November 11, 1959

Lebanon Conn.
Nov. 7, 1959

Mr. Foley,
Dear Sir,

Thank you for the nice letter you sent me and the information I asked for about the Eliott Hen.

Enclosed you will find a check for $10.00 for which I want you to send me a pair of the young Erckels you wrote about in your letter

So kindly send by express to my nearest station which is.

Henry Safranek
Willimantic,
Conn.

over.

Page 2 of letter from Henry Safranek to M.L. Foley dated November 11, 1959

I thank you again
yours,

Henry Safranek.
Kick Hill Rd.
Lebanon.
Conn.

I wasn’t able to find a response to the order letter from Foley. Presumably, he sent the Erckel’s Francolins with a note and the note wasn’t copied into the collection. Our next entry in the series is from Safranek again. This letter is much longer and we have yet another dead bird! This time, the weather seems to be to blame. Safranek asks about housing conditions for the young birds, debeaking the birds to combat possible cannibalism, and recommendations for breeders to purchase another hen from.

Page 1 of letter from Henry Safranek to M.L. Foley dated November 19, 1959

Lebanon Conn.
Nov. 19 1959

Mr. M.L. Foley

Dear Sir:

I received my birds Tuesday afternoon, and they arrived in very good shape. They were O.K. but today Friday when I came home from work I found the hen dead. we have had a week of very cold weather It hasn’t been above 32° since they came and has been down to 14°. I will now have to locate another hen. Do you leave your francolins out all winter? I have a small coop in their pen which they have been using. and they have plenty of cover. They are a rather pretty bird. and I sure hope to be able to raise them. would you know where I might buy another hen. I see that you have debeacked them, do they

Page 2 of letter from Henry Safranek to M.L. Foley dated November 19, 1959

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have a tendency to be cannibalistic?

I really don’t have any idea as to how to produce higher fertility in phesants, as never was faced with that problem when raising ring necks. I always keep extra cocks and in the spring used those that were most aggressive and showed the most development. Also having the breeding pens together where the cocks could see each other seemed to help, by making them jealus I would say.

I have only one pair each of phesants so I am afraid that I will have to just rely on luck and will try your feeding program on them, for now. I believe that to much interbreeding has been one of the reason that rare phesants have this draw back.

I sent to Paul R Hartzog of Niles Michigan for my Elliot hen and also bought a pair of black or dark throated goldens from him. They are the best birds that I have bought so far. My first Elliots came from North Carolina and although they were feathered beautifully they had crooked.

Page 3 of letter from Henry Safranek to M.L. Foley dated November 19, 1959

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toes and that has been enough to stop me from buying any more from him. When you pay 35 to 40 dollars a pair for birds plus express I think that you should get the best or at least should be told before hand, about such things. I also bought a pair of young Blue Manchurians from him that are extremely nice and hope to raise some this comming spring.

I would appreciate any information that you found helpful in raising your Elliots as my chicks were so active that is what must have prompted the hen to kill them as I wrote you in my last letter.

I always used eggs and hand pressed cottage cheese on my young phesants beside keeping good phesant starter in front of them.

Also in regards to higher fertility in phesants I read where one breeder put his cocks under lights for about 4 to 6 weeks before putting them in with his hens. This proved to be very helpful in making game phesants and don’t know how it would work with ornamentals.

Page 4 of letter from Henry Safranek to M.L. Foley dated November 19, 1959

(4)
If you have extra birds that you could try it with it might prove to be beneficial.

As I have only started last spring with rare phesants, will have to rely on the trial and erro system for now. I sure appreciate any information anyone gives me that they find helpful and might be helpful to me.

Thank you
+
Regards.
Henry Safranek

Next, we get a letter from Foley expressing condolences for the dead bird and providing advice on raising the birds and on who to buy a new hen from. Still avoiding that drama. Things are still businesslike but a bit of Foley’s personality begins to show through. It’s a bit more personal than any of the other letters so far.

Letter from M.L. Foley to Henry Safranek dated November 29, 1959

November 29, 1959

Dear Sir:

Was very sorry to here that the hen died. I am quite sure that it died of shock. Although we had not had any freezing weather until a few days after I shipped them. Shock is usually what kills birds in shipment also. I have seen healthy birds die just from catching them in the pen and releasing them again in a few minutes. Either from shock or a heart attack. In very hot weather I never disturb my birds at all. When they start to flying or beating against the wire they may die from shock or over exertion or a heart attack. I am by no means an expert on birds or claim to be. I am just relating to you my own personal experiences. Francolins will pick feathers as much as any of the other birds. I set my eggs under bantams but put them in an incubator the last two days for hatching. From sad experience I have found it is better to raise the young in brooders rather than under hens. Especially the rarer birds. As for putting the cocks under lights I would think that the hen would start laying too soon and you would lose some eggs from freezing unless you checked very closely many times a day. I lost some last year and am not nearly as far north as you. I intend to to go to North Carolina soon and will try to locate another hen for you. If you can get one I will ship it and will give you a pair of Nice Goldens. The freight want be any more.

Where did you get the Manchurians?

Sincerely,
M. L. Foley

The next letter from Safranek is another lengthy discussion of his bird raising experiences. The discussions are becoming more of a back and forth at this point and less of a customer spilling their troubles out to a vendor. At this point, it’s apparent there is a bit of familiarity developing between the two.

Page 1 of letter from Henry Safranek to M.L. Foley dated December 14, 1959

Lebanon Conn.
Dec. 14 1959.

Mr. M. L. Foley

Dear Sir:

I received the birds today Monday and they are all O.K.. I want to thank you for your trouble in getting me the Erckel’s hen and also for the pair of goldens, which you sent. If I have any luck with my birds next year, will send you either a pr. of Dark Throated goldens, or a pair of Amhersts, if you would like them.

I have been away on vacation all last week so did not read your letters until this Saturday. I called the Express office at once but they did not have the birds in. They came tonight at 5:30 Dec. 14th.

Since I wrote to you the last time I ordered a pair each of Swinhoe’s and versicolors, from Paul Hartzog. Which I have received.

I am afraid that I am buying more birds then I will be able

Page 2 of letter from Henry Safranek to M.L. Foley dated December 14, 1959

(2)
to handle and have called it quits for this year.

I now have 10 pr. of phesants counting your goldens plus the Erckel’s a 2 year old pr. of Black Shouldered Peacocks and a 2 year old trio of Blue’s all of which I bought last fall I have all my phesants together in one large 18’x24′ pen, with the exception of the Blue Manchurian which have a 12’x18′ pen of there own. I bought my manchurians from “OAKIE”. They have gave me no trouble so far in keeping them all together and hope to be able to leave them that way until about the first of March when I will seperate them.

I bought a pair each of cheers, Bel’s and w.c. Kalij from Mitchell’s game farm in Anchorville Mich, and would have sent them back if I knew for sure that I would have gotten my money all back. They were the most bed ridden birds that I have ever seen. I have had them about a month now and still cannot get my crested Kalj hen looking like anything. She was almost dead when I got her, so I wrote to them about it but never did get an answer. They were like rails and had the dullest looking feathers, no shine and even

Page 3 of letter from Henry Safranek to M.L. Foley dated December 14, 1959

(3)
the coloring around their eyer was a very dull almost purple color. I have been feeding them graded raw carrots + grapefruit skins, which they seem to like very well especaly the cheers. Plus cooked potatoes and pears. Beside keeping a mixture of 50% scratch feed and 50% Turkey fatting pellets in front of them at all times.

They have all begun to look like something now, but I have little hope for the w. c. Kalj hen.

The Erckel’s male has become a real pet and hope that before long will have him eating out of my hand.

I only want one more pair of phesants and they are Impeyans which I hope to afford next fall.

In regards to using lights on phesants, you only use them on your cocks. For about 4 to 5 weeks before putting them in with your hens. I wish that I could remember where I had read that article and could send it to you. I do know that Beacon Feeds made reference to it in there pamphlet on raising phesants and will try ang get you one of there booklets the next time that I am near one of there feed stores.

Page 4 of letter from Henry Safranek to M.L. Foley dated December 14, 1959

(4)
Enclosed you will find a check for $5.00. I want to thank you again for your troubles and the goldends and hope to repay you some day.

Regards.
Henry Safranek
Kick Hill Rd.
Lebanon
Conn

The next letter comes after the new year from Foley to Safranek, though it is addressed “Dear Sir” and there is no indication in the letter just to who the letter is directed. I was able to determine that this is a letter to Safranek based on the letter that follows it. That letter from Safranek to Foley in mid-January is sadly the last in this series. In these two letters we learn more about these men than in any others in the series. Foley is a hobbyist beekeeper in addition to raising and selling birds. Foley also apparently co-owned a construction firm as his main job. We learn so much in this letter about him. Then, in the following one, we learn about Safranek. We learn that he lives within proximity to his mother (possibly with her, but that’s unclear) and that he used to be in the Army.

Letter from M.L. Foley dated January 10, 1960

January 10, 1960

Dear Sir:

We really enjoyed the maple syrup on buckwheat cakes yesterday. Thank you very much. Hope you liked the honey. I have ten stands of bees that I try to take care of plus the birds. The bees are a lot of work at certain times but I enjoy doing it. This year I had 210 pounds from eight of the stands which is a reasonable average for this area. The other two were or are new swarms. They wern’t in too good condition when I bought them and it took most of last year to build them up. I have a really fancy set up for a hobby bee keeper. I like everything about abeet keeping bees except the bottling of the honey, and that is really a job. I live only a few blocks from downtown Salem and four miles from the heart of Roanoke. The city limits ajoin. So there isn’t to much bloon for the bees. If you have any spare time you might try them as another hobby.

I am half owner of this company and we do from small to medium commercial work. We just completed a $116,000.00 sewer line construction in Mt. Hope, W. Va. We have about a $60,00.00 job to start soon in Morgantown, West Va. We work all over W. Va. and most of eastern Virginia. I have to depend a lot on my wife to take care of my birds, but so far I have been able to work close to home during the egg laying and hatching season. I don’t think it is going to work that way this year.

I have 12 pens 15×10 ft, 3 pens 14×15, 3 pens 15×17 and 1 pen 12x 30ft. All are 7′ high. Hve just finished a 12x36x12 ft high duck pen. Am waiting on my Federal permit to get a pair of wood ducks. The duck pen has a spring in it and I buried an old bath tub in the spring to make a duck pond. Therefore have plenty of clean water and no trouble. Hope to get a pair of Mandarin ducks soon. Also have seven 4×8 pens with wire floors. You must absolutely raise your Cheers on wire until they are nearly fully grown.

I have as breeders the following, 1 pr Blue Manchurian 1 trio Cheer 1pr Silvers 1 trio Golden 2 trio Reeves 1pr Erckels 2 pr Elliots 1 pr & 1 trio Swinho 1 trio Amherst 1 pr W G Kalij and also had Blacknecks Ringnecks Mutants and Bobwhite quail but am not going to raise any more of the last four.

This is too much letter, so long,

M. L. Foley

Page 1 of letter from Henry Safranek to M.L. Foley dated January 14, 1960

Lebanon Conn.
Jan. 14, 1960

Dear Sir: Mr. Foley

I received your very nice letter today and am glad that you enjoyed the maple syrup. I wanted to get it to you for Christmas but, the store where I usually buy it was all out and they had to order more. You know how long it takes to get things around christmas. I also want to thank you for the honey, which we have been using to glaze sweet potatoes an to base chickens with, when we roast them..

At one time there were a lot of bees kept around this area but since about the early 40s most of the small farms which had them have been turned over to raising chickens and everything that one thinks of as a quaint little farm has just about dissapeared, from around this area.

Although we live out in the country about 7 miles from Willimantic and 35 miles east of Hartford, I own less then an acre of land and have to depend on using my neighbors land for raising any thing.

I have just finished cutting enough cedar poles to build a 30 x 125 foot pen this spring and hope to start some small pens to raise my young ones in this weekend. I have always raised my young ones in small pens 2x4x2 with a 1×2 ft. coop at one end. This worked out very well for me and will take care of a hen and about 12 chicks for 2 to 3 weeks. Moving them every day to new grownd is the only problem. I am glad that you told me about the cheers so will have to make other arangements for them. I did try a small battery brooder once and had leg trouble with my birds so have never tried it since.

That sure was a very nice deer that you got this fall and you should be proud of it. I don’t do any hunting myself, We do spend alot of time at the shore though. I have a small runabout with a 35 horse motor on it and spend almost every Saturday and Sunday water skying claming, Crabbing or just riding around on Lond Island Sound with it.

I’m afraid that I am also guilty of havnig to have someone take care of my birds. I have to be at work at 7 am so my mother feedsand waters them in the morning and when I get home I do what is left to be done. Mother is always giving me hell for having stuff around and having to take care of it but she really enjoys it as much as I do.

An old army buddy of mine came from Roanoke and always wanted me to come home with him but I never did. I was stationed in the Honor Guard at Washington D.C. for 2 years and had plenty of opportunity to make a trip down with him, but I’m not fond of really hot weather and D.C. was enough for me. He had and old motorcycle which he pushed back and forth on. I think I could have taken it. I did make several trips to Luray and up into Cumbland Maryland. Infact we took a trip to Luray this fall up though Penn. into New York it is very nicecountry down through there and my Mother and Aunt really did enjoy it. I wanted to take the
(over)

Page 2 of letter from Henry Safranek to M.L. Foley dated January 14, 1960

entire sky Line drive into Winston Salem and back through Norfolk Va. along the coast home. We met some very nice people at Luray caverns who said that Spring is the best time to go South when all of the Roderdendrums are in blossom so we decided to make that trip another time. We enjoy travling very much. So from now until spring I will have to really get busy and get all my pens made. Because when the summer comes we are off. We are planing on making a trip through Canada and around the Great Lakes this year if all goes well.

Regards
Henry Safranek
Lebanon.
Conn.

These last two letters are very personal and there seems to be a genuine connection. Sadly, I do not know whether the two ever met in person or whether their correspondence continued. Foley continued writing letters over the next few years but there are no more in the collection to or from Safranek. Foley’s main correspondent from this point on is a man in Barranquilla, Colombia named Jose Raimundo Sojo who helped Foley source ducks for his bird business. I have yet to fully read that correspondence but if I find any more bird murders, I’ll be sure to blog about those letters, too. Of course, you can stop by Special Collections and University Archives and look through all the letters yourself! Just ask for the M. L. Foley Collection (Ms2012-031).

November 6, 2020November 10, 2020 Anthony Wright de Hernandez Diversity, Local/Regional History, Women's History

100 Years of Woman Suffrage

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
U.S. Senate website, Art & History, Timeline: The Senate and the 19th Amendment

Introduced on January 10, 1878 by California Republican Senator Aaron Sargent, the “Susan B. Anthony Amendment” took 42 years to be passed and ratified by the requisite states to become a part of the United States Constitution. Over the course of those 42 years, women organized to advocate for their rights, sending petitions, protesting, and lobbying lawmakers in Washington. In response, women were condescended to, reviled, vilified, and assaulted by opponents to woman suffrage.

The woman suffrage amendment was defeated in the Senate four times, in 1887, 1914, 1918, and June of 1919. The amendment passed the House of Representatives on May 21, 1919 and finally passed in the Senate on June 4, 1920. It was quickly ratified by the required three-fourths of states when Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment on August 26, 1920, granting women nationwide the right to vote. Their first opportunity to exercise that right happening just two months and seven days later in the 1920 election.

Last fall, I was asked to put together an exhibit commemorating the 19th Amendment to be displayed sometime in 2020. Generally, our exhibits highlight materials in one of our main collecting areas. National politics is not one of those collecting areas. Still, with a little searching of our catalog and finding aids, I was able to identify some unique and interesting items related to the fight for woman suffrage and the passage of the 19th Amendment.

If you happen to be in Newman Library before the end of the year, you can check out the Votes for Women exhibit in the Special Collections and University Archives windows on the first floor. For those who won’t be stopping by the library, some letters from suffragists included in our collections are highlighted here.

First are two letters from Adelaide Avery Claflin (July 28, 1846 – May 31, 1931) to Mrs. Hollander discussing an upcoming speaking engagement for the woman suffrage association. These are from the Adelaide A. Claflin Letters (Ms1992-005). Claflin was a resident of Quincy, Massachusetts and began speaking publicly in support of woman suffrage in 1883. She became a member of the Qunicy school committee in 1884 and was the first known woman to hold elected office in the town. For more about Claflin and the suffrage movement in Qunicy, check out Remember the Ladies: Woman’s Suffrage and the Black Holes of Local History on the Quincy History Blog.

Page one of a handwritten letter from Adelaide Claflin to Mrs. Hollander regarding a speaking engagement with the woman suffrage association in November 1884. — Claflin Letter, November 11, 1884, page 1

Pages two and three of a handwritten letter from Adelaide Claflin to Mrs. Hollander regarding a speaking engagement with the woman suffrage association in November 1884. — Claflin Letter, November 11, 1884, pages 2-3

The first letter reads:

Tues. Nov. 11 1884,
Mrs. Hollander,
Dear madam,

I have received a note from Mrs. Stone, (giving me your name simply as above,) and asking me to communicate with you in case I were willing to speak for you in Somerville on Sunday, the 22d and on the same subject on which I lately spoke in South Boston. As the 22nd is Saturday, I am left in a little doubt as to the real date desired, and I am also a little embarrassed in my writing by some other causes. I have a bad cold just now, but probably would be well enough to speak by that time, and would like to do so, as far as I know at present. But I did not speak, exactly, at So. Boston, I read a written essay upon “What women as a class owe to each other”, and this essay, substantially, was read to the Somerville Woman’s Club a year ago. I do not know whether that club is in the same part of Somerville, or whether that would be any objection. I should, therefore be glad to hear further from you in regard to the circumstances, as Mrs. Stone’s note was extremely brief.

Very truly yours,
Adelaide A. Claflin
21 Chestnut St.
Quincy
Maſ.

Page four of a handwritten letter from Adelaide Claflin to Mrs. Hollander regarding a speaking engagement with the woman suffrage association in November 1884. — Claflin Letter, November 14, 1884, page 4

The second letter reads:

Friday, Nov. 14, 1884,
My dear Mrs. Hollander,

I am much obliged for your explanation in regard to the lectures and I am glad such a course is undertaken. With regard to myself, I only mentioned the So. Boston paper, because Mrs. Stone wrote to me about that. I have spoken for the Massachusetts Suffrage Association, upon that question, a good many times within the past two years, and feel that I can always say something upon most aspects of the woman suffrage question. Mrs. Stone has often asked me to speak upon municipal suffrage because she liked my presentation of that subject – but some of the Somerville friends have very likely heard me speak upon it in Boston, and I would rather prefer myself to speak in a more general way. I have had some experience in regards to schools, having been teacher, mother, and school committee, and had some special advantages here in Quincy where educational matters have been much discussed, and I have been in the thick of it. How would you like as subject “The need of the feminine influence in the school, the town, and the state”? Or if that is too large – the first two leaving out the “state”? I think I could make some useful points in an address of that kind. But if there is any special branch of the suffrage, or woman question, which would be more desirable to you as a step in the unfolding of your scheme of lectures I think it would be safe enough for your President to announce it for me for the 23rd. I have studied the woman question all my life, and while I do not profess to have solved as great a problem, I feel pretty sure I can talk about most parts of it in a tolerably rational manner. I write thus because there is not time before Sunday for me to hear from you and write again as to subject, and I should like to meet the wishes of the committee in that respect. I should be glad to know how long an address is desired and whether it is to be in a parlor or a church, etc.

Very truly yours
Adelaide A. Claflin,
21 Chestnut St.,
Qunicy

As an alternative subject I might suggest “The reaction of equal rights upon woman and society.”
A.A.C.

Next is a letter from Lila M. Valentine to J. D. Eggleston, president of Virginia Polytechnic Institute, from the Records of the Office of the President, Joseph Dupuy Eggleston (Record Group 2/7). Lila Meade Valentine was co-founder of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia and served as its first president. Learn more about her at Encyclopedia Virginia.

Page one of a 1915 letter from Lila Meade Valentine to J. D. Eggleston. The letter is on Equal Suffrage League of Virginia stationery. — Lila Meade Valentine letter, April 2, 1919, page 1

Page two of a 1915 letter from Lila Meade Valentine to J. D. Eggleston. The letter is on Equal Suffrage League of Virginia stationery. — Lila Meade Valentine letter, April 2, 1919, page 2

The letter from Valentine reads:

Dr. J. D. Eggleston. April 2, 1915
Blacksburg, Va.

My dear [cousin?].

Can you arrange for me to speak any one of the following days, April 21, 22, 23, 24, 26? I am to help in the Pennsylvania campaign in ?? City April 28. I should greatly appreciate a prompt reply as I have several other invitations to fill in, and only wait your decision to readjust them because of your May 1st limit.

Cordially yours
Lila M Valentine

P.S.
I regret very much that you felt compelled to resign from our State Board of Education. We can ill afford to do without your valuable aid. L.M.V.

Finally, a letter from Eulalie Salley to Mrs. Francis Bear of Roanoke, Virginia, from the Eulalie Salley Letter (Ms2013-079). Salley was born in Augusta, Georgia in 1883 and lived on her grandparents’ plantation in Louisville, Georgia before moving to Aiken, South Carolina in 1892. Her education included a year each at Mary Baldwin College in Virginia and Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Around 1912, Salley organized the Aiken County Equal Suffrage League and served as its first president. She campaigned for suffrage by door-to-door canvassing, hosting fundraisers, and even dropping leaflets from an airplane. The end of this letter mentions her efforts to elect Gilbert McMillan to office in South Carolina and his role in South Carolina finally ratifying the 19th Amendment in 1969, 50 years after it became part of the U.S. Constitution. Learn more about Eulalie Salley in the South Carolina Encyclopedia.

Page one of a 1974 letter from Eulalie Salley to Mrs. Francis Bear. — Eulalie Salley letter, January 12, 1974, page 1

Page two of a 1974 letter from Eulalie Salley to Mrs. Francis Bear. — Eulalie Salley letter, January 12, 1974, page 2

The Eulalie Salley letter reads:

Eulalie Salley, Realtor
Post Office Box 622
111 Park Avenue, S. W.
Aiken, South Carolina 29801

January 12, 1974

Mrs. Francis Bear,
“Bearcliff” 100 Etheridge Road,
Roanoke, Virginia 24018

Dear Frances.
I’m not at all surprised that your Mother did not tell you about my interest in politics. She and I are always so busy talking about members of the family that there is no time for anything else during her fleeting visits. In fact, most of our time is taken up with talk about that beautiful boy of yours.

I am so glad to know of your interest in politics. I’m wondering if you have joined the League of Women Voters or any other Woman’s organization in Roanoke. If not, you should, fo you would find it fasinating. I don’t see why you don’t begin right now to run for some public office—maybe by starting off with City Council or the State Legislature.

Here in Aiken we have a woman County Commissioner and a woman member of the South Carolina Lefislature. I campained for both of them, along with my faithful Gilbert McMillan. (Gilbert is a distant cousin of Louises’ husband, Raiford). He is the one who got the South Carolina legislature to ratify the Nineteenth amendment, a bill women had been working on for fifty years with no success.

Gilbert was a new commer and we decided we needed some one fresh in the Senate so 300 women got out and campained and elected him. It was very exciting.

It took me a long time to find out that if you wanted a law passed, you had better get your own man and get him to go to Columbia and pass it for you.

I hope Jody will do well in his school and I know you are going to be proud of him.

Affectionately,
Eula

In addition to these materials, the Special Collections and University Archives exhibit also includes articles about women’s voting from the Ladies’ Home Journal from 1920, items from the New York Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, and some suffrage cookbooks. If you get a chance to stop by the library while the exhibit is up, check it out to see everything on display. If you don’t make it in before 2021, the items are always available to view upon request.

April 6, 2019 Anthony Wright de Hernandez Diversity, LGBTQ History, Local/Regional History, University History, Women's History

Denim Day: A Triumphant Return

My job here at Virginia Tech is Community Collections Archivist & Inclusion and Diversity Coordinator for the University Libraries. I forgive you if you got lost in all that. Essentially, the part of my job that is archival in nature is to engage with traditionally marginalized communities around their histories. I help them preserve and make available documentary evidence of their existence so that history will better reflect the full human experience. This post is about a project that fell squarely within that scope – and helped me really see what doing this work can mean.

Nancy Kelly smiling — Nancy Kelly, “The Instigator”

About a year ago, I got a request for a meeting with Nancy Kelly, a lesbian alumna who wanted the university to acknowledge the early history of the Gay Rights Movement at Virginia Tech. At the time, I assumed this would be a fairly standard discussion with a potential donor about materials they had and whether Special Collections would be interested in adding them to our collections. I was wrong. Nancy, certainly had some wonderful documents and we talked about the donation process. But, Nancy had a vision. She wanted us to document her experience as a lesbian at Tech during the birth of the publicly visible LGBTQ+ community here. And, she wanted it done on video. And, she wanted us to document the experiences of all of her friends and fellow alumni from that same time period. And she wanted the university as a whole to celebrate the events of 40 years ago and publicly display support for the LGBTQ+ community here. This seemed an impossible dream at the time.

Having some familiarity with the events of January 1979 from the coverage in the Collegiate Times, I wasn’t about to say no. It’s a fascinating exploration of late-1970s attitudes toward gay and lesbian people. At the time, I had no idea how I would make a video oral history project a reality. I had no personal experience as an oral history interviewer. I also knew we had limited storage space and that video files are huge! Still, this was a project with potential, so I said yes. No conditions. No mentioning all the potential issues. I just said yes. Luckily, the university made Kaltura available institution-wide for video hosting about the time I needed to put the interviews online.

What happened over the next year was a mixture of serendipity and perseverance. Working with Jessica Taylor, Assistant Professor of Oral and Public History, and Luis Garay Director of the LGBTQ+ Resource Center, we held an oral history workshop in late November specifically targeted to the LGBTQ+ community and preservation of its history.

At that workshop, I found out that Joe Forte, Shelving Supervisor with the University Libraries (and an amazing DJ for Stacks on Stacks, the University Libraries Radio Show), and Slade Lellock, PhD candidate in Sociology, were very interested in recording some interviews. I also met Adri Ridings, a student who was similarly interested in helping to document LGBTQ+ history.

From there, we began recording interviews with alumni who hadn’t engaged with the university in 40 years. It was emotional. It was cathartic. It was a labor of love for everyone involved. Nancy did the work to engage them and tell them we could be trusted. Without her, there would be no interviews because these alumni had no reason to trust someone from Virginia Tech to care about their experiences and sharing them honestly.

While I worked with the alumni to preserve their stories, Luis Garay, from the LGBTQ+ Resource Center, Latanya Walker, Director of Alumni Relations for Diversity and Inclusion, Mark Weber, from the Ex Lapide Alumni Society, students from Hokie Pride, the LGBT Faculty and Staff Caucus, and more were all working on putting together an amazing schedule of events for a 40th anniversary commemoration of Denim Day combined with Pride Week and Queer in Appalachia, an annual event celebrating what it is to be queer here in appalachia.

Meanwhile, we were busily recording and transcribing as fast as possible to get as many interviews online as we could before Pride Week and the planned #VTDenimDayDoOver. I worked with our media folks to create a cool promo/intro video (linked below – click on the picture) for the collection.

Screenshot of a video player showing the starting shot from the Denim Day 2019 promo/intro video.

As the Denim Day events grew near and we had recorded almost all the scheduled interviews with the alumni from 40 years before, I worked with Susanna Rinehart, Chair of Theatre and Cinema in the School of Performing Arts on content for Jeans Noticeably Absent: The Story of Denim Day 1979 which combined theatre students reading newspaper articles and letters reacting to Denim Day with clips from the oral histories.

Overall, this experience has been amazing and triumphant. We gathered great oral histories and engaged the community. Nancy and her fellow alumni were celebrated by the university that had once ostracized them and called them an embarrassment. We were in the VT News, and the Roanoke Times. We were on the home page of the university – for 2 days running so far!!!! (see picture below)

Screenshot of the vt.edu homepage featuring the VT News article.

We had the main university Twitter account tweeting about us.

Screenshot of Tweet featuring a short video of the VT Denim Day Do Over event.

We had departments from across the university sending out messages of support even though they couldn’t attend our coordinated commemoration photo.

Screenshot of a tweet from the VT Department of Dairy Science.

Screenshot of a tweet from VT Rec Sports.

We also got more members of the community to sit down and record their own stories for our collection.

There’s still a ton of work to do to process the material we’ve gathered related to these efforts. There’s also a ton of work needed to engage the parts of the community not represented by the story of Denim Day: those members who aren’t white, cisgender, gay, or lesbian. Hopefully, the work we’ve done here will be a step toward showing that we care enough to do this work honestly and with respect.

To see the collection we built about Denim Day (in progress) and our broader documentation of LGBTQ+ history at Virginia Tech visit here and here.

January 28, 2019 Anthony Wright de Hernandez About Special Collections and University Archives, New Acquisitions

Exploring our technology

When people think of Special Collections or of archives generally, they typically think of boxes of old dusty papers or shelf after shelf of rare books.

In truth, we aren’t very dusty. Dust damages our materials, so we try to keep it away. And, while we do have many rare books, that is only a small part of what we’re about. Archives exist to house information. In the past, that information was mainly recorded on some form of paper whether that be a scroll, a sheet of paper, or a book. In the mid-20th century, this began to change. More and more content was created on computers and stored on removable media such as floppy disks, CDs, DVDs, zip drives, removable hard drives, thumb drives, etc.

*Image from @palak_dev on Twitter: https://twitter.com/palak_dev/status/962137797640388608*

During the same period, archives continued to focus mainly on paper. The form of more recent records became printouts of work done on computers. But the long-term preservation format remained paper. Multiple efforts within the profession focused on figuring out how to handle material given to archives on disks and, more recently, as files in the cloud. Today, the profession has a fairly good idea of how to deal with digital data as material in archives, preserving the data and migrating it to new formats while showing that the intellectual content hasn’t been altered.

Unsurprisingly, our Special Collections has followed along this evolution in practice. We have many records on disk sitting in boxes and many records that have been transferred off their original disks in order to preserve them better. We also have a collecting focus on the History of Science and Technology. The developments in the field of archival practice and our topical interest in the history of technology have provided ample reason for us to acquire various forms of hardware.

The hardware we have allows us to convert many types of digital content to more modern formats for continued use. We’re also exploring making some of the older hardware available for our patrons to experience its use. Let’s take a look at some of the technology we have in our Special Collections.

First up, we have the humble copier. We have a couple of these. They are networked and can scan items at high resolutions. While this doesn’t convert digital content to newer formats, it can help quickly create digital copies of physical materials.

We also have a variety of scanners. The one pictured above is an Epson flatbed scanner. These scanners help us digitize content to share it online. We have many types including flatbed, book scanners, and an overhead camera. With the variety of scanners we have, we are able to create digital copies of our physical materials for use in online content distribution.

For video conversion and playback, we have a number of machines. Pictured above:

Panasonic PV-V4623S 4-Head HiFi VCR
JVC HR-S6900U HiFi Stereo S-VHS VCR
Pioneer LD-V4200 LaserDisc Player

And here we have some video and some audio equipment including:

Funai ZV427FX4A DVD Recorder/VCR with Line-in Recording
JVCRX-111 AM/FM Stereo Receiver
JVC TD-W505 Hi-Fi U-Turn Auto-Reverse Double-Mechanism Cassette Deck
Sony CDP-591 Stereo Compact Disc Player
Technics SL-Q300 Direct Drive Automatic Turntable System (record player – not pictured)

Of these, the Funai VHS/DVD player gets the most use for conversion purposes which makes sense because it has built-in VHS to DVD conversion capabilities. The others live on our A/V media cart and can be wheeled into our reading room if a patron wants to view an item that is on VHS, DVD, or LaserDisc or listen to one of our cassette tapes or records.

This little gadget does most of the work for our video conversion operations. It is an Elgato Video Capture S-Video/HDMI/Component Video Capture Device. It allows us to connect almost any video player directly to a computer and record the video playback as a digital file. So, even if we don’t maintain a machine for playing a certain type of media, if we can get ahold of one with S-Video, HDMI, or component video outputs, we can convert the contents to digital formats.

Our audio station provides capabilities for audio cassette tapes and reel-to-reel tapes. To support this, we have the following equipment:

Apogee Duet FireWire Audio Interface
TEAC W-865R Double Auto-Reverse Cassette Deck
Technics RS-T992 Stereo Double Cassette Deck (not pictured)
Tascam DA-30 mkII Digital Audio Tape Deck
Pioneer RT-909 2-Channel Stereo Auto Reverse Tape Deck (reel-to-reel player – front)
Tascam 44-OB 4 Channel Recorder/Reproducer (reel-to-reel player back)

Our audio conversion is done on a Macbook Pro using the open source Audacity software.

When it comes to converting computer files, one of our most versatile tools is the lowly CD drive. Since many computers today don’t include one, we have one centrally located in a cabinet for anyone who might need it.

For more advanced digital processing, we have a forensic recovery of evidence device or F.R.E.D. The FRED allows us to capture a disk image of a computer disk without altering any of the data contained on the disk. Along with the FRED, we have a number of different types of drives that can be connected including a 3.5″ floppy drive, a 5″ floppy drive, a zip drive and more.

Osborne 1 Microcomputer in operational configuration

As we move further into the technology space by offering the chance for our patrons to interact with older technology, we’re acquiring older hardware as part of our collections. Pictured above is the first such piece we acquired: the Osborne 1 Portable Microcomputer. For more about this item, check my blog post from last fall.

Our newest addition is a Commodore 64 complete with a printer, joystick, monitor, and floppy disk drive. It includes multiple programs and is in excellent condition. It’s not quite ready for its public debut as it has a faulty power supply and requires some maintenance and repair before getting listed in our public catalog.

That’s just a small overview of the technology we use in Special Collections. Our jobs as archivists continue to evolve and we strive to be experts on the past and the present with an eye to the future when it comes to technology. The variety is one of the best parts of working here. I certainly couldn’t have predicted I’d be repairing hardware on an old Commodore 64 as part of my job but I love it anyway.

I hope you’ve found this post interesting and educational. If you’re interested in learning more about our Osborne 1 and Commodore 64, keep an eye on this blog. We’ll post more when they’re ready for people to stop by and try them out.

September 20, 2018 Anthony Wright de Hernandez New Acquisitions, Pop Culture, Science and Engineering

Osborne 1 Portable Microcomputer

Osborne 1 Microcomputer in portable configuration

We recently received an Osborne 1 Portable Microcomputer as a donation from Virginia Tech alumnus, Bob Sweeney. We asked him some questions about his background and this computer. Here are his answers:

Q: Tell us a little about your background as it relates to computing in the 1970s-1980s.

A:At the time, I was a technical writer for a software house that developed products for the HP-3000. We were a small company and I could not always get access to a terminal to access theLARC-3000 word processor I used (Los Altos Research Center – chosen because it spelled Larc, as in “Going out on a larc.”). I was an experienced TW, but this job was the first that allowed me to us a WP. Well, allowed is the wrong word. My buddy – Steve White, VT Class of 1962 – was our head of sales. I mentioned to him that I was ready for my manuscript to go to the typing pool. He replied, “Bob, we’re a computer company. You use the computer.” (I never wanted to do it any other way again. I’d spent 2/3rd of my time proofreading!)

Q: What initially attracted you to the Osborne 1?

A:The Osborne 1 ads showed people carrying the machine in elevators, buses, through an airport. At $1600 with a printer and a bundle of software, this was an affordable machine. When I bought the O1, for instance, a business man was buying a comparable machine (same printer, same processor, same drive, same memory) and he paid twice as much for his IBM. By the by, you probably can find one of those ads online.

: Osborne 1 ad c.1981

Q: What was your experience with the computer? Did it work as advertised?

A:It was great! I used its WordStar WP to do my stuff at home and prepare files for the HP. (LARC-3000 was an embedded-command WP. For example, like HTML, …. for bold, … for paragraphs.) I could encode the files for HP. With a simple application (included) I could conduct work as though the Osborne was a terminal to the HP. Best of all, I could save my files on a floppy, allowing me to work at home, offline!

I loved the Epson printer, too. In fact, I had trouble reloading the paper one day. I got out the manual and was surprised to find no loading instructions! In frustration, I tried again. The path was so simple, if you just stuck the paper in, it would load properly! I’d thought too hard about it!

Q: The computer was advertised as portable, did you transport it from place to place like one would with a modern laptop?

A:Yes, I carried it from home to work and back. But best of all, we were working on a proposal with a customer in Boston. We took the Osborne up with us on the plane and that night updated the propsal!

Q:What was your favorite thing about this computer?

A:That flexibility. WordStar was easy to use. There was also Basic and VisiCal, although I used neither much. We did do several proposals and business plans using the Visicalc and its links to WordStar (A mail merge function). (If I remember, VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet for microcomputers. We could probably dump it into LARC-3000, too.)

Q:What was your least favorite thing?

A:As you’ve seen, the screen is small! I got a magnifier for the screen, but my nephew – with good eyes – threw it away!

Q:Why did you decide to find a home for the computer rather than recycling it as many would do?

A:It has no value, so I just couldn’t send it off to some beach in India. It was my first and started me out on a career of the future. I still marvel at how any writer did it in the old days! You spent twice as much – possibly three times as much – of your days proofing than writing. (Of course, we also had to learn a new skill – usually from several hard experiences – backing up.

Q:Is there anything more you would like to share about the Osborne 1 Computer?

A:Not as famous as the Apple, but the Osborne 1 was an important step for businesses in the computer revolution. They would be better known if they’d developed an IBM clone. They did have a machine with a larger screen, but it was still CP/M.

Some Computer History

When looking at history, we often ascribe specific importance to that which is first. For example, in 1911 Roald Amundsen from Norway was the first person to reach the South Pole and in 1926 he was recognized as the first person to reach the North Pole. Regardless of the objective truth of these claims (whether indigenous people reached the North Pole before him) he is granted a certain cachet by being recognized as the first. You can find an entire list of similar firsts on Biography Online‘s site.

What does all of this have to do with the Osborne 1 portable microcomputer? Well, it is one of those special things that is special because of its status as first. The Osborne 1 was the first portable microcomputer. For those not familiar with computing history, this was the first (type of) computer (the woman, not the machine):

Computer at her work with microscope and the Friden calculating machine. (NASA).

After human computers came large room-sized machines such as the Harvard Mark 1 in 1944.

timeline_computers_1944.harvardmarkI.jpg — Harvard Mark 1 room sized computer. 1944. (computerhistory.org)

As the world of computer technology progressed through the later half of the 1940s and through the 1950s and 1960s, improvements to computer technology were developed and introduced. Punch card input gave way to keyboard input. Components got smaller, leading to “microcomputers” which are just computers that are small. The term generally refers to computers smaller than room sized. Screens were added. Networking via phone lines was added. New and exciting programming languages were created.

As the 1970s progressed, we saw the introduction of the first personal computers (meaning small machines that were within the grasp of an individual to own/operate) from companies such as IBM, with the IBM 5150 Personal Computer being released in 1981. The 5150 followed a great deal of work by IBM in developing a commercial personal computer. Their main competitor was Xerox who introduced the Xerox PARC Alto (a computer that we would recognize today – with a monitor, mouse, and keyboard) in 1974.

In 1976, Apple released the Apple I and then followed with the Apple II in 1977. That year, Tandy Radio Shack (TRS) released their TRS-80, Atari released their computer gaming console, and Commodore entered the market with the PET. Computers were entering the public consciousness and it wasn’t unheard of for people to have a computer at home. It was also becoming much more commonplace to have one at work. During this time, the subject of portable computers was a hot topic and there were entrants to the space as early as 1973 (HP-9830A). Still, an affordable, easily portable personal computer was something that remained mostly a dream until the Osborne 1 was announced in 1981.

102661090-05-01 — Osborne 1 ad: Afghani Mujahadeen posing with the Osborne 1. c.1981

The Osborne 1 was billed as revolutionary, hence the ad featuring the Mujahadeen. It was the first really portable computer. It weighed 24 pounds and came in a case designed to absorb the inevitable knocks it would receive being transported from place to place. It was the first product of the Osborne Computer Corporation, named for its founder Adam Osborne, and known for lending its name to the Osborne Effect – a company going out of business by announcing a new product too soon and killing sales of their current product. Despite its demise in 1985, the Osborne Computer Corporation succeeded in producing a viable portable computer

Interior front, Osborne 1 pamphlet, c.1981

Interior back, Osborne 1 pamphlet, c.1981

The corporation had effective marketing and certainly grabbed the attention of the computer-savvy business professional of the early 1980s.

Page 33 1982_03_BYTE_07-03 — BYTE magazine, March 1982, page 33

Page 35 1981_08_BYTE_06-08 — BYTE magazine, August 1981, page 35

And, Interface Age magazine whose tag line was “published for the home computerist” named it an “outstanding buy” in November of 1981.

Our Osborne 1 is the first of what we hope will be many classic computers housed in Special Collections and available for the public to interact with. If you want to see this piece of computing history, stop by Special Collections in Newman Library anytime Monday-Friday 8:00 AM-5:00 PM.

June 21, 2018 Anthony Wright de Hernandez Diversity, LGBTQ History, University History

Safe Zone at Virginia Tech

June is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month in the United States. It is a separate observance from Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History Month which takes place in October. LGBT Pride Month (or LGBTQ+ Pride Month, or LGBTTIQQ2SA, or whatever umbrella term you are comfortable with) was created in response to the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City which followed a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in Greenwich Village. It is now 49 years since the Stonewall Riots, and 59 years since the Cooper’s Donuts Riots in Los Angeles, and Pride Month has become a worldwide phenomenon celebrating the spectrum of sexualities and genders encompassed within the umbrella of LGBTQ+. But, there are still instances of bullyingand violence against this community. Just last year, during Pride Month, a mass shooting happened at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

Given the violence against the LGBTQ+ community that prompted the creation of Pride Month – and the violence that still happens to the community today, I thought I’d write about Safe Zone at Virginia Tech in honor of Pride Month this year.

The Safe Zone program at Virginia Tech was established in 1998 in an effort to create a more welcoming environment for members of the LGBTQ+ community. We recently finished processing the HokiePRIDE Records (RG 31/14/15) which include some early documents related to the Safe Zone program defining what or who a Safe Zone is. Listen to David Hernandez talk about the definition of a Safe Zone in his 2014 oral history from The Virginia Tech LGBTQ Oral History Collection (Ms2015-007).

An early Safe Zone Resource Manual (circa 2000), includes information about the history of the program as well as basic information about terms and symbols used by members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Formal definition of Safe Zone from Resource Manual

Cover of Safe Zone Resource Manual circa 2000

Over time, the Safe Zone program has evolved. It was initially guided by the direction of members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Alliance (LGBTA) of Virginia Tech (later known as HokiePRIDE). Later, it fell under the direction of the Department of Student Affairs and the Multicultural Center. Most recently, it has been run through the LGBTQ+ Resource Center. Safe Zone has been a part of Virginia Tech for the last 20 years!

Society has advanced significantly regarding acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community and so has Virginia Tech. Still, educating people on campus about LGBTQ+ issues remains important and the Safe Zone program remains a vital way for members of the community to identify people who are supportive and have a basic training on issues affecting the community.

Safe Zone session information circa 2015

I hope you enjoyed learning a little about the Safe Zone program at Virginia Tech. If you want to see more of the materials from the HokiePRIDE records (RG 31/14/15), stop by Special Collections and have a look!

If you have materials related to the history of the Safe Zone program at Virginia Tech, HokiePRIDE, or LGBTQ+ history at Virginia Tech and are interested in donating to Special Collections, please contact us using the link at top of this page.

April 20, 2018 Anthony Wright de Hernandez Architecture, Just for Fun, Pop Culture, Science and Engineering

R. Buckminster Fuller

R. Buckminster Fuller. This name is probably familiar to most people in the United States. It conjures images of futuristic domed cities of the type typical to a mid-20th century vision of the future.

A greyscale image of triangualar grid structures and a geodesic dome from above. People appear offering a scale showing that the structures stand several stories tall. — Cover of “Three Structures by Buckminster Fuller in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.”

Interior page of “Three Structures by Buckminster Fuller” depicting various aspects of his unique design elements.

Interior page from “Three Structures by Buckminster Fuller”

Richard Buckminster Fuller, also called Bucky, was a celebrity. He was an engineer, an architect, a veteran, an environmentalist, a philosopher, and a poet. He was a celebrity because of these things rather than in spite of them. He was born July 12, 1895 in Milton, Massachusetts. He went to Harvard University for two years but did not finish. He later went to the United States Naval Academy (1917). He was an officer in the United States Navy during World War I.

For me, Fuller is a legendary figure. I grew up with cultural references to “bucky” balls, images of domed cities in speculative fiction, and knowing conceptually about the structure of fullerenes. So, when I was wandering through the archives looking for something to post about this week, I was excited to see a box labeled “R. Buckminster Fuller Collection 1949-1978” (Ms1975-007). Opening it up was like opening a present.

Our collection includes one folder of correspondence from and to Fuller, three folders containing copies of things Fuller wrote, six folders of things written about Fuller, and two oversized folders containing some rather large items within those categories. Looking through the materials, they aren’t like what most people expect to find in an archives. They aren’t handwritten. They aren’t really old. They aren’t deteriorating. They’re just extremely fascinating.

The letters are from November 1953 – December 1962. Most are from Fuller’s time working on his business Geodesics, Inc. They are typed. They are unsigned. Yet, for a fan of his work, they are exhilarating to read. The first one I laid eyes on was written while Fuller was with the Department of Architecture at the University of Minnesota. As if these being Fuller’s own words wasn’t enough, a connection to Minnesota biases me in favor of something from the start.

In the letter, Fuller is telling Tyler Rogers of Owens-Corning Fiberglas Co. about the challenges and modifications of his designs that have been necessary because of a lack of the necessary facilities to safely employ fiberglas in their construction. The letter is a finely crafted plea for assistance from this fiberglas manufacturer, and, according to a note added at the end, the plea was successful leading Owens-Corning to supply all the fiberglas used in the project to construct Fuller’s dome.

Take a look. Maybe you’ll find it as fascinating as I do:

Digging further into the materials, even just glancing, I learned much more about this mythic figure from my childhood. Had he been alive today, I am confident Fuller would have been viewed as an activist. His engineering ideas were rooted in his conception of the need for humanity to work together to support itself. He felt that domes could solve world housing problems. He also felt that industrialization had led the world to war and that as long as income inequality was creating “energy slaves” we would inevitably progress into further wars. Dipping into our small collection yields evidence of these views quite quickly.

Fuller graphics 1.jpg — An illustration created by Fuller in 1927.

The above illustration hints at Fuller’s environmentalism and highlights his concern for housing the population of the Earth. It reads:

26% of Earth’s surface is dry land
85% of all Earth’s dry land is here shown
86% of all dry land shown is above equator
The whole of the human family could stand on Bermuda
All crowded into England they would have 750 sq feet each
“United we stand, divided we fall” is correct mentaly and spiritualy but falacious physicaly or materialy
2,000,000,000 new homes will be required in next 80 years

An example of his analysis of the world’s energy economy and its effect on the incidence of world conflict appears on the same folded sheet:

This graphic is from 1952 and is titled “The Twentieth Century.” His analysis reads:

World Industrialization: Its rate of attainment as an industrially objective advantage to individuals. i.e. When 100 inanimate energy slaves* are in continual active service per each and every family existing in governing economy and those energy slaves are primarily focused upon regeneratively advancing standards of living and in articulating amplifying degrees of intellectual and physical freedoms until critical point is reached majority of world men are “have nots” and are incitable to socialism by revolution against the seemingly ever more unduly privileged minority after 1972 majority are “haves”.
* One energy slave equals each unit of “one trillion foot pound equivalents per annum” consumed annually by respective economies from both import and domestic sources, computed at 100% of potential content

Overall, it’s an interesting plot. His analysis, while raising the specter of Communism as villain (typical of the early 1950s), shows global instability and a trend toward possible conflict through 1972. That tipping point is supposedly when most people in the world will go from being “have nots” to being “haves”. His predictions may or may not have been accurate (I’ll leave the correlative analysis up to you) but they certainly are interesting.

The last thing I’ll share is a portion of something I found somewhat interesting from among Fuller’s writings. Most of his writings in our collection are reprints of articles he had published. From a publishing standpoint, I find them interesting because of how they are printed. They are self-contained. In the case of the one I will share, an entire page describing articles in the publication is present but the only one that is printed with full clarity is the one by Fuller – the others have been “blurred” via the addition of slight pixilation of the ink in the printing process. I have yet to actually read this article, so I won’t go into depth. I also won’t share the entire thing here because I really don’t want to make the publication if came from mad at me. Also, just to be clear, I’m reading it for the article (I mean, really, that’s all that’s even here!).

Cover of a reprint booklet containing articles in Playboy and Think.

Description page from Playboy including the article description for Fuller’s article.

The first page of Fuller’s Playboy article.

This is just a hint of what’s in our R. Buckminster Fuller Collection (Ms1975-007). I plan to delve into it more myself to satisfy my curiosity about this fascinating man. Please stop by and do the same! And, if you want even more Buckminster Fuller content, Fuller donated his full archive to Standord University in 1999 where it is available as the R. Buckminster Fuller Collection.

February 8, 2018 Anthony Wright de Hernandez botany, Events, Local/Regional History, Rare Books

Flora Virginica and the Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands

Over the past few months, I’ve stepped outside my normal topical areas of social justice and the history of traditionally marginalized communities. This departure was related to an exhibit titled Flora Virginica that is on display in our reading room from February 5, through March 16. I enjoy putting together exhibits, so I was happy to take this on even though it was something I knew nothing about. This blog post will include a description of the exhibit, the reasons for its existence, and the interesting history I discovered while putting it together (only not in that order). Enjoy!

An Exhibit, In Partnership

In 2012, the Flora of Virginia Project published Flora of Virginia (QK191 .W43 2012), a 1,572 page comprehensive compendium of Virginia plants. It’s a thick botanical tome of little interest to most people outside the botanical sciences. We acquired multiple copies in the library when it was first published and it isn’t one of our particular collecting focuses. It wasn’t something we were particularly focused on highlighting.

Sample page of the 2012 Flora of Virginia (page 951)

Skip ahead to fall of 2017 and an email from the Massey Herbarium to the Director of Special Collections mentioning an exhibit about Flora of Virginia that the Massey was going to be hosting. Special Collections was being involved because there was an opportunity to display an original Flora Virginica in support of the Massey exhibit. This is where I entered the process.

Over the course of a couple of months, I worked with Jordan Metzgarat the Massey Herbarium and Bland Crowder, editor of the 2012 Flora of Virginia, from the Flora of Virginia Project to arrange a loan of an original 18th century Flora Virginica. During the process of arranging this part of the exhibit, it was suggested that I might also wish to exhibit some 18th century Mark Catesby prints alongside the book. Still not knowing much about the project or the books, I opened discussions with Lynn McCashin, the Executive Director of the Garden Club of Virginia, to arrange a loan of some of their Catesby prints. The next few months consisted of multiple emails negotiating the logistics of the loans. As the date for the exhibit approached, I began to research these items so that I could create some didactic labels for the exhibit (those short little descriptions that go next to items in museum-type displays).

In order to adequately describe the 1762 edition of Flora Virginica and the 1771 Catesby prints – and explain what they had to do with one another and Virginia history, I had to learn that history myself. Where did I start? A general web search, of course. Wikipedia offers great superficial overviews on just about any topic. That was enough to get me oriented before moving on to better sources including the Encyclopedia Virginia, JSTOR Global Plants, the Catesby Commemorative Trust, The Royal Society, and the University of North Carolina Libraries. During the course of this research, I learned some interesting details about the people who created these items and their places in botanical and zoological history.

Flora Virginica, 1762

A photograph of a copy of the 1762 Flora Virginica open to the section on Monandria and Diandria. On the left side is a fold-out map of the Virginia colonial region that is larger than the bound book. — Flora Virginica, 1762 printing

Flora Virginica(QK191 .G86 1739a) is a precursor to Flora of Virginia. They are actually named the same – just in different languages. The original Flora Virginica was published in two parts, the first in 1739 and the second in 1743. Then, a combined edition was published in 1762. All three editions were published in Latin by Lugduni Bavatorum publishers in Leiden, Zuid Holland, Nederland. They all list Johannes Fredericus Gronovius as the person who classified the specimens and wrote the book. They also list John Clayton as the observer and collector of the plants. This attribution has led to much debate over the correct citation of authorship. Many, using modern standards, have claimed that Gronovius plagiarized Clayton’s work. Scholarship as recent as 2004 has addressed the authorship issue directly and concluded that Clayton likely did not have much chance of being published without the help of someone like Gronovius and the actions of the latter would not have been deemed plagiarism using the standards of the 1700’s. Proper credit for authorship, then, is probably to list them both.

Amidst the issues of authorship, I discovered some interesting things about the men who created what was the only comprehensive listing of Virginia plants for over 200 years. John Clayton was born in England in 1694/5 and came to America sometime before 1720. His move to the Virginia Colony was likely due to his father’s position as Attorney General of Virginia. Clayton was an amateur botanist. He was a plantation owner, a slave owner, and Clerk of Gloucester County, VA for more than 50 years. He liked to travel around the state and collect specimens of flora and fauna.

Gronovius was a Dutch naturalist and friend of Carl Linnaeus. He built up a reputation in the Netherlands as a botanist and had his own herbarium. He was considered a professional and had standing within the scientific world to publish.As part of Clayton’s amateur botanical work, he compiled for Gronovius a catalog of various plants using Linnaean classification. This catalog is what Gronovius eventually turned into Flora Virginica.

So what about Mark Catesby?

Mark Catesby was born in 1683 and was an English naturalist and a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. He first traveled to Virginia in 1712, accompanying his sister and her children. Over the next seven years (1712-1719), he collected and sent to England a variety of botanical specimens from Virginia and Jamaica before returning to England himself. During this time, at least one ornithological specimen and several plants were provided to Catesby by John Clayton. That one connection is why the Catesby prints are often displayed with Flora Virginica … that one connection and the fact that the Catesby prints include gorgeous illustrations of many of the plants mentioned in Flora Virginica.

After a few years in England, where he became a member of The Royal Society, Catesby returned to America to begin work on his grand project. He spent the next 20 years compiling specimens, teaching himself to illustrate them, and writing his Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands (QH41 .C28 1754).

Plate 50, Volume II: The Ribbon Snake, Winter’s Bark

Plate 60, Volume II: The Bead Snake, The Virginian Potato

Plate 87, Volume II: The Sappadillo Tree

He wrote and illustrated the book(s) entirely himself, publishing them in eleven sections totaling more than 220 hand-colored etchings. In order to finance all this work, Catesby sold subscriptions, offering the book in sections of 20 plates every four months. The first section was published in 1729 and he presented Her Majesty Queen Caroline with her copy in person. Following Catesby’s death in 1749, his work was republished twice, in 1754 and 1771. Catesby’s work was done before Linnaean classification was developed but the 1771 reprint includes a catalog of the Linnaean names for the flora and fauna depicted in the book.

While Flora Virginica is recognized as the most comprehensive listing of Virginia plants from 1739 to 2012, Catesby’s History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands is known as the earliest published work illustrating and describing North American flora and Fauna. It was published almost 100 years before Audubon’s TheBirds of America (QL674 .A9 1827a).

The Exhibit

Through the generous courtesy of the Flora of Virginia Project and the Garden Club of Virginia, we have an exhibit containing a 1762 original Flora Virginica, a 1946 reproduction Flora Virginica, and two Catesby prints from the 1771 reprinting: The Summer Red-Bird, The Western Plane Tree and The Red Start, The Black Walnut. This exhibit gives viewers a chance to appreciate the wonderful history of all of the items with an abbreviated version of the information presented here. If you’re in the area and want to see the exhibit in person, stop by Special Collections and take a look.

Exhibit photo with ‘The Red Start, The Black Walnut’ print and reproduction of ‘Flora Virginica’

Exhibit photo with original ‘Flora Virginica’ and ‘The Summer Red-Bird, The Wester Plane Tree’ print

While you’re visiting, if you are interested in taking a look at a copy of Flora Virginica in person (reading Latin helps), Special Collections has one copy of the 1946 reproduction on site and two in remote storage(QK191 .G86 1739a). If you want to see the amazing Catesby illustrations in person, Special Collections has a copy of the 1754 reprintingof Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands (QH41 .C28 1754). As for the 2012 Flora of Virginia, Newman Library has two copies and Special Collections has one (QK191 .W43 2012). And, if you’re curious about Audubon’s The Birds of America(QL674 .A9 1827a), Special Collections has a 1985 issue of the double elephant folio in our reading room – it’s our only item with its own piece of furniture.

A full listing of events related to the Massey Herbarium Flora of Virginia exhibit is available atmasseyherbarium.org/fov.

Author: Anthony Wright de Hernandez

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