vtspecblogger Local/Regional History, Uncategorized, University History

Remembering Solitude, 1908-1914

Solitude, 1908 with Robert and Richard
Solitude, 1908 with Richard and Robert

Blacksburg, Virginia, 1908-1914 offers a rare glimpse of what it was like to live in Solitude. The narrative is Chapter II in a larger work, We Remember, that Stevenson Whitcomb and Margaret Rolston Fletcher wrote for their children and their childrens children. Dr. Robert H. Fletcher, Professor Emeritus at Harvard Medical School (son of Steve, Jr.); his cousin Marcia Fletcher Clark (daughter of Richard); and her daughter, Lisa Snook Young have graciously permitted us to share these images and text from the narrative. The family retains copyright. Plans are underway in the University Archives to construct an Internet exhibition with more images of Solitude and the Fletcher family and a link to the full text of the Fletchers Blacksburg chapter.

In 1908, Professor Fletcher moved to Blacksburg with his wife Margaret and their two young sons, Robert and Richard. He came to Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute, as Virginia Tech was then named, as Professor of Experimental Agriculture and Director of the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station. After a week at the frigid Blacksburg Inn and nine months in three long narrow rooms in the Library that were usually reserved for the accommodation of the trustees, we were released on probation, and the family moved into Solitude. Two more children, Steve and Peter, were born at Solitude.

Solitude Living Room, 1913
Solitude Living Room, 1913

Virginia Techs oldest structure, Solitude is the homeplace of the university. From humble origins as a log cabin built in 1801, Solitude grew into the colonial home of two Virginia governors and the home of Robert Preston who sold the property in 1872 to provide land for the new Virginia land grant college, Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College.

 

Winter Sports at Solitude, November 1913
Winter Sports at Solitude, November 1913

The narrative describes the setting of the lovely home:

The yard was shaded by a number of locust trees, beneath which bluegrass grew luxuriantly, and by red maples and a giant pine, remnants of the virgin forest. The gravel walk to the house was bordered by a box hedge. There was a clump of cinnamon fern by the doorstep, and in the spring Poets Narcissus nodded gracefully in the breeze. Across the road was a pond on which the boys skated in winter. Back of the house was a bluegrass meadow through which meandered a little branch. Beyond this was a wooded hill on top of which stood the Presidents mansion.”

According to the account, the family lived well on Professor Fletchers salary: Steves salary was $3,000 and house; this was equal in purchasing power to at least $9,000 today [note: We Remember was written in 1951).

 

Miss Rosa Parrott's Kindergarten
Miss Rosa Parrott’s Kindergarten

Margaret Fletcher started a kindergarten taught by Miss Rosa Parrott. Robert, Richard, and Steve enrolled. The playroom in our house was her schoolroom and our yard was their playground. Miss Rosa Parrott later married Dr. E. B. Fred, president of the University of Wisconsin.

After Santa Came, 1913
After Santa Came, 1913

The narrative recalls how Christmas was observed at Solitude:

In one corner of the living room, by the fireplace, stood a glittering Christmas tree trimmed with strings of white popcorn, red cranberries, shining tinsel, and net bags of red and white candy. Beneath it were piled unopened presents that had come by mail. Three pairs of stockings hung from the mantel stuffed with candy, dates, figs, nuts, and small toys, with a red and white candy cane and horn sticking out of the top of each stocking. Beneath the stockings were piled sleds, skates, drums, and other things dear to the hearts of boys. It was obvious that some mysterious and open-handed stranger had visited the house during the night; Robert looked for the track of his sleigh on the roof, but the new-fallen snow had covered it.”

To learn more about Solitude and the Preston family, or to read Professor Fletcher’s 1913 book, Three Problems in Virginia Fruit Growing: Packing, Marketing, Nursery and Orchard Inspection, visit Special Collections on the first floor of Newman Library or visit the Solitude site at http://spec.lib.vt.edu/archives/solitude/index.html The history of Solitude was discussed in an earlier blog https://scuablog.lib.vt.edu/2013/11/07/solitude-history/

To visit Solitude, please contact the Appalachian Studies Program director, Dr. Anita Puckett, at apuckett@vt.edu.

vtspecblogger African American History, Civil War, Feature Items

A New Look at the Diary of Jeffrey Wilson

A page from Jeffrey Wilson’s 1913 diary.

Our latest collection with a full transcription online is the Jeffrey Thomas Wilson Diary, which covers the entire year of 1913 in the life of Jeffrey Wilson, a prominent member of the African American community in Norfolk/Portsmouth, Virginia. The transcription project was funded by the Visible Scholarship Initiative, a collaboration between the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences and the University Libraries to provide mini-grants for projects that make visible the stages of research and creative scholarship in the liberal arts and human sciences. This particular project was a partnership between several faculty members in the History department, an undergraduate history student, and several members of the faculty here in Special Collections. The transcriptions for each of the 365 daily entries has been visually formatted and displayed as they appear on the page, and many words and phrases have been annotated with popup notes throughout.

The diary was written in a Wanamakers Diary (produced by the department store chain) actually designed for 1911. As Wilson states early on in the diary, I found myself unable to buy a diary like I wanted, therefore, I had to utilize this obsolete one changing days and dates. (January 6, 1913) Wilson hand-corrected the days of the week throughout to reflect 1913. What makes the diary so fascinating are the references Wilson makes to people, places and events that span nearly 70 years- from his childhood as a slave in antebellum Virginia, through the Civil War, the Reconstruction, the American Industrial Revolution and right up to the present time of his writing in 1913, as the early 20th century ushered in the modern world.

Jeffrey Thomas Wilson was born a slave in Portsmouth, Virginia, in 1843, and, according to his obituary, his mother was a slave owned by Mrs. Eliza Edwards, second wife of Thomas E. Edwards, one of Portsmouth’s wealthiest citizens of his day According to the obituary, he never attended school and learned to read and write in secret as a slave boy. At some point in his childhood, Wilson became owned by the Charles A. Grice family, who he lived with beginning in 1853. Wilson writes:

This day 60 years ago, the writer was a little slave boy living on Bermuda street in Norfolk with my dear mother and wicked stepfather. he was a hackman, and my mother was a laundress. It was from there a year or two later, that old man C.A. Grice, and his wife, came and arbitrarily carried me back to Portsmouth, and put me at work in the garden, planting Irish Potatoes. and it no more living with Mammie for me. I learned then that I was indeed a slave. All of them are gone from earth. Mammie to heaven I believe, since then, of course. Fifty eight years ago my brother John and me walked down to the ferry landing in Norfolk, and he got into a boat, and boarded a vessel lying in the stream, loaded for Boston, and made good his escape. I never seen him again for a eleven years. That was what termed the U.G.R.R. [Underground Railroad] The Yellow fever was so serious. White people had no time to look after runaway Negroes, but after the dying whites.(August 14, 1913)

In his teens, Wilson was the valet servant of Alexander Grice, the son of his owner, and traveled with him as he served with Company A, Cohoon’s Battalion, Virginia Infantry, at least during a part of 1862. In 1866, after being freed, Wilson enlisted with the U.S. Navy and traveled through Europe and the US. After his years of service, Wilson returned to Portsmouth and worked at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, as a laborer, and as a bailiff for the Federal Court at Norfolk.

Through the course of his long life, Wilson outlived four wives and had at least twelve children. At the beginning of this 1913 diary, he was 70 years old, and married to his fourth wife of 3 years, Blanche, who was only 34. Their first son, Wendell, whom Wilson talks about frequently throughout the diary, was just a few months old. The couple would have five more children before Blanches death. Another topic frequently mentioned throughout the diary is the Emmanuel AME Church in Portsmouth, where he taught Sunday school and served on the Official Board, the governing body of the church. Wilson was a devoutly religious man, and each of his daily entries starts with quotes from Biblical verses, sometimes in reference to the events of the day, and sometimes referring or in some way similar to the daily sayings supplied by the Wanamaker Diary itself.

In his later years, from 1924 until his death in 1929, Wilson wrote a column called “Colored Notes” for The Portsmouth Star. The column included social news, Wilson’s political views, and issues of race relations, all themes that occur throughout the diary as well. Wilson was one of the first prominent African American newspaper columnists, and as well-known and outspoken member of the Portsmouth African American community, his column is a notable resource for studying the history and outlook of the community in this time period.

With the diarys pages and transcript now available and fully-searchable online, this can hopefully be another valuable resource for studying the life of this fascinating man, as well as the African American community of Portsmouth and more generally of the minority experience during this time period. The diary is available online here.

vtspecblogger Just for Fun, Rare Books

Polar Expeditions, Part 2

An Arctic Boat Journey, in the Autumn of 1854 (1860)
by Isaac I. Hayes, Surgeon of the Second Grinnell Expedition

Cover of Hayes' An Arctic Boat Journey
Cover of Hayes’ An Arctic Boat Journey
Title page for Hayes's An Arctic Boat Journey
Title page for Hayes’s An Arctic Boat Journey

 
 
On 19 May 1845, John Franklin, an experienced Arctic explorer, led two ships and 128 men from England in search of the Northwest Passage. The last reported sighting of the ships occurred in July 1845. Between 1848 and 1859, some 30 expeditions were launched to search for the lost ships. Isaac Hayes took part in one of those efforts, one that is known as the Second Grinnell Expedition. Largely financed by shipping magnate Henry Grinnell, the brig Advance set out from New York on 30 May 1853 to succeed where his first attempt, launched in 1850, had failed. Though this first effort had located Franklins first wintering camp on Beechey Island off Greenland, it had not solved the mystery of Franklins disappearance.

Under command of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, a veteran of Grinnells first expedition, the Advance, having spent one winter as planned in Rensselaer Harbor on the west coast of Greenland, was by August 1854, again icebound. With conditions deteriorating, Hayes and seven others, half of the surviving crew, set out for Upernavik, a Danish outpost, some 1300 miles to the south.

Chart of the Upper Limit of Baffin Bay, Illustrating an Arctic Boat Journey
Chart of the Upper Limit of Baffin Bay, Illustrating an Arctic Boat Journey

Hayess narrative is the story of a four-month journey that began with a departure from Advance on 23 August 1854 and ended, unsuccessful, nearly four months later on 12 December with a return to Advance.

The winter passed slowly away. Then spring returned, with its daylight, sunshine, and increased warmth; fresh food was obtained, chiefly form the natives; and with these aids, the people rallied. Gradually the gloom which had settled over us was dispelled. The carpenter hobbled out to repair the boats; and in proportion as our strength increased, preparations were carried on for the final abandonment of the vessel.

Despite having to spend a second winter in the ice, Kane led his crew to Upernavik after an 84-day trek over land and water that began on 20 May and ended on 8 August 1855. All but three of those who left Advance in May arrived in New York on 12 October.

Within a year Kane published Arctic Explorations: the Second Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin, leaving Hayes to tell the story of his own harrowing journey.

Kane died at age 37 in February 1857. Isaac Hayes would travel twice more to the Arctic.

Special Collections’ copy of Hayes’s book is the original 1860 edition published by Brown, Taggard, and Chase of Boston.

Embossed illustration from the book's cover
Embossed illustration from the book’s cover
vtspecblogger Uncategorized

Alice- Virginia Tech’s 1960s Underground Newspaper

One of the most recent digital collections to go up on Virginia Tech Special Collections Online is Alice, an underground student newspaper published by The Blacksburg Free Press between 1968 and 1970. The 26 issues of the newspaper available here are a fascinating look at the progressive movement of the late 1960s and how those sweeping social changes played out on Virginia Techs campus and in the views and activities of Virginia Tech students.

The idea of a free press newspaper serving the Virginia Tech community came about during the 1968 Spring Break by a group of liberal-religious students headed by Everett Hogg. Alices creation was spurred by several events that had taken place recently on campus, the most notable of which was a scandal surrounding the disciplinary action taken against four students in January 1968 after they attempted to conduct a student opinion poll on the universitys dress regulations, which included prohibiting women from wearing pants. The official student newspaper, the Virginia Tech (now known as the Collegiate Times) had been publishing front page news articles on the developing scandal, but when a petition was created to be presented to the student government senate to reverse the disciplinary decision of the deans office, all mention of the scandal and the petition suddenly disappeared from the newspapers next issues.

A spread in Alice, Volume 5, No. 1, April, 1969
A spread in Alice, Volume 5, No. 1, April, 1969

The sudden, suspicious absence of a story so important to the student population caused many to worry that the university administration was pressuring the newspaper to suppress information that put them in a bad light. Because the University Publications Board controlled the Virginia Techs funds, the administration effectively controlled what they could and could not publish. As Bryan Ackler, one of Alices founding editors, wrote in a 1969 essay about Alice: The Virginia Tech as it was structured in the Spring of 68 was not suited for the liberal communities needs nor was it open to the type of news that needed to be presented.

The actual physical work of setting up the paper began in a secretive atmosphere. As Ackler writes: If the university could bust four students for taking a dress poll we didnt know what it would do about an unapproved newspaper. Surprisingly, the administrations reaction to the paper was quiet, and the Alice staff were able to publish with only minimal harassment from the administration for the entirety of the papers run. The first issue of Alice was published on May 18, 1968. A justification and kind of manifesto for the underground newspaper was written by Everett Hogg in the front page editorial in the first edition: V.P.I. is undergoing the metamorphosis from small college to large university.the fact that this campus is beginning, and must fully face the issues on our campus has demonstrated that there is a definite need for a focal point of free expression and presentation of ideas at V.P.I. Thus, the conception and birth of Alice.

The first two issues of Alice in the Spring of 1968 were immensely popular with the student body and quickly sold out. Despite this popularity, Alice did not garner the kind of responsive involvement from the student body that the staff had been hoping for, and the focus quickly shifted from creating a forum for dialogue between students and the administration to an open-ended presentation of various political issues and opinion pieces. As Ackler writes: we promised to print anything as long as it was well written and was of short enough length to make it printable in a newspaper.

Over the course of the next year, the small staff of Alice began to struggle with the realities of running an underground newspaper. As Ackler writes: shop keepers throw you out of their shops while you are soliciting ads, hate notes are nailed to your door and a lot of people call you a communist, even though they dont know what one is, they know what he looks like.

In other large schools there are other groups that do all of the organizing in the community. Here in Blacksburg until just last month there has been only one agency for any liberal action at all, that has been Alice. Where the general rule is that there is an organizing group and no media, here we had media and no organizing.Any action that the liberal community felt had to be taken, fell on the shoulders of the paper staff.

By the Fall of 1969, the frequency of Alice publications started to dwindle, and in early 1970, the paper went defunct. Despite its short run, Alice gives us an interesting snapshot of an important time in our history, a time when many things were in transition both on Virginia Techs campus and around the world. Check it out!

vtspecblogger Uncategorized

Remembering the Forestry and Wildlife Conservation Programs at V.P.I.

George K. Frischkorn's Forestry Club patch and William Gabriel's watch chain with "keys."
George K. Frischkorn’s Forestry Club patch and William Gabriel’s watch chain with “keys.”

A recent gift from Dr. H. William Gabriel (class of 1956) lets us step back into time to the life of a V.P.I. (Virginia Tech was then called Virginia Polytechnic Institute or V.P.I) cadet and student in the Forestry and Wildlife Conservation (FWC) Curriculum in the 1950s. One of the unique items in the Gabriel collection is a watch chain worn as a Senior Class and Junior Class privilege. According to the Student Life Policies, 1955-56, the watch chain may be suspended from the watch pocket to the right hip pocket of the trousers. … The chain worn to the hip pocket may have no more than five devices suspended therefrom. Gabriels chain has four keys indicating membership in four honor societies: Pershing Rifles (military), Phi Sigma Xi (forestry), Alpha Phi Omega (Boy Scouts service fraternityhe had been an Eagle Scout), and Phi Sigma (biology).

The Phi Sigma Xi key is unique. The forestry program then was tinyonly about 100 studentsand it lacked the recognition afforded students in other curricula. In 1955 Gabriel organized an honorary fraternity for forestry students called Phi Sigma Xi. It was intended to last only a few years until the V.P.I. forestry program could qualify for membership in the established national honorary known as Xi Sigma Pi.

The fifth key on his watch chain was lost. It was a small replica of a double-bit axe representing the Forestry Club. The little pen knife at the end bears the crest of Thomas Jefferson High School Corps of Cadets and was a favor received from his date at a formal military ball there in 1951.

Because Dr. Gabriels own Forestry Club patch was very worn, George K. Jim Frischkorn (FWC 59) donated his patch.

WIlliam Gabriel's signed "rat" belt.
WIlliam Gabriel’s signed “rat” belt.

All freshman Cadets (“rats”) were required to wear the belt buckle of brass on white web belt in place of the black leather belt. By tradition, on the last day of “rat” status, at the end of the freshman year, classmates signed each other’s belts. He defaced the buckle with a 56 and added a very faded blue and white Pershing Rifles ribbon (usually worn on the uniform shirt) and an Alpha Phi Omega pin, two organizations he joined as a freshman.

Student Budget cover
William Gabriel’s budget booklet used to record income and expenses for the 1953-54 academic year.

Dr. Gabriel’s collection also includes Student Budget: A Daily Record of the Cost of an Education in which he recorded the income and expense of his sophomore year. The booklets were sold in the college bookstore, and he used it to estimate if the War Savings Bonds bought $0.10 and $0.25 at a time would get him through college. His income for the 1953-54 academic year was $956.23, and his expenses were $807.72.

Spetember pages from budget book
William Gabriel’s budget book pages for September, 1953.

Room in the college dorm and board in the college dining hall cost $95.80 the first quarter, $110.80 second quarter, and $110.80 the third quarter. No expense was recorded for tuition because he had a $300 scholarship that covered those costs. Clothing expenses were virtually nil because he has purchased all necessary uniforms as a freshman.

His job in the dining hall paid $30 to $42 per month. In December he received $11.50 for work on a forest fire, and in May $25 as an ROTC uniform allowance. Other income came from selling his used books, selling photos he took of other students, a Christmas Saving Club account, and cashing in mature U.S. War Savings Bonds that his frugal mother, a single parent, taught him and his brother to buy and save for a rainy day.

Dr. Gabriel wrote:

The week I turned 12 years of age I got a work permit, a Social Security card, and a job that paid more than minimum wage. I had worked ever since. The summers of 53, 54, 55 I hitchhiked out West to work for the U.S. Forest Service on national forests in California and Idaho. Each Christmas vacation I delivered mail from the Westhampton P.O. substation in Richmond. And so I managed to pay for my education.

vtspecblogger Just for Fun, Rare Books, Science and Engineering

The Ill-fated Voyage of the U.S.S. Jeannette, 1879-1881

Title page
Title page and frontispiece of The Voyage of the Jeannette with an engraving of George De Long and an image of the ship.

As I was scouting the bookshelves a few months ago in search of something to inspire a new exhibit, I came across two volumes of “The Voyage of the Jeannette: The Ship and Ice Journals of George W. De Long, Lieutenant-Commander U.S.N., and Commander of the Polar Expedition of 1879-1881. I was familiar with several 19th-century polar expeditions, particularly that of John Franklin, which left England in 1845, never to return, but De Long was unknown to me. In the end, I found first-hand accounts of many voyages of discovery, which led to the idea to assemble an exhibit on the themes of Discovery, Travel, and Exploration, but it was the Jeannette with which I began and whose story continues to enliven my curiosity.

When the U.S.S. Jeannette set out from San Francisco on 8 July 1879 with 33 men aboard, including its commander, George Washington De Long, its mission was to reach the supposed Open Polar Sea, attain the North Pole, and to record all manner of scientific observations along the way. Initially built as a gunboat for the British Navy and named Pandora, it had three masts and was equipped with a steam engine and propeller. The ship had passed into private hands and successfully survived two trips to Greenland before James Gordon Bennett Jr., owner of the New York Herald bought her, renamed her Jeannette, and had her structure massively reinforced, all in preparation for the polar mission that De Long would command. She would carry provisions to last three years.

The Jennette enters the ice.
The Jeannette enters the ice.

By 6 September of that year, the Jeannette was locked in the ice, sooner and further south than anticipated. Through disappointment and routine, mostly good spirits prevailed. On 28 October, De Long wrote:

I think the night one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. The heavens were cloudless, the moon very nearly full and shining brightly, and every star twinkling; the air perfectly calm, and not a sound to break the spell. The ship and her surroundings made a perfect picture. Standing out in bold relief against the blue sky, every rope and spar with a thick coat of snow and frost; she was simply a beautiful spectacle.

The Jeannette would drift in the ice in a northwesterly direction through the frozen summer of 1880 and into the spring of 1881. On 11 June–nearly two years after leaving San Francisco–just after midnight, as De Long wrote, the ice suddenly opened alongside and the ship righted to an even keel. For the first time in twenty months, the ship was afloat. Cruelly, some forty hours later the situation had changed:

At four P.M. the ice came down in great force all along the port side, jamming the ship hard against the ice on the starboard side of her, and causing her to heel 16 to starboard. From the snapping and cracking of the bunker sides and starting in of the starboard ceiling . . . it was feared that the ship was about to be seriously endangered. . . . Mr. Melville . . . saw a break across the ship . . . showing that so solidly were the stern and starboard quarters held by the ice that the ship was breaking in two from the pressure upward exerted on the port bow of the ship.. . . At five P.M. the pressure was renewed and continued with tremendous force, the ship cracking in every part. The spar deck commenced to buckle up, and the starboard side seemed again on the point of coming in.

The Jennette sinks, 11 June 1881.
The Jennette sinks, 11 June 1881.

By 6 PM. the Jeannette began to fill with water and as provisions were removed, the ship heeled 30 to starboard. The starboard side had broken in and at 8 PM all hands were ordered off the ship. At 4 AM, the ship went down. They had reached just beyond 77 N latitude, some 700 miles south of the pole, and would head southwest hauling their boats and equipment towards the Lena River on the Siberian coast.

Dragging the boats over the ice.
Dragging the boats over the ice.
Nindemann and Noros in search of help.
Nindemann and Noros in search of help.

Upon reaching open water 91 days later, the crew boarded three boats on 12 September. A gale separated the three and one boat was lost. De Longs boat, carrying 14 men, reached the marshy Lena delta on 15 September and would soon be abandoned. On 9 October, with the entire party suffering from starvation and exposure, a weakened De Long sent two men ahead in search of help. These two men, Nindemann and Noros, found a small group of hunter-fisherman on 22 October, who took them to the larger settlement they sought. The third boat, commanded by George Melville with eleven aboard, reached the delta on 14 September, nearly 100 miles from the first group, but on a navigable branch of the river. Five days later, they found a fishing camp. Neither Melvilles group nor Nindemann and Noros were able to mount a rescue for De Longs group, though on 2 November, they did find each other. George W. De Long, however, had written his last log entry on 30 October:

One hundred and fortieth day. Boyd and Grtz died during the night. Mr. Collins dying.

Melville continued the search for his comrades and on 13 November, he found the Jeannettes log books, instruments, and other items that De Long had buried on 19 September. It wasnt until the following spring, on 23 March 1882, that Melville and Nindemann found the bodies of De Long and two other members of his party, then those of the remaining seven. One mans body was never found. They also found the ice journal that De Long had kept and which recorded the journey they had taken since the Jeannette was lost. All ten bodies were placed in a makeshift coffin and interred in a cairn on the highest point in the area.

De Long's last entries.
De Long’s last entries.

George Melville arrived in New York on 13 September 1882 and brought De Longs papers, journals, and personal effects to his widow, Emma.

The cairn that temporarily held the bodies of De Long and nine of his men.
The cairn that temporarily held the bodies of De Long and nine of his men.

By Act of Congress, the remains of De Long and the nine crew were ordered returned for burial in the US. On 20 February 1884, after a 12,000 mile journey westward, they arrived in New York. De Long and six others were buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. On 18 June 1884 a broken box bearing the name Jeannette and other items from the ship were found off the southern coast of Greenland, thousands of miles east of Jeannettes final location. Having made their own journey, these items gave new support to the theory of trans-Arctic drift.

So, this was the story that was the spark for an exhibit that will soon go up, one that will present materials offering a range broader than that of polar exploration . . . but, interestingly, the Collection has several accounts of trips using various means to arrive at various poles. Watch for it:

vtspecblogger Events, Local/Regional History

Steppin’ Out’s Wild Past

The first Steppin' Out logo, from 1981
The first Steppin’ Out logo, from 1981

Its the beginning of August, which for those of us living in and around Blacksburg, means the blocking off of Main Street and the beginning of Blacksburgs biggest festival- Steppin Out. The annual street festival, which features hundreds of arts and crafts vendors and tens of thousands of attendees, has been a Blacksburg tradition since the late 1970s. It began as an effort to revitalize the downtown and generate revenue for various local charities. But while digging around in Special Collections Vertical Files (where we collect news clippings and articles on various local subjects), I discovered that in the early days, the festival had a much wilder, and unfortunately, darker side.

An article from the Roanoke Times on August 12, 1976, noting the first Deadwood Days festival in downtown Blacksburg
Photos in the Roanoke Times from the second annual Deadwood Days festival in downtown Blacksburg in 1977
Article in the Roanoke Times from July 9, 1980, discussing the Blacksburg Town Council’s ban on the Deadwood Days festival.

The annual festival was first organized in 1976 as Deadwood Days, based off of a successful annual festival of the same name held in Deadwood, South Dakota. The original Deadwood Days festival commemorated the shooting of Wild Bill Hickok, an infamous outlaw of the Old West, on August 2, 1876, in the town of Deadwood, and the Blacksburg version was held for the first time a week after the shootings 100th anniversary.

Thus, for the first four years, the three-day festival had a Wild West theme, and really lived up to that theme in more than just the decor. A 1980 article in the Montgomery News Messenger described it as a rip-snorting, music-and-dancing-in-the-streets gathering enjoyed primarily by the under-40 crowd, adding It has also earned the reputation of a three-day beer bust and drug festival. Festival events during those first four years regularly ran past 1am, with increasing rowdiness and numerous arrests made by the Blacksburg Police for marijuana and cocaine possession.

All of that came to a head in 1979, when the Deadwood Days festival was marred in tragedy. After leaving Deadwood Days on Saturday night, a 17-year-old Blacksburg High School student was shot dead by two teens that hed given a ride from the festival. The teens had reportedly been drinking heavily at the festival, and had no trouble getting all the beer they wanted from downtown bars in the hours immediately proceeding [sic] the murder. In the aftermath, community members blamed the free-wheeling, shoot-em-up atmosphere of Deadwood Days for encouraging the murder, and in July of 1980, just one month before the 5th annual Deadwood Days festival was scheduled to begin, the Blacksburg Town Council voted 5-1 to ban the event.

In the wake of this decision, one council member was quoted in the Blacksburg Sun saying the festival would have to be planned two steps this side of Mary Poppins if it is even to come off in 81 or 82. And in August of 1981, with the strong support of Blacksburgs downtown merchants, a family-friendly arts and crafts festival called Steppin Out was held. The festival changed from a three-day to a two-day festival, with an ending time of 9pm, and included more kid-friendly activities and a much more wholesome atmosphere. Needless to say, Steppin Out was still a hit, and 2014 will mark 33rd year of the this downtown Blacksburg tradition.

2007 Steppin’ Out festival program
1989 Steppin’ Out festival program
Article from August 5, 1988, in the Roanoke Times about the Steppin’ Out festival.

So if some curiosity for Blacksburg history suddenly strikes you while enjoying this weekends festivities in the historic downtown, remember that the Vertical Files in Special Collections has information on many of the buildings, events and people that have made this town what it is today, and were here to help you answer your local history curiosities Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm, every week. But until then, enjoy your weekend, but dont get too wild!

vtspecblogger Uncategorized

Cooking for the President: Cora Bolton McBryde’s Cookbook

 

Cora Bolton McBryde's Cookbook
Cora Bolton McBryde’s Cookbook

Cora Bolton McBrydes cookbook is a new treasure of the University Libraries Special Collections Department. The cookbook was a gift of Janet Watson Barnhill, great great granddaughter of President John McLaren McBryde and Cora Bolton McBryde. Known as the Father of the Modern VPI, McBryde served as president of Virginia Tech from 1891, when the institution was called Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College (V.A.M.C.), until 1907.

President John McLaren McBryde ("Papa"), Cora Bolton McBryde ("Mamma"), and family before they moved to Blacksburg.
President John McLaren McBryde (“Papa”), Cora Bolton McBryde (“Mamma”), and family before they moved to Blacksburg. Anna is Janet Watson Barnhill’s grandmother.

 

Born in Richmond, Virginia on August 4, 1839, Cora Bolton, was the daughter of Dr. James Bolton and Anna Maria Harrison. Dr. Bolton was one of the physicians for Robert E. Lee and worked tirelessly in hospital in Richmond during the Civil War. Janet Watson Barnhill wrote, I gather the family took care of many injured patients at home, so I believe she was well suited for the job of being the First Lady” of VPI. I think women are much overlooked in history! Cora Bolton married John McLaren McBryde on November 18, 1863, and they had eight children: Janet McLaren; James Bolton; Anna Marie; John McLaren, Jr.; Charles Neil; Susan McLaren; Meade Bolton; and Waid.

The cookbook consists of recipes in Coral Bolton McBrydes own hand as well as pasted in recipes. Some of the recipes included are:

Apple Scones

Salad dressing

Preserved plums

Grape preserve

Sponge cake

Johnnie Cake

Coffee cake

Salmon croquettes

Donuts

Browned onions

Walnut brown bread

Floras brown bread (a daughter-in-law)

Fish Croquettes

Hamburger roast

Apples with cornstarch

Feather coconut cake

Whole wheat pudding

Aunt Selinas pudding

Belmar Sauce

Because the cookbook was in fragile condition, Special Collections sent it to Etherington Conservation Services in North Carolina for repairs. The treatment included disbinding, deacidification, repair and mending of fragile leaves with Japanese paper, repair of the binding, and reattaching Japanese paper/linen to the text block.

 

Cora Bolton McBryde (second from left), President McBryde (second from the right), and family enjoy a snack
Cora Bolton McBryde (second from left), President McBryde (second from the right), and family enjoy a snack

Plans are afoot to scan the entire cookbook and make it digitally available so everyone can enjoy the recipes. Stay tuned!

 

vtspecblogger International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA), University History

Milka’s Legacy- The Passion for Studying Women in Architecture Lives On

We’ve written several posts in this blog about people and collections related to the International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA). It is one of our major collection areas, after all. But I’ve realized we haven’t actually covered how and why this massive collection came together here at Virginia Tech.

Photo: Milka Bliznakov in a car
Milka Bliznakov, IAWA founder

For this we can thank Milka Bliznakov (1927-2010), the founder of the IAWA. In 1974, Dr. Bliznakov joined the Virginia Tech faculty as a professor emerita of Architecture and Urban Studies. At this time she had already established herself as an international authority on Russian Constructivism and the Avant-garde, and was co-founder of the Institute of Modern Russian Culture, just three years after receiving her PhD in architectural history from Columbia University in 1971.

But getting to that point had not been easy. Born and raised in Bulgaria under Soviet control, she managed to escape in 1959 by bribing someone to smuggle her aboard a Mediterranean cruise boat. She arrived in France with no money or identification and only the clothes she was wearing, and managed to support herself by crocheting items to sell. In 1961 she arrived in the United States and began studying to become an architect.
After nearly a decade of teaching and studying architecture at Virginia Tech, Bliznakov began to turn her focus to women architects themselves. In the United States and many other countries around the world, architecture was still a very male-dominated profession, and very little of women’s contributions to the field had been documented. The idea to create an archive of women architects was inspired by some of Bliznakov’s female students, who had been asking her why, in their five years of architecture study, they had never been exposed to the work of women architects.
In 1985 Bliznakov founded the IAWA, and worked tirelessly over the next decade to research and collect the architectural drawings and papers of women around the world. Today the IAWA collection features the work of hundreds of women and continues to grow. You can browse our IAWA collections here. At her retirement in 1998, the annual Milka Bliznakov Prize was established in her honor, to recognize and promote research that uses the collection to advance knowledge of women’s contributions to architecture and related design fields. The records and projects of past award winners are available as an IAWA collection. Dr. Bliznakov passed away in 2010, but her passion for architecture and the work of women architects will live on for many years to come.

vtspecblogger Local/Regional History, University History

On the 70th Anniversary of D-Day

Jimmie W. Monteith, Jr.

Grave marker of Jimmie Monteith, died Normandy, 6 June 1944
Grave marker of Jimmie Monteith, died Normandy, 6 June 1944

. . . it would not be unusual, on this campus, to focus on the story of Jimmy W. Monteith Jr. He came to Virginia Tech in 1937 from Richmond to study Mechanical Engineering. In October 1941, before completing his studies, Monteith, like many of his contemporaries, joined the armed forces, and by 6 June 1944 had already seen combat in North Africa and Sicily, and was among the thousands of soldiers who had trained for the invasion of France. On that day, as a lieutenant in the 16th Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division, Monteith was among the first to land in Normandy on Omaha Beach. What happened next is summed up in the Citation that accompanied the Medal of Honor awarded to him for the action of that day:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty on 6 June 1944, near Colleville-sur-Mer, France. 1st Lt. Monteith landed with the initial assault waves on the coast of France under heavy enemy fire. Without regard to his own personal safety he continually moved up and down the beach reorganizing men for further assault. He then led the assault over a narrow protective ledge and across the flat, exposed terrain to the comparative safety of a cliff. Retracing his steps across the field to the beach, he moved over to where 2 tanks were buttoned up and blind under violent enemy artillery and machinegun fire. Completely exposed to the intense fire, 1st Lt. Monteith led the tanks on foot through a minefield and into firing positions. Under his direction several enemy positions were destroyed. He then rejoined his company and under his leadership his men captured an advantageous position on the hill. Supervising the defense of his newly won position against repeated vicious counterattacks, he continued to ignore his own personal safety, repeatedly crossing the 200 or 300 yards of open terrain under heavy fire to strengthen links in his defensive chain. When the enemy succeeded in completely surrounding 1st Lt. Monteith and his unit and while leading the fight out of the situation, 1st Lt. Monteith was killed by enemy fire. The courage, gallantry, and intrepid leadership displayed by 1st Lt. Monteith is worthy of emulation.

Monteith is one of seven Virginia Tech alumni who have received this nation’s highest award for valor. But if you want to get beyond the descriptions of war, seek out the manuscript collection that bears his name, the Jimmie W. Monteith Collection, Ms1990-062, in Special Collections and read the letters he wrote home before dying in France, or the letters of condolence and sorrow sent to his mother afterwards.

Letter from Jimmy Monteith to his mother, 14 May 1944, first page

Letter from Jimmy Monteith to his mother, 14 May 1944, first page

In this letter, written home on 14 May 1944, just a little more than two weeks before the invasion, Monteith explains that he can’t always write as often as he might like: “Old Uncle Sam has a way of taking up a fellows time. However we are old soldiers now and we can stand a few hardships without too much grief.” He’s 25 years old at the time and he ends the letter by trying to set his mother’s mind at ease by understanding the difficulty of her situation and downplaying his own:

By the way Mother I know that these are hard times for you. The nerve strain must be afull. Please don’t pay too much attention to the papers and the radio, those people always try go get a scoop or something sensational (or something) and most of the time they don’t know too much what they are talking about. I am sure nerve strain is cracking up more people than this old war is. Please don’t let it happen to you. Love Jimmie

But as I mentioned earlier, it would not be surprising to talk about Monteith on this anniversary. But we would do well to remember the others.

On two occasions in January and September 1945, The Techgram, a publication of the university, presented photographs with brief captions of those alumni who had died in service during the war. Without claiming to be complete, The Techgram shows eight others who died on 6 June or shortly thereafter, the result of wounds received during the invasion:

Fourteen others died in France before the end of August 1944:

I’m guessing it doesn’t matter if you first learned about the Normandy invasion from contemporary newsreels, or from watching The Longest Day (1962) or Band of Brothers (2001) or from reading Clayton Knight’s book for kids, We Were There at the Normandy Invasion (1956), or any of the fine books of scholarly history written since. It might not matter whether your experience is burdened by the brutality of war or enraged by the politics of it, it is hard—in simple human terms—to look at these faces and read a simple sentence or two for each one and not get a bit choked up . . . on this 70th anniversary.