Anthony Wright de Hernandez About Special Collections and University Archives, Civil War, Faculty, University History

Dr. Bud: Life and Legacy of Dr. James I. Robertson, Jr.

written by history graduate assistant Miles A. Abernethy

Introduction

Earlier this month, I completed researching and putting together an exhibit on the professional life and legacy of Dr. James I. Robertson Jr. Known to friends and fans as “Dr. Bud,” Robertson taught Civil War history at Virginia Tech for over forty years, from 1967 to 2011. Even before the term came into vogue, he taught the Civil War like a public historian, seeking to appeal to broad audiences. He achieved this through vivid storytelling, connecting people to the lived experiences of Civil War figures and making events long past seem moving and compelling. His classes at Virginia Tech appealed to all majors and class levels, regularly teaching over one hundred students every semester for most of his time at Tech. Robertson can be said to be part of the university’s growth, especially in the nascent History Department, lending his skills to grow the department as well as the liberal arts broadly. The exhibit covers Robertson’s contribution to the Civil War Centennial Commission, as well as his life and legacy connected to Virginia Tech. I want to share my experience with the collections I used, as well as how I thought about this exhibit, Robertson, and Civil War history in general.

Ironically, I used very little of Dr. Robertson’s own collection (Ms1994-021 James I. Robertson Jr. Papers), and the making of this exhibit was a way for me to identify how the collection can be used, and if it can be expanded. I actually processed a new accession to the collection in 2022 which included his filing system for Virginia units in Confederate service and for Civil War history of Virginia’s counties and cities. In addition, this accession included records on Robertson’s involvement with battlefield preservation, and correspondence with fellow Civil War historians. However, if interested parties want to gain a better understanding of Robertson’s teaching and non-publishing life, they would be disappointed, as the collection is about two-thirds of book drafts for Robertson’s major publications in the 1990s and early 2000s. Luckily, SCUA holds a record group for the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies (RG 21/8 Virginia Center for Civil War Studies), the Civil War academic center that Robertson founded in 1999. This collection contains papers regarding Robertson’s founding and running of VCCWS through his retirement in 2011, as well as documents from outreach events from the 1970s through 2000s. It also has papers concerning Robertson’s tenure as chair of the History Department from 1969 to 1977. It is from this collection that I gathered most of the extant papers and information about Robertson’s professional life at Virginia Tech.

Two other collections proved useful as well. The J. Ambler Johnston Papers (Ms 1974-012) contains correspondence between Johnston and Robertson. Johnston, a 1904 Virginia Tech graduate and career architect, took special interest in Civil War history and communicated regularly with Robertson on the Civil War and on Virginia Tech matters before his death in 1974. Robertson’s biographical Vertical File also proved extremely useful, containing information about Robertson’s perception in the wider Virginia Tech, state, and national community. Helpfully, it also has an article on Robertson’s job as a football referee for the Atlantic Coast Conference, a part of his life that I really wanted information on. While these other collections helped build out the exhibit, they highlight the fact that Robertson’s own collection is severely lacking in information about his non-publishing academic and personal life. What is and isn’t in a collection is the choice of the archivist, the late Robertson, and his living relatives, but as a significant figure in Civil War historiography, public history, and Virginia Tech, we ought to have more information in a centralized collection about him.

James "Bud" Robertson in a referee's uniform.
9 February 1987. Bud Robertson in a referee’s uniform. Gene Dalton. Roanoke Times & World News.

Civil War Centennial Commission

Unfortunately, one of the most impactful episodes of Robertson’s life is essentially absent from the extant archival materials, beyond a few articles and mentions: his work on the Civil War Centennial Commission from 1961-1965. The Civil War Centennial Commission (CWCC) was active from 1957 to 1965, and sought to organize public commemorations of the war’s one-hundredth year. Robert Cook’s Troubled Commemoration (2007) is the current authoritative work on the subject, and focuses on the developments and hurdles faced by the Commission. Conceived by Civil War historians and amateur “buffs,” factions soon emerged in the national and state organizations on the best way to organize events and by what means. Professional historians clamored for a serious and academic remembrance, while business figures argued for more popularly accessible events. Sectional divisions became even more salient as Congressional leaders were appointed to the commission; Northern and Southerners clashed as debates over whose version of Civil War history would prevail. The state commissions, ostensibly under the purview of the national leadership, took their own approaches that varied between the sections.

Tensions came to a head in April 1961 when the CWCC planned to hold its fourth annual conference in Charleston, South Carolina to commemorate the beginning of fighting at Fort Sumter. Officials feared for the safety and inclusion of Madeline Williams, a Black woman on the New Jersey state commission. Segregationist commissioners worked to block Williams’ attendance, in concert with other efforts to block what they saw as revisionism to their “Lost Cause” understanding of the war. With the Commission teetering on failure, President John F. Kennedy stepped in, pressuring the CWCC to meet at desegregated federal military bases. Unwilling to acquiesce to Kennedy’s compromise, many of the staunch segregationists resigned, allowing professional historians to take more active leadership. Leading the revived CWCC were Professors Alan Nevins and James I. Robertson.

Cook characterizes Robertson generally as an effective and straightforward executive that had a genuine interest in telling a serious but appealing story of the Civil War to the American public. Even more important was the pairing of Nevins and Robertson: a Northerner and Southerner respectively, that seemingly balanced any sectional preference that detractors of the CWCC were eager to point out. The Commission’s fortunes soon improved, and Robertsons former professor Bell I. Wiley of Emory noted that he “works hard, maintains a cheerful outlook and wins friends for himself and the Commission by his open cordiality.”1 The new professionalism of the CWCC earned praise from Kennedy, resulting in an awards ceremony with the President in which Robertson was present. The image of both figures is on display in the exhibit.

President John F. Kennedy Accepts Civil War Centennial Commission Medallion
17 April 1962. AR7173-C. President John F. Kennedy Accepts Civil War Centennial Commission Medallion. Abbie Rowe. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston. Public Domain.
Robertson describing his experience helping prepare for the funeral of John F. Kennedy.

Robertson was a product of his time however, and his appointment as the executive director under Alan Nevins was a strategic move to satisfy the worries of the segregationists who feared that the CWCC would become a tool of the Civil Rights Movement. While Cook describes Robertson as genuinely committed to positive civil rights change in the South (albeit at a gradual pace), he recognized that the success of the CWCC required working with conservative Southern commissioners and telegraphing some of their feelings into the national commission. Cook reflects one of these unfortunate moments, as Robertson generally chafed at a request by Nevins and Wiley to write African American soldiers as playing a larger role in winning the war for the Union in a student handbook.2 Despite a conservative historical outlook, Robertson’s work helped cement the centennial as an important historiographic moment. Although the public largely lost interest in the commemorative activities after 1961, the stabilization of the CWCC helped maintain academic and public interest in the Civil War through the twentieth century.

Time at Virginia Tech

I contend that Robertson’s time as a professor at Virginia Tech is his most important contribution to the public vitality of Civil War studies as well as the study of the liberal arts at Virginia Tech. Arriving in 1967, Robertson’s public popularity helped grow the fledgling History Department in its early years. His successful tenure as chair between 1968 and 1977 is indicated by the steady growth of bachelors and masters degrees awarded during that same time, as well as an expansion of history curriculum.3 This is all accomplished while Virginia Tech was, and remains, an engineering and science-focused institution. Robertson’s style of storytelling-teaching attracted history and non-history majors alike, and his wider popularity meant that his Civil War classes were usually attended by hundreds of students. One amusing document that is featured in the exhibit is an October 2000 memo from Associate Vice President Thim Corvin to Robertson concerning the total number of students that had attended Robertson’s classes. Corvin’s office presumably underestimated the number, prompting Robertson to respond with his own personal data that he spent a whole evening compiling, along with some remarks about the effectiveness of Corvin’s people. According to his data, Robertson had taught over twenty thousand students by the late 1990s. If we take that at face value, then by his retirement in 2011, Robertson likely taught over thirty thousand students during his time at Virginia Tech.4

Robertson describes his time teaching at Virginia Tech.

Robertson was a public historian before the term became vogue in history circles, seeking to appeal to broad audiences. In addition to his classes, he organized and led outreach classes and events beginning in the late 1970s. Although classes and lectures had long been part of offerings by Civil War Round Table organizations, Robertson’s partnering of academic prestige with public outreach meant that people who had passing interest in the war or wanted to take a specific course could do so through extension classes. Early organized lectures included the “Campaigning with Lee” series, as well as a featured lecture that Robertson delivered in Squires Student Center in 1979.5 By the early 1990s, steady attendance at these public events prompted Robertson to begin the Civil War Weekend conference in 1992 that continues to this day. Events like these bring the public into spaces with professional historians, enhancing everyday understanding of the Civil War, its meaning, and the historical agents that took part.

Legacies

Dr. Robertson passed away in November 2019, right as I was beginning my time as an undergraduate at Virginia Tech. At that point, I hadn’t decided on a career in Civil War public history and wasn’t really aware of the Civil War history significance of Virginia Tech. I was, however, aware of Dr. Robertson and the emotional connection that he fostered between himself and his students and the war they all studied. I recall meeting people at Civil War Weekends or on online forums that describe the loyalty that he inspired in students, even on a generational level. My father, Robert Abernethy, is a 1990 Virginia Tech graduate and took Dr. Robertson’s Civil War class. We have a signed copy of Robertson’s A.P. Hill: Story of a Confederate Warrior that my dad had signed while he was a student. His academic interest in the war was invigorated by Robertson, and he passed that passion onto me.

Robertson’s professional guidance influenced many historians today. Jonathan Noyalas, a Virginia Tech Masters alumnus who studied under Robertson, is head of the McCormick Civil War Institute at Shenandoah University. Patrick Schroeder, a Virginia Tech student who attended Robertson’s earliest classes, now serves as Historian at Appomattox Court House NHP. Chris Mackowski, author and editor-in-chief of Emerging Civil War noted in a tribute that Robertson instilled in him the confidence and reassurance that newer historians need to stake out on their own.6

Robertson’s work is felt directly at Special Collections and University Archives. His work to donate thousands of Civil War era books and manuscripts has elevated SCUA to one of the largest repositories of Civil War information in the United States. I always like to tell people why I study the Civil War. Plainly put, it is America’s most defining event. Even one hundred and sixty years later, Americans are living out the changes in government, politics, war, and society that the conflict produced. Like the war that he devoted his life to studying, Dr. James I. Robertson has left us a complex legacy, but one that has elevated our understanding and appreciation for the quintessential American experience.

01 September 1986. Virginia Tech history professor, Dr. James Robertson. Bob Veltri. Imagebase. Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.
  1. Robert Cook, Troubled Commemoration: The American Civil War Centennial, 1961–1965 (Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 2007), 218.
  2. Cook, 222.
  3. George G. Shackleford, “Department of History at VPI & SU,” RG 15/13 Department of History.
  4. “Memo to Thim Corvin,” RG 21/8 Virginia Center for Civil War Studies, Box 1, Folder “Student Solicitation.”
  5. “Gone With The Civil War: History that Historians Overlooked” Virginia Tech Union’s “The Not Your Average Lecture Series,” MS 1994-021 James I. Robertson Jr. Papers, Oversize Folder 1.
  6. “Tributes to James I. “Bud” Robertson Jr.,” Virginia Center for Civil War Studies, Accessed November 19, 2024. https://civilwar.vt.edu/tributes-to-james-i-bud-robertson-jr/.
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.

vtspecblogger About Special Collections and University Archives, Faculty, Local/Regional History, Physics

Physics and The Man: Cold War Science and Dr. Robert Marshak

Robert Eugene Marshak was born October 11, 1916 in the Bronx in New York City to Jewish immigrant parents Harry and Rose Marshak. He excelled at school, attending City College of New York for a brief time before finishing his undergraduate degree at Columbia University. He then went on to receive his PhD in Physics from Cornell in 1939. He and his thesis advisor, Hans Bethe, researched the role of fusion in star formation. This work landed him a spot on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos a few years later, where he assisted in the development of atomic weapons technology. Of particular note were his contributions to our understanding of how shock waves behave during high energy events such as nuclear explosions, which led to such waves being known as “Marshak waves”. 

A group photo of physicists from the Shelter Island Conference

After the war, Marshak returned to New York to take up a position in the Physics Department at Rochester University in Rochester. In 1947, as a participant in the Shelter Island Conference, Marshak presented a hypothesis theorizing the existence of a new class of subatomic particle, which was shortly to be confirmed. After becoming head of the University of Rochester Physics Department in 1950, Marshak established the Rochester Conference, now known as the International Conference on High Energy Physics, which still meets to this day. His work on weak interactions was instrumental to establishing the electroweak theory, which won Richard Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann a Nobel Prize. (Note: This statement regarding Feynman and Gell-Mann Nobel Prizes is incorrect. See correction in the comments.)

Marshak stands with a number of others at a Physics conference.

It is unclear what Marshak’s beliefs were before World War II, but, following his work on the Manhattan Project, he became a staunch supporter of open science and an end to the militarization of science and technology. He worked tirelessly to enhance scientific communication, protest nationalist scientific policies, and promote peace. While people who knew him frequently described him as being prickly, arrogant, and difficult to work with, he nevertheless used his position and renown within his field to support and advocate for scientists who found themselves persecuted by their own governments. He maintained an active correspondence with physicists and scientists all over the world and attended conferences, symposia, meetings, and workshops to learn and share his own knowledge. 

 

A letter to Marshak from Albert Einstein.

 

In 1970, he was offered the position of President at City College of New York, which he had once attended. He accepted, and ran the school for 9 years. As time wore on, he found he missed physics and teaching, so in 1979 he took up the position of University Distinguished Professor of Physics at Virginia Tech, where he stayed until his retirement in 1991. In 1983, while at Virginia Tech, he also served a year-long term as President of the American Physical Society, which is the largest organization of American physicists. 

Marshak, dressed in regalia, shakes hands with two other men, also in regalia, as he receives an award.

One incident in particular highlights Marshak’s commitment to scientific freedom and openness.  Andrei Sakharov was a nuclear physicist from the Soviet Union. His life had a similar trajectory to Marshak’s. He too worked on nuclear technology for his country, and he too came to believe that weaponizing science was a sure path to war and destruction. However, his life turned out much differently than Marshak’s. In the 1950’s and 60’s, Sakharov began to advocate for peace and an end to nuclear testing. He became a well-known dissident within his own country, work which would eventually lead to his arrest, exile, and a Nobel Peace Prize. It is during this period where his story intersects with Marshak’s. In Marshak’s papers, one can trace the American’s growing concern with the danger and persecution facing his Soviet colleague, as well as his efforts to bring the situation to the attention of the global community and prevent harm from coming to Sakharov, who by now was known much more for his political actions than for his work as a physicist. Marshak did not face such overt threats, but his support of and communication with Soviet scientists throughout the Cold War period brought him under scrutiny at a time when the specter of communism made any connection to the USSR a dangerous one. He was forced to undergo several investigations by the House Un-American Activities Committee as a result of his work. Despite this, Marshak never stopped being an advocate for the peaceful sharing of science and technology. 

This only skims the surface of Marshak’s papers. The finding aid for his collections can be found here.  

 

This project was supported by a grant from the American Institute of Physics.

LM Rozema African American History, Civil War, Faculty, Local/Regional History, University History

Recently Processed Collections

After a year and a half without student workers onsite due to the pandemic, SCUA finally has a number of students in the department working on a variety of projects! I’m fortunate right now to supervise a couple of them on a number of processing projects in our different collecting areas, including the University Archives, Local/Regional History and Appalachian South, and the American Civil War, among others.

The Records of the Virginia Tech Dean of Students, Henry J. Holtzclaw, RG 8/2a, pertain to the work of Holtzclaw, who was the first person to serve as Dean of Students (also called Dean of Men) at VPI from 1923 to 1924. The collection is predominantly of correspondence between Holtzclaw and others at the university, such as President Julian Burruss, the Athletics Director C.P. Miles, and many other well known names from this time period.

The collection shows the intricacy and detail to which the Dean was involved in the everyday operations of the university. Holtzclaw helped develop the timetable and schedule of classes as well as the annual catalog. He oversaw the students’ attendance, handling requests for resigning from the university and their discipline in relation to hazing, poor grades, and rules violations. Dean Holtzclaw was also involved with the student organizations. One item of particular interest relates an incident when the Corps of Cadets was called to help put out a fire in town.

Letter from Henry F. Holtzclaw to President J. A. Burruss, regarding a hazing incident, October 15, 1923, from the Records of the Dean of Students, Henry F. Holtzclaw, RG 8/2a
Letter from Henry F. Holtzclaw to Dean H.L. Price, regarding the annual catalog curricula, December 14, 1923, from the Records of the Dean of Students, Henry F. Holtzclaw, RG 8/2a
Letter from Henry F. Holtzclaw to President J.A. Burruss, regarding the corps responding to a fire, January 14, 1924, from the Records of the Dean of Students, Henry F. Holtzclaw, RG 8/2a
Letter from Henry F. Holtzclaw to Professor B.H. Van Oot, regarding the potential jobs for students, February 7, 1924, from the Records of the Dean of Students, Henry F. Holtzclaw, RG 8/2a
Letter from Henry F. Holtzclaw to President Julian A. Burruss, regarding the Horticultural Society, May 2, 1924, from the Records of the Dean of Students, Henry F. Holtzclaw, RG 8/2a

The Records of the Lee Literary Society, RG 31/14/11, and the Records of the Maury Literary Society, RG 31/14/12, contain the records and ephemera of the societies from 1873 to 1929. The two student organizations split from the first student group at VAMC, the Virginia Literary Society, and they co-published the Gray Jacket, one of the first student publications.

The Theodore Winthrop Papers, Ms2021-004, contains items by and about Winthrop, who has the distinction of being the first Union officer killed in the American Civil War. Winthrop served on the staff of General Benjamin Butler, when he was killed at the Battle of Big Bethel in Virginia on June 10, 1861.

Signature of Theodore Winthrop from the Theodore Winthrop Papers, Ms2021-004
Signature of Theodore Winthrop from the Theodore Winthrop Papers, Ms2021-004

Draft of poem, p. 1, by Theodore Winthrop from the Theodore Winthrop Papers, Ms2021-004
Draft of poem, p. 2, by Theodore Winthrop from the Theodore Winthrop Papers, Ms2021-004

While only one item, the Virginia Tax Receipt, Ms2021-009, is a unique document from 1859 as it identifies a freedman’s tax payments for Peter Logan of Chesterfield, Virginia. Looking through the records on Ancestry.com, Peter Logan (ca. 1810-1880) is a Black shoemaker from Chesterfield County, Virginia.

Virginia Tax Receipt for Peter Logan, 1859, Ms2021-009
Virginia Tax Receipt for Peter Logan, 1859, Ms2021-009

The Southwest Virginia Photograph Album, Ms2021-014, document a local family’s life in Virginia, including a visit to VPI, and the Danville Photograph Album, Ms2021-015, depict nurses and doctors at a hospital in Danville, Virginia.

The Blacksburg Lions Club Records, Ms2021-022, document the work of the local Lions Club, primarily their charitable work with eye and ear diseases. We also received a number of music books, mostly men’s choral music and a couple Lions Club books, which will be added to the Rare Book Collection.

Some other collections recently processed:

jojacks2 Architecture, Faculty, Just for Fun, Uncategorized

Season’s Greetings from the Elarths and Friends

If your bloggers mailbox is an accurate barometer of popular culture, it seems the days of the holiday greeting card are steadily waning. With social media and email keeping us in constant contact with even the most distant acquaintances, many no longer feel the need to buy a card, write a brief note in it, and post it in the mail. To be sure, there are still those among us who send dozens of cards a year, but as a whole, we seem to be sending fewer cards. There was a time, though, in the not-so-distant past, when the holiday greeting card was an annual rite for many.

Unless they include lengthy personal messages, greeting cards are generally of little research value in a manuscript collection. The addresses on the envelopes can help in establishing a persons whereabouts at a particular time or in simply confirming that two people were acquainted, but for the most part, greeting cards are of little interest to researchers. An exception is when a greeting card includes personal information on the senders activities or when the card is handcrafted. In the manuscript collections of Herschel and Wilhelmina Elarth (Ms1969-004 and Ms1984-182), a number of handcrafted cards from professional artists can be found. If, like me, youre seeing a dearth of greeting cards in your mailbox, you may enjoy a look at a few of these unique cards.

But first, a bit of background on the couple in whose collections these cards are found:

Born in Rochester, New York, Wilhelmina van Ingen (1905-1969) was the daughter of Hendrik van Ingen, a well-known architect, and the granddaughter of Henry van Ingen, a painter of the Hudson River School (and perhaps the subject of a future blog post). After graduating from Vassar in 1926, Wilhelmina earned a masters degree in art history and classical archaeology from Radcliffe College. She later earned her doctoral degree at Radcliffe and taught art history at Wheaton College.

In 1942, Wilhelmina married Herschel Elarth (1907-1988), a professor of architecture at the University of Oklahoma. The couple moved to Canada in 1947, and both taught at the University of Manitoba. In 1954, Herschel accepted a position at Virginia Tech, and the Elarths moved to Blacksburg. While Herschel taught, Wilhelmina remained active with the American Association of University Women, the Blacksburg Regional Art Association, and the Associated Endowment Fund of the American School of Classical Studies.

Elarth001 The Professors Elarth

With their backgrounds in art, it’s of little surprise that the Elarths would have created their own cards, rather than purchasing them at a store:

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Even before they were married, Wilhelmina and Herschel sent personally crafted Christmas cards to friends and family. In the examples above, we can see Wilhelmina drawing on her background in classical studies for her 1932 card, while Herschels 1928 card displays his interest in architecture and statuary.

After their marriage, the Elarths continued to make and send their own cards:

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The Elarths 1946 card (top) featured a woodblock print of an imposing gothic cathedral, while their 1954 card (bottom), a simple pen-and-ink sketch sent during their first Christmas in Blacksburg, reflected an appreciation for the natural beauty of their newfound home.

Their mutual interest in art led the Elarths to maintain a wide circle of friends in the art world, and they regularly traded holiday greetings with a number of their artistic friends. Many of these cards reflect the style and development of the individual artist.

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Elarth010

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Among the Elarths longtime friends were Richard and Peggy Bowman, whom they likely met while Richard Bowman was teaching at the University of Manitoba. An abstract painter, Bowman is credited with being among the first artists to use fluorescent paint in fine art. Among the cards sent by the Bowmans are two woodblock prints and an original abstract painting. As the Herschel Elarth collection contains other examples of Peggy Bowmans poetry, we can assume that she provided the brief poems in the two cards above. The painting at bottom, meanwhile, illustrates Richard Bowmans use of fluorescent paints.

Elarth012

Herschel Elarth likely met painter and muralist Eugene Kingman through the Joslyn Art Museum (Omaha, Nebraska), of which Kingman served as director and Elarth helped design. For many years, Kingman annually sent the Elarths a card bearing a woodblock print he’d made of a rural Nebraska scene, like this one from 1946.

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Painter and printmaker William Ashby Bill McCloy (1913-2000) and his wife Patricia (Patty) also remembered the Elarths at the end of each year. The couple incorporated Bill McCloys work into limited-print cards, including those above: an untitled, undated print; The Greeting, (#17 of 65 limited prints), 1961; and an untitled 1958 print (#48 of 100 printed). (“Pax vobiscum nunc” translates from the Latin as “peace to you, now.”)

Canadian painter Takao Tak Tanabe (1926- ) was also likely an acquaintance of the Elarths from their time in Manitoba, Tanabe having been a student at the Winnipeg School of Art from 1946 to 1949. Tanabe sent the Elarths a number of beautiful cards through the years. Though he later became known for his paintings of British Columbia landscapes, the work displayed in his cards from the 1950s is much more abstract.

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Takao Tanabes 1951 card opens to reveal an abstract rendition of New York City skyscrapers. At the time, Tanabe was studying at the Brooklyn Museum School of Art.

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An abstract Christmas tree is featured in this undated card from Tanabe.

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This undated card from Tanabe included an original work entitled “Mother and Child” on a canvas panel.

Elarth002Elarth003

One of the most unusual cards received by the Elarths is this selection from architect Caleb Hornbostel and family. In it, the architect plays with the card form by using it to provide recipients with instructions on building a model of a home he had designed.

Both Elarth collections contain much more than greeting cards. The Herschel Gustave Anderson Elarth Papers contain his artwork, materials relating to his teaching career, several of his more significant architectural projects, and his experiences in the 826th Engineer Aviation Battalion during World War II. You can view the collections finding aid here. The Wilhelmina van Ingen Elarth Papers, meanwhile, contain her extensive diaries (including those maintained while traveling in Europe), a substantial postcard collection, artwork of her father and grandfather, and a few pieces of ancient Aegean and pre-Columbian artifacts. More information may be found here, in the collections finding aid.

Anthony Wright de Hernandez Faculty, Local/Regional History, University History

Native Voices: or, The History of Whitepeople

OnSeptember 16, 2016, Newman Library beganhosting the Native Voices: Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness exhibit. The exhibit was developed and produced by the U.S. National Library of Medicine and came here as part of a tour put together by the American Library Association’s Public Programs Office. It will remainon display in the library’s 2nd floor commons until October 25 when it will leave us to continue its tour.

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The Native Voices exhibit on display in Newman Library

This post isn’t really about the exhibit. If you want to know more about it,The National Library of Medicine has a website with tons of info. The reason I mention the exhibit is that it prompted me to look through our collections for items that would complement the exhibit and be appropriate to highlight during Native American Heritage Month (October 10 – November 15). I managed to find some interesting items in our collection of Michael Two Horses’s papers (Ms2006-001). They aren’t spot on with the focus of the exhibit but I think they are worth sharing – especially considering that Banned Books Week happened recently.

Michael Two Horses was a visiting professor at Virginia Tech from fall 2003 until his unexpected death in December 2003. He was affiliated with the Sicangu Lakota and theWahpekute Dakota.During his time at Virginia Tech he taught as part of the American Indian Studies program, the Humanities Program, and served onthe Commission on Equal Opportunity and Diversity. We acquired two boxes worth of his papers following his death including academic and personal writings, research for the classes he taught, the transcript of an oral history he gave, various writing samples, and some artwork.

When I was reviewing the materials in this collection looking for something to share, I came across a letter he wrote in response to an email while he was a professor at the University of Arizona. The initial email took umbrage at some of the texts Professor Two Horses was using in one of his classes. His response was eloquent and well presented. After reading it, I checked and we have copies of all three texts included in the collection! I want to share the letter and show you thetexts that prompted the complaints.

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This is the complaint that was submitted to the American Indian Studies program at the University of Arizona. There is a handwritten note from “Shelly” to see her about the email.

Professor Two Horses’s response was a little over two pages in length.As Professor Two Horses indicated in his response, the texts were used to illustrate how elementary texts incorporate stereotypes about Native Americans. These texts illustrate to students howthose texts appear to Native American students.

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Page 1 of Michael Two Horses’s response.

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Page 2 of Michael Two Horses’s response.

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Page 3 of Michael Two Horses’s response.

 

 

WARNING: Reading the first two texts can provide a bit of a jolt for Caucasian Americans because (a) theyaren’t used to being identified with any sort of modifier (they’re normally just “Americans”), and (b)theyaren’t used to reading about themselves in this type of tone. When reading, be sure to think about children’s books about Native Americans – these are spot on parodies of them.

First up: The Basic Skills Caucasian American Workbook

The cover includes a “special” Caucasian symbol: the $. It is used to illustrate how cultural symbols can be taken out of context because they look interesting.
The Acknowledgements page is a perfect parody of acknowledgements for this type of book.
A sample of one of the first sections of the book.

Book 2: 10 Little Whitepeople: A Counting Rhyme

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Here’s the cover of the second book: “10 Little Whitepeople”.It isalso embellished with dollar signs as illustration.

Book 3: The Truth About Columbus: A Subversively True Poster Book for a Dubiously Celebratory Occasion

Cover of The Truth About Columbus.
An image from the book showing all the different things covered.

Professor Two Horses’s comments about the third book just speak to the research that has been done into the history of Christopher Columbus and the fact that most American schools taughta limited scope on the subject.

I hope glimpsing these challenged titles was enjoyable for you and made you think a little about the Native American perspective. If you want to see everything they have to offer, we have all three among many other interesting papers from Michael Two Horses in the Michael Two Horses Collection (Ms2006-001). We would be happy to share them withyou in our Reading Room.

LM Rozema Faculty, University History

The Life and Art of G. Preston Frazer

G. Preston Frazer in 1969
G. Preston Frazer, 1969 (Walter Gropius/G. Preston Frazer Papers, Ms1992-052)

Recently, we were relocating some large paintings for an exhibit in Special Collections, and as I researched the artist, I felt he deserved a spotlight here. The artist is G. Preston Frazer (1908-2003), an Associate Professor of Art at Virginia Tech from 1939 until 1974. Frazer graduated from Virginia Military Institute with a B.A. in Liberal Arts in 1929, before earning a B.S. in Engineering from the University of Hawaii in 1935. Two years later, Frazer received a master’s degree in Architecture from Harvard University.

Cover of Frazer's Six Pencil Drawings of Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.
Cover of Frazer’s Six Pencil Drawings of Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.,1939 (G. Preston Frazer Collection, Ms2009-098)

Frazer began focusing his career on art, following work at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute and the Megiddo Expedition in Palestine. In 1939, he published Sixteen Pencil Impressions of Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A., inspired by his time in the then-territory. That year, he also began teaching in the architectural engineering department at Virginia Tech, but left to serve with the Second Armored Division of the U.S. Army during World War II, participating in the Normandy landings on D-Day. Upon leaving the military in 1946, Frazer had reached Major in the General Staff Corps and earned the Belgium Fourragere (twice), the French Medal of Liberty, and a Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster. He served in the Army Reserves until retiring at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 1968.

Returning to Virginia Tech in 1946, Frazer taught art in today’s College of Architecture and Urban Studies until his retirement in 1974. The university established the G. Preston Frazer Prize, awarded annually to art graduates, and the College continues to award students for their work in the G. Preston Frazer Architecture Fund/Architecture 2nd Year Competition.

One of the paintings by Frazer that Special Collections displayed is Hercules Shooting the Stymphalian Birds (photograph from exhibit below). A letter in the G. Preston Frazer Collection (Ms2009-098) explains where the idea came from: “One of my favorite sculptures is an archer shooting a bow – The large life size one by Bourdelle is in the Metropolitan, NY. I went to see it every time I was in NY, and I named it ‘Hercules Shooting the Stymphalian Birds.'” (You can see this sculpture online on the museum’s website, also below.) He continues, “I painted (oil on canvas) a figure (life size [-] Mike Sr, was the model) – of ‘Hercules Shooting the Stymphalian Birds’ (a canvas about 5 ft. by 8 ft.)”

Herakles the Archer by Antoine-mile Bourdelle from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Hercules Shooting the Stymphalian Birds by G. Preston Frazer

Frazer worked on the painting from his studio overlooking Virginia Tech, where students would visit to see his projects. He recounts a funny incident during his painting, “One of the students who came in saw the buildings and said ‘Oh, that is Burress Hall, V.P.I. I hope Hercules shoots it & burns it down! (said jokingly of course.) It was in the Joan [sic] Fonda anti-establishment, anti-war period, etc. I explained that Hercules was shooting the Stymphalian Birds. Hercules’s labors were good deeds. Hence instead of just shooting the Bow, he was destroying Birds which were enemies of Humans!!”

In addition to Hercules and the aforementioned G. Preston Frazer Collection (Ms2009-098), Special Collections has a painting Frazer made of Icarus and the Walter Gropius/G. Preston Frazer Papers (Ms1992-052), with photographs and correspondence between Frazer and Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus School. The G. Preston Frazer Artwork (Ms1992-055) contains a beautiful sketchbook of scenes in Spain in 1953 and several artworks. For your viewing pleasure, I end this post with a few of those pieces, including scenes from Blacksburg and the Virginia Tech campus. More can be seen on online at ImageBase.

Sketch of Main Street in Blacksburg, Virginia by G. Preston Frazer
Sketch of Virginia Tech by G. Preston Frazer
Church in Blacksburg, Virginia (sketch) by G. Preston Frazer
McBryde Hall (sketch) by G. Preston Frazer

LM Rozema African American History, Faculty, University History

Climbing the Water Tower: How Women Went from Intruders to Leaders at Virginia Tech

In the early 1920s, the first female students at Virginia Tech were not quite welcome. They had special rules to follow, there were no dormitories for women, and male students would throw water on them as they passed by the dorms. But one day, Ruth Terrett, a civil engineering student, decided to show the men she could do just as well as them. She donned a cadet uniform and climbed the university’s water tower, a tradition the male cadets undertook to prove their strength and ability. That day, Ruth proved that women, when given the chance, could do what men could.

Women throughout Virginia Tech’s history have encountered many obstacles, and have consistently overcome them. Sam Winn and I recently searched through Special Collections’ holdings to document these women and their achievements in the university’s history. Our work culminated in an exhibit at the Alumni Associations Women’s Weekend and a slideshow, entitled “Climbing the Water Tower: How Women Went from Intruders to Leaders at Virginia Tech.” Let me share with you a few of those milestones now, or you can view the PDF of our slideshow here.

Women join the student population

Many people know the story of the first female students: twelve women, including five full-time students, enrolled in 1921. Two years later, transfer student Mary Brumfield received a bachelor’s in applied biology, earning her master’s from VPI in 1925, the first woman to achieve either degree. But, did you know women began attending VPI several years earlier? They were allowed to sit in courses during the fall and spring for no credit and were admitted to summer classes, starting in 1916. 1921 was still a milestone year as it was the first all courses were open to women seeking a college degree, because there was “no good reason for not doing so,” as the university bulletin states.

First female graduates: Mary Ella Carr Brumfield (23; 25); Ruth Louise Terrett (25); Lucy Lee Lancaster (25); Lousie Jacobs (25); Carrie Taylor Sibold (25)
First female graduates: Mary Ella Carr Brumfield (’23; ’25); Ruth Louise Terrett (’25); Lucy Lee Lancaster (’25); Lousie Jacobs (’25); Carrie Taylor Sibold (’25)

The first coeds, it must be admitted, were more than likely all white, given that segregation was legal due to Jim Crow laws and the Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) upholding separate but equal racial segregation in the public sphere. It’s not clear when women of color were first admitted to the university, but international students from Mexico, China, Puerto Rico, and other places were already attending VPI by the 1920s. However, it wasn’t until 1966 that the first six African American women matriculated, thirteen years after the first African American man and 55 years after the first women. In 1968, Linda Adams became the first African American woman to graduate from Virginia Tech. (Read more about her on our previously blog post.)

There wasn’t much for women to do athletically in the early years, so Ruth Terrett, mentioned above, started an informal women’s basketball team before graduating in 1925. Women joined the cheerleading team in 1941, but were not officially recognized as members until the 1955-1956 school year. The first intramural women’s sport was basketball in 1967. Three years later, swimming became the first intercollegiate sport for women, and women were allowed to compete on the gymnastics team.

Because the Corps of Cadets did not admit women, Patricia Ann Miller was denied permission to enroll in Corps classes. Despite this, in 1959, she became the first woman commissioned during graduation when she successfully applied for a commission from the Army Women’s Medical Specialist Corps. Finally, in 1973, the Corps formed the L Squadron, exclusively for female cadets. Deborah J. Noss became the first female squadron commander and Cheryl A. Butler the first Black female cadet (and first Black female squadron leader the next year). In 1975, women were admitted to join the cadet band, and four years later, the L Squadron was disbanded to order to integrate women into the formerly all-male companies. In 1987, Denise Shuster became the first female regimental commander and in 2005, Christina Royal the first African American female regimental commander.

Female students who were not athletes or cadets had other ways of breaking the glass ceiling. In 1953, Betty Delores Stough became the first woman to receive a doctorate, in parasitology. Jean Harshbarger was the first woman elected class president for the Class of 1974. In 1968, Jaqueline D. Dandridge was the first woman of color in the homecoming court, and Marva L. Felder became the first Black homecoming queen in 1983.

Women join the workforce

What about the women working at VPI? Ella Agnew is often remembered as the first female home demonstration agent in the nation in 1910. When VPI became the headquarters for the Virginia Cooperative Extension in 1914, Agnew and the other agents became staff of the university. Agnew was also the first woman to receive VPI’s Certificate of Merit in 1926, and Agnew Hall was the first campus building named after a woman, in 1949. However, few realize she was not the first woman to work at Tech. In 1902, Frances Brockenbrough became Superintendent of the Infirmary, and the next year Mary G. Lacy became the first female Librarian and Margaret Spencer the President’s Secretary.

Other female agents worked for Extension during its early years at the university. In fact, although the African American division was headquartered at Hampton Institute, the agents were considered non-resident staff of VPI, first listed in the 1917 university catalog. One of these women was Lizzie Jenkins, who became the first Black female home demonstration agent in Virginia in 1913.

Women faculty members are first listed in the university catalog for 1921-1922. Mary Moore Davis ranked as a professor and worked as a state home demonstration agent in the Extension Division. She also established the home economics degree program at VPI. The first Dean of Women was Mildred Tate, who served from 1937 to 1947, and the first female academic dean was Laura Jean Harper, who in 1960 became the first Dean of the School of Home Economics. (Read more about her on our previously blog post.) Heidi Ford in 1970, Ella L. Bates in 1974, and Johnnie Miles in 1974 became the first female African American faculty members at Virginia Tech.

Women began achieving executive positions in the 1980s and 1990s. Sandra Sullivan was named Vice President for Student Affairs in 1982, and Peggy S. Meszaros served as the first (and currently only) female Provost from 1995 to 2000. Women started serving on the Board of Visitors in 1944, when VPI and Radford College merged. However in 2014, Deborah L. Petrine became the first female Rector in the university’s then 142-year history.

Women by the numbers

Virginia Tech has gone through enormous changes since its founding in 1872, especially in the growth of opportunities for women. Women on the staff have grown from one female administrative officer in 1902 to five women faculty members (only 4.7% of the faculty) in 1921 to 1,525 or 39.5% of the faculty in 2014. The student population has grown from 12 women or 1.3% of the students in 1921 to 13,241 women or 42.4% of the student population in 2014.

According to the Digest of Education Statistics, in Fall 2013, women accounted for 54.6% of enrolled students, 48.8% of faculty, and 54.5% of total employees (including faculty) in degree-granting public institutions in the U.S. However, the Digest also shows that women received only 30.8% of the degrees conferred by STEM schools in 2012-2013. So, as far as women have come, there’s still more to do.

 

Updated 10/28/2021: A reference to Kamini Mohan Patwary (M.S., 1955) was removed, as the information could not be confirmed.

jojacks2 Faculty, Science and Engineering

The Legacies of A. B. Massey

Arthur Ballard Massey arrived in Blacksburg in 1918, ready to assume his duties as associate professor of plant pathology and bacteriology at Virginia Tech and as a researcher with the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station. Just 29 years old, the Albemarle County native had already served as an instructor of botany at Clemson University for three years and as assistant botanist at the Alabama Agricultural Research Station for five. His tenure at Virginia Tech would span 40 years.

A. B. Massey, 1968
A. B. Massey, 1968

Educational requirements for careers in academia were not as stringent a century ago as they are today, and despite holding only a bachelors degree until 1928, Massey devoted most of his first decade at Virginia Tech to instruction. He taught all of the university’s bacteriology courses until 1924, and in that year was assigned to teaching full-time. In 1935, Massey became a botanist in the Virginia Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, a position he would hold until his 1959 retirement; Masseys duties during these years became much more focused on research rather than instruction.

In a 1992 biographical sketch, Professor Curtis W. Roane wrote, “One might describe Massey as a complete botanist. He taught and conducted research in many phases of botany but he excelled in the taxonomy of Virginia flowering plants and will be most remembered for his collections and records of this flora.” Massey found the universitys herbarium to be a particularly useful teaching tool, and during his tenure, the herbarium steadily expanded. Massey is credited with adding 25,000 specimens to the collection, and in recognition of his contributions, the herbarium today bears his name.

While serving as chair of the Virginia Academy of Science’s Flora Committee, Massey cofounded the botanical journal Claytonia, a forerunner of today’s Virginia Journal of Science, and he worked with colleagues from the University of Virginia in establishing the Mountain Lake Biological Station. Perhaps most significantly among his accomplishments, Massey added greatly to the literature on the commonwealth’s flora, publishing such works as The Ferns and Fern Allies of Virginia (1944), Orchids in Virginia (1953), and Poisonous Plants in Virginia (1954).

In addition to several of these publications, Special Collections holds the Arthur B. Massey Papers (Ms1962-002). Among the papers are a number of essays and other works written by Massey and others on various botanical subjects. The collection also contains photographs and lists of trees on the Virginia Tech campus, valuable resources for studies of the campuss arboreal history and landscape development.

Within Masseys papers is this photo of an ivy-covered American chestnut in front of old McBryde Hall, ca. 1920. The tree would eventually be killed by the blight that decimated the chestnut population nationwide.
Within Masseys papers is this photo of an ivy-covered American chestnut in front of old McBryde Hall, ca. 1920. The tree would eventually be killed by the nationwide blight that decimated the chestnut population.

 

Also among the papers is an undated essay by Massey titled “Wild Flower Conservation.” In it, the botanist warns that exploitation has endangered a number of native wildflower species:

We have inherited, to a large degree, the notion that the native plants growing in the fields, meadows, and woodlands, the great out-of-doors, are there for the first to come (first come, first served, never mind who follows). Thoughtful Americans are awakening to the realization that some of our most interesting native plants are becoming rare and well nigh on to extinction… By education and example we need to develop a wild flower consciousness and a true interest in their conservation.

Page one of Masseys undated essay on wildflower conservation, probably intended for publication in Virginia Journal of Science.
Page one of Masseys undated essay on wildflower conservation, probably intended for publication in Virginia Journal of Science.

Though the conservation of natural resources was no new concept at the time (the American conservation movement having its roots in the late 19th century), the paper was written years before conservation would enter the mainstream of American consciousness, and it shows a growing realization among naturalists that valuable species were being irrevocably lost to careless overharvesting. While Masseys little essay is hardly a landmark in environmental thought, it expresses views that the professor undoubtedly shared with students through instruction and with peers and the public at large through his writings and outreach, influencing the viewpoints of those he taught.

Here in the New River Valley, were fortunate to live in a region of abundant biodiversity. Though the landscape has altered dramatically since the arrival of the first Euro-American settlers, it remains in large part a healthy ecosystem. The preservation of this ecosystem remains the living legacy of A. B. Massey and the many naturalists like him who have encouraged us to learn about, to engage with, and to value the living things that we see around us every day. Thats something to keep in mind as we venture outdoors and enjoy the colorful changes that spring brings to the surrounding fields and woods.

And if youre unable to get outside, pay us a visit, and well be happy to pull some of the many books we have on the subject of flora (local, national, and elsewhere), a small, colorful sampling from which you can see below:

 

LM Rozema Faculty, New Acquisitions, University History

John Redd Hutcheson, 9th President of Virginia Tech

Dr. John Redd Hutcheson
Portrait of Dr. John Redd Hutcheson, circa 1940s, from the John R. Hutcheson Family Collection, Ms2015-001

Recently, Special Collections received a new collection, the John R. Hutcheson Family Collection, containing letters, newspaper clippings, photographs, and more documenting the life of Virginia Tech president John R. Hutcheson.

Although only president of Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI, as Virginia Tech was then known) for two years from 1945 to 1947, John Redd Hutcheson (1886-1962) devoted himself to serving his alma mater and the people of Virginia. He enrolled at VPI in 1903 at the behest of his brother Tom. In order to pay for college, the brothers lived in the dairy barn on the college farm, where they milked 17 cows a night for 8 cents an hour each (roughly $2.15 an hour in 2015!) After saving his earnings, Hutcheson moved into the barracks and then waited tables in the school dining hall. He received a bachelor’s degree in 1907 and master’s in 1909.

Following several years teaching high school in Virginia and Mississippi, Hutcheson received a letter from Joseph D. Eggleston, VPI president and director of the Virginia Agricultural Extension Service (now Virginia Cooperative Extension), urging Hutcheson to join his staff. He accepted, becoming an animal husbandry specialist in 1914. In 1917, Hutcheson was appointed assistant director and two years later succeeded Eggleston as director of the Extension. Over the next 25 years, Hutcheson helped to organize the Virginia Farm Bureau and Virginia Agricultural Conference Board, to reestablish the Virginia State Grange, and to develop a long-range program for developing the state’s agriculture. All of his work developing the farm and home demonstration program in Virginia earned Hutcheson an honorary doctorate from Clemson University in 1937, along with his brother Tom, VPI professor T.B. Hutcheson.

"Clemson's First Honorary Degrees Go to Hutcheson Brothers of V.P.I."
Article entitled “Clemson’s First Honorary Degrees Go to Hutcheson Brothers of V.P.I.”, about John R. and T.B. Hutcheson, May 12, 1937, from the John R. Hutcheson Family Collection, Ms2015-001

In 1944, the Board of Visitors appointed Dr. Jack (as Hutcheson was affectionately known) acting president of VPI, and the next year he succeeded Dr. Julian A. Burruss as the ninth president. During his tenure, the student population swelled following the end of World War II, and he was responsible for making accommodations for the new civilian population (made up almost entirely of veterans), who outnumbered the cadet students for the first time in VPI’s history. Temporary trailer courts were established on campus to house the veterans, and Dr. Jack would personally visit them to ensure they had fuel for their homes.

"Dr. John R. Hutcheson Named President of Virginia [Polytechnic Institute]"
Article discusses the nomination of John R. Hutcheson as V.P.I. president, Roanoke Times, August 15, 1945, from the John R. Hutcheson Family Collection, Ms2015-001

The enormity of his duties necessitated the creation new executive positions during Dr. Hutcheson’s presidency. He created the office of admissions, director of student affairs, director of buildings and grounds, and a university business manager position. The Board of Visitors, at Dr. Jack’s suggestion, appointed Walter S. Newman as the university’s first vice president – all within two years!

Page 2 of obituary for John R. Hutcheson, [January 1962], from the John R. Hutcheson Family Collection, Ms2015-001
Page 2 of obituary for John R. Hutcheson, [January 1962], from the John R. Hutcheson Family Collection, Ms2015-001

"Former VPI President Diest at 76"
Page 1 of obituary for John R. Hutcheson, [January 1962], from the John R. Hutcheson Family Collection, Ms2015-001
Unfortunately, just 16 months into his presidency, Hutcheson entered the hospital and had to take sick leave. Newman became acting president until Sept. 1947, when he succeeded Hutcheson. Simultaneously, the Board of Visitors elected Dr. Jack as the first chancellor of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the next year named him the first president of the newly formed VPI Educational Foundation, Inc. (now the Virginia Tech Foundation, Inc.) Dr. Jack remained chancellor until 1956 and president of the foundation until his death in 1962.

The legacy of Dr. Hutcheson’s tenure at Virginia Tech is still visible today from the continuing work of the Virginia Cooperative Extension to the numerous offices he created still operating. And of course, you can visit Hutcheson Hall on the Blacksburg Campus, dedicated to John R. and T. B. Hutcheson in 1956.

Look for the completed finding aid in the next week for the John R. Hutcheson Family Collection, Ms2015-001. In the meantime, you can find out more about Dr. Jack in the John Redd Hutcheson Papers, RG 2/9 and Edgemont Farm Papers, Ms2003-022, documenting the administration of the Hutcheson family farm.

(This post was updated Jan. 12, 2021, with a link to John R. Hutcheson Family Collection, Ms2015-001.)