Later this week, from October 16-18, Virginia Tech will be celebrating the installation of our 16th President, Timothy Sands. There will be a wide variety of events taking place around campus, all of which you can read about online:http://www.president.vt.edu/installation/index.html. This is exciting in and of itself, but we’re very proud to say that Special Collections has been invited to participate, too! On Saturday morning from 9am-12pm at the Inn at Virginia Tech, there’s going to be a showcase called “Experience Virginia Tech: Learn, Explore, Engage” (the schedule is online:http://www.president.vt.edu/installation/experience-virginia-tech.html). The showcase will includethree-hour event featuring panel discussions, presentations, hands-on demonstrations, and talks by Virginia Tech’s master teachers. The event includes a series of “Living on Earth” displays: ” Water, Water, Everywhere,” “Food, Glorious Food,” and “Energy, Efficient and Sustainable,” wewill be there with materials from the History of Food and Drink Collection! If you’re in the Blacksburg area, we would encourage you to come out to any or all of the events. And if you attend the showcase, be sure to seek us out! We’ll be there to sharingthe History of Food and Drink Collection through original books and manuscripts, a digital display of images, the opportunity toviewthe culinary history blog, and an archivist or two on hand to talk about our collections and department!
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.
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!
Remembering the Forestry and Wildlife Conservation Programs at V.P.I.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Ill-fated Voyage of the U.S.S. Jeannette, 1879-1881
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.
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.
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.
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.
George Melville arrived in New York on 13 September 1882 and brought De Longs papers, journals, and personal effects to his widow, Emma.
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:
Seeds of the Past
This week Virginia Tech marked the 100th anniversary of Virginia’s Cooperative Extension program. In addition to events on campus and in the library, special collections created an exhibit of original materials related to Virginia Tech’s role in Cooperative Extension. But the story of state outreach to Virginia’s farmers goes back even further.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the General Education Board (sponsored by John D. Rockefeller) led a nationwide agricultural extension and demonstration movement. In Virginia, the board designated Hollis B. Frissell, head of the Hampton Institute, to organize demonstration work for African American farmers, and Joseph D. Eggleston Jr., the state superintendent of public instruction, to bring the demonstration program to white farmers. The genesis of this statewide effort came at a Richmond meeting in 1906, with a number of influential politicians, university presidents, businessmen, and agricultural experts in attendance. At this meeting T.O. Sandy accepted the offer to be the state’s first extension agent for white farmers.
In early 1907, Sandy opened an extension office in Burkeville to serve farmers in adjoining counties. In February, the General Education Board awarded Virginia $4,500 for demonstration work and appointed Sandy as state agent. Sandy hired agents to begin the outreach efforts and recruited farmers to participate in extension programs. The farmers agreed to tend a small plot, typically of less than five acres, and worked with agents to develop husbandry plans and follow budgets.
In 1914 the Smith-Lever Act assigned oversight of nationwide extension and demonstration programs to the Department of Agriculture. At that time, Virginia Tech became the designated institution to coordinate the state’s Cooperative Extension service. In 1916, Sandy moved the extension office to Blacksburg. Despite all of the changes and advances of the past 100 years, Cooperative Extension continues its mission of outreach, sharing information, and improving the lives of farmers.
Before the Cooperative Extension program, Americans received information about what to grow and how to grow it in a variety of ways. Many farmers relied on past traditions and resisted new practices, while others bought more modern equipment and cultivated new crops. One important source of information on new agricultural advances came from seed companies. Mail order seed businesses thrived at the turn of the twentieth century. The heavily illustrated and information rich trade catalogs appealed to both farmers and Americans who wanted a backyard vegetable garden or fruit orchard. Receiving seeds through the mail, rather than by traveling dozens of miles to a town, was an important convenience for farmers.
Special collections has a number of early twentieth century seed catalogs, featuring descriptions and colorful images of fruits, vegetables, and other crops. It is fitting that the same week Virginia Tech celebrated 100 years of Cooperative Extension, the department acquired a new seed catalog from 1903. The catalog comes from the Harry N. Hammond Seed Company, based in Bay City, Michigan, which was self-described as “The Most Progressive and Extensive Mail Order Concern of It’s Kind in the World!”
The first page of the catalog explained that between 1901 and 1902, sales increased 98 percent, which may account for why the company doubled its floor space and built a new warehouse. Robust sales may be attributed to the claim that direct mail order of seeds saved the customer 100-200 percent than if they purchased through a retailer. As for their subscribers, the company expected to mail out 500,000 (yes, half-a-million) catalogs to interested buyers. Oddly enough, according to OCLC Worldcat, just two libraries hold the 1903 catalog. Of course many libraries with collections of trade catalogs may not catalog the titles individually or catalog them at all.
Anyway, back to the seeds. The catalog begins with several varieties of potatoes, with “Hammond’s New Extra Early Admiral Dewey Potato” as perhaps the best choice for patriotic Americans who want to remember victory at Manila Bay, just five year prior, while baking, frying, or boiling their tubers. The catalog offered customers an enormous selection of garden staples such as beans, celery, beets, carrots, sweet corn, onions, cabbage, and melons.
For farmers, the catalog listed a wide selection of grains (oats, barley, wheat, corn, and millet) and grass seeds for hay and pasture. Like other such companies, Hammond’s featured page-after-page of flower seeds. Finally, the last page of the catalog advertised the company’s health food (malted grains and nuts treated with Pepsin) which came in packets and could be served cold with milk or cream, or mixed with hot water. The healthful product promoted good nutrition and digestion, but the advertisement said nothing about the taste. The company encouraged buyers to add an extra $0.15 to their seed order and try a packet for “Breakfast, Dinner, or Supper.”
For today’s readers this seed catalog is comical at times and sometimes disconnected from the present. In 1903, this type of trade publication provided Americans with a great deal of information about new crops and growing methods. Even though we take Cooperative Extension for granted, its services provide farmers and backyard gardenerd with reliable information about planting, growing, and cultivating just about anything.
More importantly seeds have modern day significance. Across the country, farmers markets are full of heirloom fruits and vegetables, farmers operate active seed exchanges, and growing numbers of Americans demand that their plates contain no genetically modified foods. It seems that the seeds of the past have enormous value in the present.
Leonard Currie and Six Moon Hill
The papers of architect and former Virginia Tech faculty member Leonard J. Currie (1913-1996) have become my great challenge. Not the papers themselves, per se. All things considered, they are in good condition. We have received Currie’s papers in four accessions over time, the last two arriving since I came to VT. There are more than 11 boxes of papers, photographs, negatives, and artifacts and it continues to be an on-going process making them available. There are a number of reasons for that, but it isn’t the point I’m making today. Determining what to process when is ever-changing in an archives. Leonard Currie’s papers weren’t necessarily on the top of that list and, if not for happenstance, I might never have decided (happily!) to make it my project. The truth is, it started with a reference question about Six Moon Hill. More specifically, about 16 Moon Hill Road.
Six Moon Hill was a community of houses built by architects in The Architects’ Collaborative (TAC) in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Currie,who received his Masters from Harvard in 1938, was among this group of young designers. 16 Moon Hill Road was his design andresidence. In 2011, I caught a reference question about the house, around the time the last donation of papers arrived–someone was looking for plans and photographs.
We didn’t have more than two dozen images, but I had to go digging to find them. Along the way, I found hundreds of photographs and negatives from Currie’s travels (he spent a great deal of time working in Central and South America) and from his work in the Blacksburg/Southwest Virginia area.I was fascinated and decided it was time someone started processing. (That someone being me, of course.)
After Harvard, Currie worked with Marcel Breuer and Walter Gropius. From 1956-1962, he worked here at Virginia Tech, before going on to become the dean of College of Architecture and Art at the University of Illinois, Chicago. When he retired in 1981, he returned to Blacksburg to live and work. He designed homes, churches, schools, and other buildings throughout the region until his death in 1996. When he and his family lived here the first time around, he designed “Currie House I,” a home on the National Register of HistoricPlaces. (We have plans from that house, but that might make a great future post.) On his return in the 1980s, he designed what he refers to throughout his collection as “Currie House II.” There are hundreds of photographs of the latter in his collection.
(On a side note, we also contain some papers from Currie’s wife, Virginia M. Herz Currie, among our IAWA materials. You can see the finding aid here: http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=vt/viblbv00538.xml.)
Currie’s papers remain, at the moment, a work-in-progress. To date, the photographs and negatives are organized and the paper files (received in no particular order) are underway. We don’t have a finding aid online for the work done so far, but if you’d like to visit us and take a look, we can show you what we have.
Of Triple Deckers, Hell Row, and Late-Night Dumps
The New Student Experience, 1872-1902
As with any college town, August brings to Blacksburg a sudden shift from near-dormancy to feverish activity. Streets clog. Parking spaces disappear. And piles of modern lifes necessitiesfrom box fans to microwave ovens, from flat-screen TVs to mini-fridgesalign sidewalks as families and volunteers move new students into their appointed dorm rooms.
In the early years of Virginia Techthen known as Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical Collegestudent move-ins were much different. In 1872, the schools inaugural year, the new, non-local student arrived by train unaccompanied, alighting at the station near Christiansburg. The additional eight-mile journey by hired carriage to Blacksburg could take as long as three hours on roads that were sometimes nearly impassable. It wouldnt be until 1904 that a spur linethe Huckleberry Railroadwould allow for a much easier (though, at a scheduled 40 minutes, still-lethargic) trip from Christiansburg.
Upon arriving, the more sophisticated freshmen were probably unimpressed by their new surroundings. Blacksburg was barely a spot on the map at the time and couldnt provide much comfort and entertainment to young men far from home. The campus itself consisted of but five acres and a single building. Though it rose above the surrounding countryside, the three-story edifice was less than grand. Samuel Withers, who entered the school in early 1873, uncharitably wrote, The architect who planned it must have been a genius, for it was a classic in its ugliness.
The building contained only 24 lodging rooms, which made for cramped quarters. Even after packing three cadets to a room, fewer than half of the first years 172 students could be accommodated.
As sometimes still happens today, with enrollment exceeding available rooms, students had to find alternative, off-campus lodging. Many acquired room and board in private homes. Others took up residence in structures hastily built by local entrepreneurs who saw in student rentals a potential windfall. One such building, at the corner of Church and Roanoke streets, was officially named Lybrook Row. The building apparently gained a somewhat notorious reputation, however, and was more familiarly known to cadets as Buzzards Roost and Hell Row. Still, these first-year cadets of what was then an all-male military school could take some comfort in living off-campus, where they were less subject to the control of upperclassmen.
As there were initially no dining facilities on campus, students took meals with local families or at the nearby Lusters Hotel. Others formed their own private messes to provide for themselves. By mid-1873, however, the college had erected a mess hall; after the addition of more lodging in 1881, the school required all students to live and eat on campus.
The fare in the early mess halls could best be described as basic, and though the college claimed to make every effort to provide good materials, and to have them properly cooked and neatly served, the mess didnt have the reputation of todays Virginia Tech Dining Services for culinary excellence. In the 1881/82 catalog, administrators noted apologetically, [N]ecessarily, the living at seven and a half dollars per month must be plain. After one too many poorly prepared meals, one student expressed the frustration of many when he wrote in the 1900 Gray Jacket: I am so weary of sole-leather steak / Petrified doughnuts and vulcanized cake / Weary of paying for what I dont eat / chewing up rubber and calling it meat.
1888 saw the opening of Lane Hall (then known as Barracks No. 1), able to house 150 students. While the accommodations were still meager by todays standards, the new building contained such appreciated amenities as steam heating and, on the ground floor, hot and cold running water. Electric lighting was added in 1890. The furnishings, made by students in the college shops, included austere bedsteads, tables, chairs, and bookcases. Students provided their own mattresses, linens, water- and slop-buckets.
As with students immemorial, the VAMC cadets participated in many unauthorized activities and pranks. Though regulations forbade it, they drew water from the barracks radiators to fill the washtubs in their rooms for a hot bath on Saturday nights. And with the new availability of its primary ingredient, the water bomb soon became a campus mainstay, to the chagrin of pedestrians near the barracks.
The housing of all students under one roof brought with it unintended results. Hazingor the “application of extra-curricular controls over the behavior of the freshmen, as Douglas Kinnear called it in his 1972 history of Virginia Techbecame ritualized after the construction of Lane Hall and probably caused many a first-year cadet to wish hed never heard of Blacksburg.
Despite all of the inconveniences and discomforts endured by the new students, they came to love their school devotedly and, as alumni, to remember it fondly and support it proudly. It must have been exciting for that first generation of students to watch the continual improvements made in the campus and to see it grow into the university it had become by the mid-20th century. There can be no doubt, though, that when they visited, they could be heard to comment upon how easy their successors had things.
The University Archives contain a wealth of materials that offer glimpses into the early days of Virginia Tech. The photographs, campus maps, student scrapbooks, and published histories in our collections trace the schools evolution from a one-room school to the dynamic, modern research university that it is today.
Steppin’ Out’s Wild Past
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.
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.
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!
Pardoning Robert Taylor Preston
This week, I have Prestons on the brain. Actually, it’s been going on for a while. In May, I gave a presentation about Special Collections’ holdings relating to the Preston family in Virginia and Smithfield/Solitude history. In about two weeks, I’ll be taking a small selection of materials to display at the Preston Family Reunion weekend at the plantation house. Branches of the Preston family held land all over Virginia, South Carolina, and Kentucky in the 18th and 19th centuries. William Preston built Smithfield, the plantation on the edge of what is now Virginia Tech. His grandson, Robert Taylor Preston, built Solitude, located near the Duck Pond on campus. The land the main campus is on was bought from Robert Taylor Preston in 1870-1871.
A single blog post isn’t enough space to talk about everything we have (it’s barely room to talk about one collection!), but it is agood place to talk about an item or two.
Robert Taylor Preston served as a colonel during the Civil War. Many of his papers in the collection relate to these years (and many are worth a future post!). One of the stand out items, however, is the pardon he received after the war ended. The pardon itself is large and is stored in a large flat file. Along with the pardon, Preston was sent a certificate of the pardon’s authenticity. The last image is of Preston’s letter of receipt, written from Solitude, which reads in part: “[I] hereby signify my acceptance of the same, with all the conditions therein specified.”
We are currently working on digitizing all of Robert Taylor’ Preston’s papers and updating the finding aid. Once done, we’ll have them up on the web to see. We’re excited about being able to share this collection, since it’s one we are asked about often. So be sure to check back with us in the future!
Cooking for the President: 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.
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.
Plans are afoot to scan the entire cookbook and make it digitally available so everyone can enjoy the recipes. Stay tuned!