vtspecblogger Faculty, Local/Regional History, Science and Engineering, University History

I. J. (Jack) Good: Virginia Tech’s Own Bletchley Park Connection


Enigma, Ultra, Alan Turing, Bletchley Park, the British efforts to break German codes in World War II. Maybe you’ve seen or are waiting to see the 2014 movie, The Imitation Game, which tells part of this story with Turing, quite rightly, as its central character. Perhaps you became aware of this highly classified historical episode when the secrecy surrounding it gave way to public sensation in the early 1970s, almost thirty years after the end of the war . . . or in the many books and movies that have followed. An interest in wartime history, cryptography, or the early development of computers provide only a few of the possible avenues into the story. But did you know that one of the primary characters in that story, a mathematician who earned a Ph.D from Cambridge in 1941 with a paper on topological dimension, was a professor of statistics at Virginia Tech from 1967 until his retirement in 1994, and lived in Blacksburg until his death just a few years ago at the age of 92? Maybe you did, but I didn’t. His name was I. J. Good, known as Jack.

He was born Isidore Jacob Gudak in London in 1916, the son of Polish and Russian Jewish immigrants. Later changing his name to Irving John Good, he was a mathematical prodigy and a chess player of note. In a interview published in the January 1979 issue of Omni, Good says of the claim that he rediscovered irrational numbers at age 9 and mathematical induction and integration at 13, “I cannot prove either of these statements, but they are true.”

In 1941, Good joined the code-breakers at Bletchley Park, specifically, to work on the German Naval Enigma code in Hut 8 under the direction of Alan Turing and Hugh Alexander, the mathematician and chess champion who had recruited him. This is the story that is told in The Imitation Game, in which Jack Good is played by actor James Northcote. Along with Turing’s story, it is the story of the development of the machines that would break the German Enigma codes. The Enigma machine was an electromechanical device that would allow the substitution of letters–and thus production of a coded message–through the use of three (later four) rotors that would accomplish the substitutions. If you knew which rotors were being used and their settings, (changed every day or every second day), one could decode a message sent from another Enigma. If you didn’t know the rotors and the settings, as James Barrat writes in Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era, “For an alphabet of twenty-six letters, 403,291,461,126,605,635,584,000,000 such substitutions were possible.”

This is the world Jack Good entered on 27 May 1941, that and the world of war and the urgent need to defeat the Axis. Turing had already built some of the first Bombes, electromechanical machines–among the earliest computers, really–and had achieved initial and significant success. Good belonged to a team that would make improvements to the process from an approach based in a Bayesian statistical method that Good described in 1998 speech as “invented mainly by Turing.” He also called it “the first example of sequential analysis, at least the first notable example.” For the duration of the war, Good would work to further the British code-breaking technologies, adding his knowledge and understanding of statistics to the development of machines known as the “Robinsons” and “Colossus.” The program was remarkably successful. In its early days, it is credited with helping in the effort to sink the German battleship Bismarck; then helping to win the Battle of the Atlantic, directing the disruption of German supply lines to North Africa, and having an impact on the invasion of Europe in June 1944. What came to be known as “Ultra,” the intelligence obtained by the work of the Bletchley Park code-breakers, is, generally, thought to have shortened the war by two to four years. Jack Good, who worked with Alan Turing both during and after the war, said, “I won’t say that what Turing did made us win the war, but I daresay we might have lost it without him.”

After the war, Good was asked by Max Newman, a mathematician and another Bletchley Park alum, to join him at Manchester University, where they, later joined by Turing, worked to create the first computer to run on an internally stored program. A few years later, he returned to Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) for another decade of classified work for the British government. A three-year stint teaching at Oxford led to a decision in 1967 to move to the United States, but not before he served as a consultant to Stanley Kubrick, who was then making 2001: A Space Odyssey. The HAL (Heuristically-programmed ALgorithmic computer) 9000–the computer with a mind of its own–presumably owed much to the mind of Jack Good.

The camera eye of the HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's 2001 : A Space Odyssey
The camera eye of the HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 : A Space Odyssey
Jack Good (right) at Hawk Films Ltd., 1966, as adviser on Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey
Jack Good (right) at Hawk Films Ltd., 1966, as adviser on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey

At Virginia Tech, Good arrived as a professor of statistics. Always a fellow for numbers, he noted:

I arrived in Blacksburg in the seventh hour of the seventh day of the seventh month of year seven of the seventh decade, and I was put in apartment seven of block seven of Terrace View Apartments, all by chance.

Later, he would be University Distinguished Professor and, in 1994, Professor Emeritus. In 1998, he received the Computer Pioneer Award given by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society, one of a long list of honors. Good’s published work spanned statistics, computation, number theory, physics, mathematics and philosophy. A 1979 Omni article and interview reports that two years earlier a list of his published papers, articles, books, and reviews numbered over 1000. In June 2003, his list of “shorter publications” alone included 2278 items. He published influential books on probability and Bayesian method.

In that Omni interview, the conversation ranges over such topics as scientific speculation, precognition, human psychology, chess-playing computers, climate control, extraterrestrials, and more before settling in on the consequence of intelligent and ultraintelligent machines. On the latter topic, in 1965, Good wrote:

Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an “intelligence explosion,” and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.”

Special Collections at Virginia Tech has a collection of the papers of Irving J. Good that includes 36 volumes of bound articles, reviews, etc. along with a videotape of him and Donald Michie that commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the work they both did at Bletchley Park. Among the rest of the material is some correspondence and a group of papers described as “PBIs,” which I now know to be “partly baked ideas,” some his own, many sent to him by others, but for which he appears to have had a fondness.

In the end, however, and as his 2009 obituaries suggest, it will be his code-breaking and other intelligence work, particularly from the days at Bletchley Park that I. J. Good will be most remembered. Even though he and all the participants were prevented from talking about that work for years, one guesses that Jack Good wanted to leave others with a sense of it, particularly once in Virginia, as he drove away, with his customized license plate:

Photograph of Jack Good's Virginia license plate (from Collegiate Times, 10 Feb. 1989)
Photograph of Jack Good’s Virginia license plate (from Collegiate Times, 10 Feb. 1989)
archivistkira Architecture, Faculty

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.

16 Moon Hill Road
16 Moon Hill Road, Lexington, Massachusetts

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.

jojacks2 Local/Regional History, University History

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.

Former home of The Preston & Olin Institute, the lone VAMC campus building included classrooms, offices, a chapel, and student lodging.
Former home of The Preston & Olin Institute, the lone VAMC campus building included classrooms, offices, a chapel, and student lodging.

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.

This photo of triple-deckered bunks was taken around 1902, another of the schools many growing-pain periods. Note how the bunks are tied together with rope.
This photo of triple-deckered bunks was taken around 1902, another of the schools frequent growing-pain periods. Note how the bunks are tied together with rope.

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.

Though Lybrook Row had fallen into disrepair by the time this photo was taken, one can see that it was a very basic affair and likely deserved the appellation Hell Row.
Though Lybrook Row had fallen into disrepair by the time this photo was taken, one can see that it was a very basic affair and likely deserved the appellation Hell Row.

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.

Mess hall interior, ca. 1900.
Mess hall interior, ca. 1900.

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.

The spare furnishings of a barracks room included a straight-backed chair, a washstand, and a bed that appears somewhat less inviting than the floor.
The spare furnishings of a barracks room included a straight-backed chair, a washstand, and a bed that appears somewhat less inviting than the floor.
Then as now, students personalized their rooms with decorations. With no members of the opposite sex to be seen on campus, many male cadets adorned their walls with the female formor at least as much of the female form as was allowed by Victorian-era strictures.
Then as now, students personalized their rooms with decorations. With no members of the opposite sex to be seen on campus, many male cadets adorned their walls with the female formor at least as much of the female form as was allowed by Victorian-era strictures.

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.

In the middle of any given night, a new student was likely to be dumped from his bed, a favorite practical joke inflicted by upperclassmen. This scene, probably staged, was photographed in 1899.
In the middle of any given night, a new student was likely to be dumped from his bed, a favorite practical joke inflicted by upperclassmen. This scene, probably staged, was photographed in 1899.

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.

vtspecblogger Local/Regional History, University History

On the 70th Anniversary of D-Day

Jimmie W. Monteith, Jr.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

vtspecblogger University History

The Checkered History of April Fool’s Day

For better or for worse, I don’t make a habit of looking at the Collegiate Times, at least not the issue of the day. This isn’t a judgement, just the reality. I do often look at it in the course of my job as an archivist at Special Collections, and just a few days ago I came across the 1986 April Fool’s Parody issue. The masthead proudly (or, maybe not so proudly) proclaimed Collegiate Slime and “Virginia Technical Institute’s Stupid Yellow Rag.” The location was “Bleaksburg, Fajenyah” and the index listed sections for Sex, Beastiality, Scandal, Lies, Demagogery, and Free Beer.
 
April Fool's Parody Issue, 1986

OK. College humor, what can you do? In one form or another, it’s probably as old as the oldest university. But I got curious, given that April 1st was coming up and decided to do a less-than-comprehensive review of the history of these issues. The 1977 issue served up The Cowlegiate Crime and Virginia Polywrecknic Institute and State Asylum.
 
1977 Parody Issue

The Crime appeared again the next year with the lead story, “Corps Demands Total Power” and again in 1982 with what was becoming a usual mix of effrontery, barely(?) post-adolescent male humor, and a penchant for superimposing an image of someone’s head on a body to which it did not belong. In 1988, the Slime was back, this time as “Virginia Wreck’s Fascist Rag,” still in Bleaksburg, now Virginny, and, again, in 1990. That year Bart Simpson and WelWhee Tried can be found among the bylines, and a few sample pages are numbered 2BE, NOT2BEE, and 4AUTNBEA. In 1991, however, something else happened.

In the April 2nd issue of the Collegiate Times, editor Jim Roberts published a commentary in which he describes how the annual issue of the Slime had been produced and was ready for distribution. He writes:
 
Last April, I argued that the parody issue was good for the CT and the university, because it allowed the staff to take a satirical look at the issues which have surrounded us all year. Twelve months later, I have decided that is not within the scope of responsibilities of a news organization. . . . I decided last night to have the 14,000 issues destroyed.
 
Roberts described the adverse reactions to the previous issue of the “parody” as well as the tradition of producing the issue. Many thought the issue “insensitive,” that it had gone too far, and he concluded “the traditions of the CT far exceeds whatever fun we could [have] with six pages of jokes and unflattering pictures.” In the end, he writes that many may think he made a “poor decision,” but that, in the news business, “we’re often better off being criticized not for what we print, but for what we don’t print.”
 
The April 5th issue of the CT suggests just how right he was. As reported on page one, sometime in the early morning of the 3rd, a former CT employee distributed copies of the paper that had been set aside to be recycled. By 7:30 that morning, copies had been found and removed from Burruss, Newman Library, and Norris Hall.

According to the article, “Professors, women, minorities, SGA leaders and by and large almost every sector of the university contacted administrators about the issue.” Darrel Martin, assistant to President McComas commented on the line between parody and “the occasion where attitude and language are not part of the journalism profession or part of an educational environment.” In the same issue an editorial titled “Slime offensive” made the point more directly. The writer, coordinator of the Sexual Assault and Victim Education Support Services peer education program, wrote:
 
In reference to Adolph McMillan and Paul Hell’s articles (who, by the way, provided only pseudonyms), your writings outraged me. Your words were offensive and debilitating to women. . . . As long as attitudes such as Adolph’s and Paul’s are continued to go without a challenge . . . violence against women will continue to persist.
 
Also in the same April 5th issue, the CT editorial board member who would be editor-in-chief for 1991-1992 said that after consulting with CT staff several changes would be made for the next year’s parody issue. The name would be changed to avoid association with the past issues of the Slime, it would be printed in tabloid form to differentiate it from regular CT issues, and it would be completed a week before distribution.
 

1 April 1992
1 April 1992

 
Honestly, I’m not sure they quite got the point.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Maybe by 1994?
 
1 April 1994
1 April 1994

 
1 April 2011
1 April 2011

 
 
 
In any case, by 2011, the CT simply let us know it’s April Fool’s Day in its masthead.
 
 
 
 
 
 
The VA. Wreck, Vol. 1. (1905)
The VA. Wreck, Vol. 1. (1905)

Oddly enough, this same week when I looked into the CT Parody issues, I came upon another bit of Virginia Tech (ok, Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College) humor. In June 1905, the first (and only?) issue of The VA. Wreck, a take-off on the college’s newspaper, The Virginia Tech, was published. (Yes, the real newspaper was called The Virginia Tech.) Blacksburg is said to offer Hot Summers, Arctic Winters, Reasonable Board, Poor Food, and Hard Beds. The paper was published by “The Deanery” on a “Tri-Weekly” basis: “Comes out one week and tries to come out the next.”

Perhaps to set the stage for what will follow, the four-page paper comments:
 
Some seem to think this paper is a burlesque on the Virginia Tech, but such is not the case, and we decline the honor. If anything, the Virginia Tech is the burlesque; anyway it is a parody of some sort too deep for us to fathom.
 
And so much more. It felt a little odd to be spending so much time with documents from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, let alone newspapers from just a couple of years ago. After all, I’m an archivist. Ahhh, the Va. Wreck. 1905. That’s better. We’re not just concerned with the past . . . but with the PAST! Right? At least 50 years ago! The older the better! Right? That’s the real joke. April Fool’s!

vtspecblogger Feature Items, University History

A Medal of Honor in Special Collections

Portrait of Earle Gregory as a VT cadet, early 1920s
Portrait of Earle Gregory as a VT cadet, early 1920s

While Special Collections is primarily concerned with collecting rare and unique textual materials (we are, after all, part of a library, NOT a museum), there is still the occasional three dimensional artifact that finds its way here, usually as part of a larger manuscript collection, and/or because it provides valuable documentation of a particular subject in a significant way.

And as far as significance goes, one could argue that a Medal of Honor would be near the top of that list. The Medal of Honor is the United States of America’s highest military honor, awarded by the President of the United States in the name of Congress to US military personnel for personal acts of valor above and beyond the call of duty. Since its creation in 1861, 3,468 Medals of Honor have been awarded to servicemen (nearly half of those were awarded during the Civil War, when it was the only military award available). Due to its prestige and status, the Medal of Honor is afforded special protection under U.S. law against any unauthorized adornment, sale, or manufacture, and recipients are given special lifetime privileges and benefits from the US government, with their names and actions immortalized in ceremonies and monuments.

We have one of these Medals of Honor here in our collection, and this particular medal was awarded to Virginia Tech alum Sergeant Earle Davis Gregory (1897-1972). Gregory, of Chase City, Virginia, was the first native Virginian to receive the Medal of Honor, and one of seven Virginia Tech alums that have received the honor. Gregory earned the Medal of Honor for actions as an Army Sergeant in the 116th infantry regiment during the Meuse Argonne Offensive in World War I. The medal was awarded for gallantry at Bois de Consenvoye, north of Verdun, France on October 8, 1918. With the remark, I will get them! Sergeant Gregory seized a rifle and a trench-mortar shell (which he used as a hand grenade), left his detachment of the trench-mortar platoon and advanced ahead of the infantry, capturing 22 enemy soldiers, as well as a machine gun and a howitzer.

Earle Gregory as a student at Virginia Tech
Earle Gregory as a student at Virginia Tech

On October 11, 1918, three days after Gregorys heroic charge, he was seriously wounded by shrapnel from an exploding artillery shell in the left thigh, earning him the Purple Heart. Exactly one month after he was wounded, World War I ended. Gregory spent four months in a hospital in France before returning to Virginia in February 1919. On April 24, 1919, he was awarded the Medal of Honor by Major General Omar Bundy in a ceremony at Camp Lee. Gregory was also subsequently awarded equivalent medals from the Allied countries, including the Italian Merito di Guerra, the French Croix de Guerre and Medaille Militaire, and the Montenegrin Order of Merit.

Gregorys World War I medals from top left to bottom right: The Italian Merito di Guerra, the French Croix de Guerre, the U.S. Veterans of Foreign Wars Medal, the World War I Victory Medal with Meuse-Argonne and Defensive Sector Army battle clasps, the Cross of Military Service of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Medal of Honor, the French Mdaille militaire, and the Montenegrin Order of Merit
Gregorys World War I medals from top left to bottom right: The Italian Merito di Guerra, the French Croix de Guerre, the U.S. Veterans of Foreign Wars Medal, the World War I Victory Medal with Meuse-Argonne and Defensive Sector Army battle clasps, the Cross of Military Service of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Medal of Honor, the French Mdaille militaire, and the Montenegrin Order of Merit. Pictured in the top right is also his Virginia Tech 1923 class ring.

After the war, Gregory enrolled at Virginia Tech as a member of the Corps of Cadets and studied Electrical Engineering, graduating in 1923. As a senior, he was a Cadet Captain and Company Commander, President of the Corps of Cadets, and selected as “Most Popular Cadet.” After graduating, Gregory spent his career working for the Veterans Administration and was an active member of several veterans organizations. He passed away in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on January 6, 1972.

The Virginia Tech precision military marching unit, The Gregory Guard, was named in honor of Sgt. Gregory in May 1963, and in 1965, Gregory bequeathed his medals, along with his papers and photographs, to Virginia Tech Special Collections. An exhibit of highlights from the Earle D. Gregory Collection, including his medals, are currently on display in the Special Collections reading room.

Gregory meeting president John F. Kennedy at a military reception at the White House, May 2, 1963.
Gregory meeting president John F. Kennedy at a military reception at the White House, May 2, 1963.
vtspecblogger Uncategorized, University History

Irving Linwood Peddrew, III, First Black Student at VPI

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Sixty years ago in September 1953, Irving Linwood Peddrew, III was the first black student admitted to Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI). Everett Pierce Ramey applied to VPI in 1951, but his application was refused because he wished to study business. Black students were considered for admission only if they wished to pursue a curriculum, such as engineering, that was not offered at Virginia State, the black land-grant state school near Petersburg. Once admitted, a black student was not permitted to change his major from engineering to another course of study.

In November 2002, Peddrew did an oral history interview with Tamara Kennelly, University Archivist, in which he spoke of the loneliness of desegregating Virginia Tech. Just this year he released the interview to the public. The interview is available at https://web.archive.org/web/20170403191202/http://spec.lib.vt.edu/archives/blackhistory/oralhistory/peddrew/

Peddrew was not permitted to live on campus or eat in the cafeteria with the other cadets. He boarded with the Mr. and Mrs. Hoge about a mile away from campus. He had to lug his cadet gear back and forth each day and change in another cadet’s room to be prepared for the meticulousness of military bearing. Several students requested him as a roommate the following year, but that was not permitted.

In the fall of 1954, three more black students entered Virginia Tech: Lindsay Cherry, Floyd Wilson, and Charlie Yates. They too had to live and eat their meals off campus. In 1958 Yates became the first black student to graduate from Virginia Tech. Yates earned his doctorate from Johns Hopkins. He later returned to Virginia Tech and taught first in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and then in the Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering. For more interviews, images, and information about the first and early black students at Virginia Tech, visit https://web.archive.org/web/20170403174318/http://spec.lib.vt.edu/archives/blackhistory/

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In 2003 New Residence Hall West, which was built in 1998, was renamed Peddrew-Yates Hall to honor Irving Linwood Peddrew, III (on the right) and Charlie Yates.

archivistkira Local/Regional History

Blacksburg, A Century Ago (Give or Take)

It’s the start of a new school year here in Blacksburg. The library, like the rest of campus, is seeing plenty of students, both new and seasoned. Our post this week is for those of you still learning your way AND those of you who think you know all the secrets. We’re taking a trip back in time and sharing some photographs of Blacksburg from about 1895-1925. As you’ll see, things have come a LONG way!

Before 1900, Main St. saw its fair share of horse traffic. This photograph was taken from the road, looking at the old Preston and Olin Building/then VAMC machine shop.
Before 1900, Main St. saw its fair share of horse traffic. This photograph was taken from the road, looking at the old Preston and Olin Building/then VPI machine shop.
Far int he distance at the center of the frame is the VAMC machine shop. This photograph was taken on Main St. looking west, possibly near the Post Office.
Far in the distance at the center of the frame is the VPI machine shop. This photograph was taken on Main St. looking west, possibly near the Post Office.
C. 1900, the Post Office and Hack Depot shared a building on Main St., several blocks away from campus.
C. 1900, the Post Office and Hack Depot shared a building on Main St., several blocks away from campus.
If you stood smack in the middle of Main St., right past the College Ave. intersection (think: right in front of Moe's--please don't try it!) and looked up hill, this is what you'd see in 1900. No Main St. or Alumni Mall entrance to campus. The building, which had been the original Preston and Olin Institute, was then being used as the machine shop.
If you stood smack in the middle of Main St., right past the College Ave. intersection (think: right in front of Moe’s–please don’t try it!) and looked up hill, this is what you’d see before 1900. No Main St. or Alumni Mall entrance to campus.
Ellett's Drugstore was on the corner of Main St. and College Ave, in the current Sharkey's space.
Ellett’s Drugstore was on the corner of Main St. and College Ave., in the current Sharkey’s space.
Blacksburg, c.1904. In those days, Main Street ended at College Ave. The brick building on the left is where you'll see Sharkey's today.
Blacksburg, c.1904. In those days, Main Street ended at College Ave. At the bottom center of the frame are a set of metal gates–essentially the entrance to campus! The brick building on the left is where you’ll see Sharkey’s today. The building on the right is the current Moe’s. And hey, at least VPI won the game!
This image is actually the front of a postcard, sent in 1917. By then, the metal gates from the 1904 photograph were actually brick structures with a sign and Main St. was no longer a dead-end, but an entrance to campus!
This image is actually the front of a postcard, sent in 1917, but taken before then. By then, the metal gates from the 1904 photograph were actually brick structures with a sign and Main St. was no longer a dead-end, but open to traffic!
By 1930, some more familiar surroundings were build in Blacksburg. The 5-10-25 Cent store is at the current site of Moe's. To the right of it, on College Ave., you can see The Lyric Theatre in current home.
By 1930, some more familiar surroundings were build in Blacksburg. The 5-10-25 Cent store is at the current site of Moe’s. To the right of it, on College Ave., you can see The Lyric Theatre in current home.

Our historical photograph collection in Special Collections covers a wide variety of University and local history places and spaces. It can show you a lot about how Blacksburg and Virginia Tech have changed. And even if you can’t visit us, you can check out a large selection of images online:http://imagebase.lib.vt.edu/index.php. There’s plenty of history to discover!

vtspecblogger About Special Collections and University Archives

Open House at Special Collections: Tuesday, September 3rd!!

The first of four open house events at Special Collections will be held on Tuesday September 3rd from 5:00PM to 7:00PM. Other open houses will be held on the first Tuesday of each month this fall, through December.

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If you’ve never taken the opportunity to explore the holdings of Special Collections—but perhaps you’ve never seen a first edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses, or always wondered about the relationship between cocktails and prohibition, or couldn’t believe that a 56 year old fellow from Wisconsin really did enlist in the Union Army in October 1861 . . . alongside his 12 year-old son—well, now would be a good time to start. We’ll have a representative sample of our holdings on display and staff members on hand who will be happy to answer your questions.

Selection of Civil War Diaries
Selection of Civil War Diaries
Two works by Langston Hughes: A New Song (1938; signed) and Scottsboro Limited (1931)
Two works by Langston Hughes: A New Song (1938; signed) and Scottsboro Limited (1931)

 

 

 

 

 

This is just a sample of what you’ll find when you visit Special Collections. Please do drop in this Tuesday, September 3rd or, if you can’t make it then, visit us for one of our First Tuesday Open House events this fall. Whether to support an interest or provide assistance for a research project Special Collections is here to offer a wealth of assistance and materials. Come see us!

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archivistkira About Special Collections and University Archives, New Acquisitions

From the Donor to the Shelf: A Few Words on Acquisitions

One of the reasons Special Collections launched this blog was to show off some of our cool materials. We can talk about new acquisitions, new discoveries, and old favorites all day! (Curious, just come by and ask us!) Another reason, though, was talk a little about the who, what, where, and why of Special Collections. One of the questions we are frequently asked, in one form or another, is “How to you get stuff?” The short answer is that we acquire books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, and other materials in three major ways: donation, purchase, and transfer (this last is the least common, but is vital to our mission of preserving university history!). The much longer answer continues below…

I’m Kira Dietz (aka archivistkira), and since part of my job as Acquisitions and Processing Archivist is to work with donors & potential donors, book & manuscript dealers, university employees, alumni and more, I thought I might spend a post or two over the next couple months tackling the “How do you get stuff?” query. The best way to do that is to answer a few more specific question potential donors might have.

Culinary Pamphlet Collection, Ms2011-002
From the Knox Gelatine: Desserts, Salads, Candies, and Frozen Dishes (1933). This pamphlet is one of a collection of 92 items donated in 2011 that went on to form the basis of the Culinary Pamphlet Collection, Ms2011-002. This collection continues to grow through donations and purchases. http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=vt/viblbv00787.xml

Why donations?

While Special Collections does have a budget to purchase materials (more on that in a future post), we rely heavily on donations. We have just that–a limited budget. Donations make up more than half of our holdings and are the backbone of our manuscripts, university archives, and rare book collection. There are financial costs involved in the acquisition, processing, maintenance, and access of our collections, but donation of materials can help us save a little on the acquisitions part. Donations that come with a financial contribution can help us further reduce some of the processing costs. Basically, without donations, the University Libraries would never have acquired much of the materials that led to the creation of Special Collections, and we wouldn’t be here today!

Where do donations come from?

Donations can come from anyone! We receive materials from staff/faculty and departments on campus, from alumni of Virginia Tech, from community members and organizations, from current students, from professionals active in fields related to our collecting areas, from researchers and scholars, and from people around the world! Sometimes, donors already know who we are. Sometimes, they hear about us at an event or through word of mouth. Sometimes, they have an item or collection that they just want to be available to a wide range of researchers, scholars, and visitors, rather than keeping it in their attic.

John Newton Carnahan Letters, Ms2009-112
The John Newton Carnahan Letters, a series of Civil War letters by Carnahan to his family at home in Wytheville, Va., were donated to Special Collections in 2005. You can see a guide to the collection here: http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=vt/viblbv00485.xml

What kinds of donations do you want?

We’re always on the lookout for new items and collections! While an exhaustive list is tricky to provide, here are some general sorts of formats we seek: Correspondence, diaries, and manuscripts (preferably original documents), logbooks, ledgers, memorabilia, photographs, drawings, architectural collections, and other records of historical importance to the mission of the university and that support existing collections.

We are actively collecting materials in a 7 or 8 major subject areas at present. These include,but are not limited to, local history (SW Virginia and nearby parts of Appalachia), university history, the American Civil War, science and technology, speculative fiction, women & architecture, and food & drink history. You can see more about the kinds of collections we have in all these areas in the individual subject guides listed here.

What do you do with donations once you receive them?

One of the phrases you hear often in archives is, “it depends.” What we do with a donation once we receive it depends on a number of factors: what the donation consists of, how large it is, what condition it’s in, whether further donations may be expected, and more.

In general, the first thing we do is create a record of the donation in our database. Books and other publications that can be cataloged to the University Libraries’ Technical Services, then are returned to our Rare Book Collection. Manuscripts, photographs, drawings, maps, and mixed material collections are placed in acid-free boxes and added to our processing queue. If there are fragile or damaged items, we may do some preservation work like placing torn documents in polyester sleeves, unrolling and flattening rolled photos or documents, or photocopying acid paper. Preservation issues may also be addressed when a collection is processed at a later date.

Susana Torre Architectural Papers, Ms1990-016
This drawing of Garvey House, designed by architect Susana Torre, is part of the Susana Torre Architectural Papers, Ms1990-016. The collection includes more than 24 cu. ft. of correspondence, project files, articles, teaching notes, and designs. http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=vt/viblbv00175.xml

What do I do if I have something I want to donate?

Contact Special Collections! Whether your potential donation is a single item or lots of boxes, we’ll talk to you about what you have and how it might fit in with our holdings.We can also talk to you about how we process, house, and provide access to collections (I could write a whole series of posts on that subject, so I won’t cover it today). If you live nearby or are passing through Blacksburg and want to visit us, we’re happy to show you around the department, too.

If we all decide Special Collections is the right place for your donation, we’ll make arrangements to receive the material. It might mean a pick up, a drop off, or something being sent via the mail. As a record of your donation, we’ll ask you fill out and sign our “Deed of Gift” form. We’ll keep a copy and we send one to you, too. We also follow up with a thank you note from us.

On the whole, we try to keep our donation process as simple as possible for everyone.

What if Special Collections at Virginia Tech isn’t the right place for a collection?

That’s one of the main reasons we encourage you to talk to us about your donation. Sometimes, we just aren’t the right home for a book, a letter, or a diverse collection of materials. Whether or not you know it, though, there are LOTS of special collections, archives, historical societies, museums, and other institutions out there. All of them have different interests and collecting areas, and many of them accept donations. If we aren’t the right home, we’ll use our network of colleagues and resources to help you find an appropriate home.

William MacFarland Patton Papers, Ms1954-001
This bridge drawing comes from the William MacFarland Patton Papers, Ms1954-001, donated to Newman Library in 1954, years before Special Collections was born! Patton was a professor at VAMC (now Virginia Tech) from 1896-1905. http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=vt/viblbv00786.xml

I hope this is a helpful introduction to donations at Special Collections. There are plenty more questions I could try to answer here, but each potential donation is different. Each one has its own needs and poses its own challenges. If you have something else you’d like to know, feel free to post a comment below or contact Special Collections. I’ll give you the best answer I can!