Tomorrow is Reading Day, which means finals are just around the corner for Davidson College students. Students do their work in a variety of locations, although the library has always been a popular study spot – there have been four libraries throughout the history of the college: Union Library (a consolidation of the literary societies library collections in Old Chambers Building, 1861 – 1910), Carnegie Library (now the Carnegie Guest House, 1910 – 1941), Hugh A. and Jane Parks Grey Library (now the Sloan Music Center, 1941 – 1974), and E.H. Little Library (1974 – present). This week, we reflect on images of students studying in the library throughout the years:
Three students at a table in the Carnegie Library (now Carnegie Guest House), circa 1916.A crowded studying scene in Carnegie Library, 1917.Students working at a table in the old Davidsoniana room in Grey Library, date unknown.A busy day in the reading room of Grey Library, circa 1960.A more somber nighttime scene in the Grey Library reading room, circa 1960.A student studies at a table in Grey Library (now Sloan Music Center) while wearing cowboy boots, 1968.Students read in the Grey Library smoking lounge, date unknown.A student reads in front of the large windows in Little Library, circa early 1970s.A group of students gather at the circulation desk in Little Library, September 18, 1974.Students study on the upper and lower levels of E.H. Little Library, 1977.Three students work in an aisle of Little Library, circa early 1980s.Two students study by a window on the first floor of Little Library, with Chambers visible in the background, 1980s.A student uses the microfilm reader in Little Library, circa 1980s.Two students use a computer in Little Library, circa 1993.
Good luck to all Wildcats on their final exams, papers, projects, and theses!
While snow is a somewhat rare occurrence in Davidson, it remains an exciting time for the entire college community. This week, let’s take a look at Davidson College dusted with snow throughout the years:
Snowy Main Street in Davidson, March 1915.Three students clear walkways on rails pulled by horses, circa 1915.A lone figure walks past Dana Science Building, 1969.A student leads a burro through the snow near Cunningham, December 1971.A student walks near Elm Row, December 1971.Two students play in the snow in front of Cunningham, circa 1975.A snowman in front of Chambers, 1977.The Presidents House looks picturesque in the snow, date unknown.Two students walk near Chambers, 1987.A Davidson Wildcat made out of snow! Martin Science Building, circa 1980s.Two students engage in a rowdy snow fight, 1987.A student works on a snow-cat – possibly the same large one in front of Martin, 1987.
We hope Davidsonians near and far are enjoying their winter!
Davidson College has often appeared on the cover of publications, particularly local or state magazines. This week, let’s take a look at the covers that made it into our collections:
Students gathered around Chambers Building graced the cover of the July 1977 North Mecklenburg telephone directory.The Winter 1978 issue of Southeastern Librarian featured E.H. Little Library on its cover.The October 1980 issue of Southern Living showed Davidson’s fall colors at their best.This March 1981 cover of Choice shows a student walking in front of Eumenean Hall.We the People of North Carolina‘s September 1987 cover showed buildings from several academic institutions across the state, including Davidson’s Chambers Building.The State of North Carolina Higher Education Comprehensive Planning Program’s 1993 Facilities Inventory and Utilization Study showed the brand new Visual Arts Center building.The Spring 2004 Collegiate Standard cover is a blast from the recent past, showing a group of Davidsonians who appeared on The Price is Right.November 2008’s Lake Norman Magazine featured Davidson’s favorite basketball player, Steph Curry.Southern Home Magazine‘s May 2009 issue featured a cover story on the President’s House: “Davidson’s White House.”
The second week of classes is well underway here at Davidson College, and the hubbub of Freshmen orientation and upperclassmen moving back to campus is beginning to settle down. One topic on the minds of many students both new and returning, is dorm decorating – what are the perfect wall hangings and tchotchkes?
With that in mind, this week we’ll take a look at how Davidson College students have decorated their dormitories throughout the years – click on any of the images in the following picture post to get a closer view:
This image of a dorm room in Old Chambers, circa 1895, is our earliest known photograph of the interior of a student’s room. This unknown student had distinctive taste – the image centered above the mantelpiece appears to be a Degas print.Kemp Elliott Savage (Class of 1906) sits in front of a very elaborately decorated dorm room gallery wall (including a draped flag), circa 1902.If current Davidson College students think their rooms are crowded, imagine how these triple decker bunk bed DC students of 1916 felt!A decade later, Davidson students continued to be stacked three high and continued to decorate their dormitory walls with pennants – this image comes from George Shaddock (Class of 1926), by way of Dr. (Class of 1960) and Mrs. W. Kirby Kirkpatrick.This picture, courtesy of Robert Hayne Jones (Class of 1916), illustrates what a typical dorm room in Old Chambers looked like – check out the “D.C.” constructed of either photographs or postcards.Five students gather in this dorm room in 1947 to do what Davidson students do best – study!“Get up Ox!” – a sleepy student is awakened in Georgia dorm, under his decorations. This photograph is from a 1948 Phi Gamma Delta scrapbook.John Cronin’s (Class of 1971) dorm room in 1969 provides a glimpse into his hobbies and loved ones – the guitar case, headphones, and photo of a musician speak to his interest in music. Whether the chains serve a functional or aesthetic purpose is unclear, however (photograph taken by George Sproul, Class of 1970).A group of students play games in a Richardson dorm room in 1975 – a peek at the walls in the background reveals some typical dorm decorations, including a wall calendar.Two roommates spend time in their somewhat sparsely decorated dorm room in 1977 (photograph taken by Bill Giduz, Class of 1974). Notice the cameo appearance of Davidson attendee Woodrow Wilson on the wall above the bottom bunk.Three students gather in a mid-1980s dorm room – note the lofted bed, now a very popular dorm room modification.
While many things have changed at Davidson throughout the years, students’ desire to decorate their living space has remained constant – and the some of the modes of decorating have also remained popular, such as the gallery wall hanging style.
If you’re a Davidson alumni or current student who wants to document your college decorating style, please send any photographs to the College Archives & Special Collections!
Earlier this month, a mysterious parcel appeared in the Archives & Special Collections mailbox.
The note that accompanied our mystery parcel, from Hendersonville’s Shelley and Son Books.
The package turned out to be a collection of Davidson-related photographs – a treasure trove of mid-twentieth century group shots, as well as images of the old Chambers Building after the fire that gutted the structure in 1921. Here are a few favorites from our newest photo collection:
We’re not sure what the award on the table is, but it’s being presented by then College President D. Grier Martin (standing, center) and Professor of Spanish James Young Causey (standing, right).Alex Gibbs (Class of 1963) raises money for muscular dystrophy on behalf Phi Delta Theta in the middle of Main Street. Gibbs went on to a long football coaching career, most notably for the Denver Broncos.Possibly a meeting of Interfraternity Council in 1963 – clockwise from top row, left (all are Class of 1963, and presidents of their respective fraternities): Gene Wells, Lawrence Kimbrough, Bernard Swope, unknown, Alex Gibbs, Bill Clingman, Jamie Long, John Oehler, Lewis Martin, Bud Robinson, and Steve Butler.C. Shaw Smith (Class of 1939, and Director of the College Union for 31 years) performs one of his well-known magic tricks, with assistance from an unidentified man. The Smith 900 Room in Alvarez College Union bears Smith’s name.Another group shot, possibly from a college staff party in 1961. Third from the left, top row is future College President John Wells Kuykendall (Class of 1959, in his role as Assistant Director of Alumni and Public Relations). Also pictured are John R. Horton (to the right of Kuykendall, Class of 1938, Director of Alumni and Public Relations), and Nancy Blackwell (seated, far left – the Blackwell Alumni House is named for Nancy, who worked at Davidson for 54 years).Dean Rusk (left, Class of 1931) laughs with an unidentified man. Davidson’s international studies program is named for Rusk.The fire of November 21, 1921 completely destroyed the original Chambers Building (“Old Chambers”), which had been completed in 1860.Another view of the gutted original Chambers Building. The “Ghost of Old Chambers” can sometimes be seen on particularly dry days.The columns from Old Chambers remained standing until 1929.
I hope you enjoyed our mysterious photograph delivery as much as we did! If you can help identify any of the people in these images, please contact the College Archives.
Detailed laundry charges for Wilson’s first few months at Davidson.
As early as 1911, the College’s Board of Trustees wanted to establish a College Laundry, in order to promote “the comfort, convenience, and health of the student body and Faculty and their families.” However, financial considerations made the project impossible until the 1920-1921 academic year.
Students holding laundry bags – possibly as part of an entrepreneurial scheme, or else as freshman hazing , 1910.
The 1919-1920 College Catalogue announced the opening of the new facility: “A laundry sufficient to do all unstarched work for the students has been authorized and will be in operation at the opening of next fall. For hygienic and other reasons all students will be required to patronize this laundry. The charge will be as low as will allow for the proper conduct and care of the plant.”
Students (including future College President John W. Kuykendall, at rear) carry their “bundles” to the Laundry, from Quips and Cranks 1957.
By the early 1960s, the College Laundry became overwhelmed by the demands of the growing student body – as enrollment rose to 1,000 students, costs and the need for new equipment rose similarly. In a December 21, 1966 letter from President Grier Martin wrote that: “we plan to meet with a cross section of the student leaders to get their feeling on laundry operations in the future. In the past, we have felt that we had alternatives to either continue the present ‘bundle’ system or go to a per piece basis for students, removing the now compulsory feature.”
Davidson College Dry Cleaning coupons, 1968.
This issue came up again when the College went coeducational in 1972, when the addition of female students further stressed the Laundry’s capabilities. The Special Sub-committee on Coeducation of the Student Life Committee recommended that, since “the general consensus [is] that the laundry as it stands now is not equipped to launder women’s apparel satisfactorily… no woman student shall be required to patronize the college laundry, with the possible exception of mandatory linen service [and] coin-operated washing and drying facilities be installed…” By 1980, the self-service machine charges were incorporated into the laundry fee, rather than remaining coin-operated.
“Davidson Laundry is Laundry For Students,” 1972.
Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, Davidson student opinion was divided – while many valued the convenience and time saved in having their laundry done by the College, a vocal group resented paying the mandatory fees and preferred a self-service, pay-as-you-use system. Petitions and letters to the editor of the Davidsonian reflected these sentiments.
A student picks up his laundry, 1980.
In defense of the Laundry, information pamphlets given to new students in the 1980s featured an explanation of why the College ran a laundry service: “Because we are a small college in a small town, we operate a laundry to provide a convenient, economical, time-saving service to students.”
Davidson College Laundry pamphlet, 1986 – 1987.
In 2004, the College Laundry building was renamed the Lula Bell Houston Laundry, in honor of the retirement of laundry worker Lula Bell Houston after 57 years of service to the College. By 2011, the College Laundry saw another change – a move to recyclable canvas bags, rather than the brown paper the clean clothes had traditionally been wrapped with.
With the transition to an entirely self-service model beginning on May 15, 2015, the Lula Bell Houston Laundry building will be vacated. Current students, alumni, and community members: what do you think the Laundry building should house next?
A few weeks ago, the archives received a donation of several mysterious items from Irvin Brawley, a longtime Davidson College employee (1971 – 2010; Brawley retired as the Associate Director for Property Management and Insurance). These items had been unearthed from beneath the Carolina Inn during restoration work, but nothing else was known about them.
Found underneath the Carolina Inn!
All told, the items included Two Lucky Strike “flat fifties” cigarette tins, a bottle of castor oil from Eckard’s, and a bottle of Sloan’s Family Liniment. Before delving into details about these items, a brief history of the building they were found underneath: many Davidsonians today are familiar with the Carolina Inn, in its role as the home for the College’s Center for Interdisciplinary Studies.
The Carolina Inn, May 2014.
Built circa 1848, the structure first began serving as a store that same year, under the operation of Leroy Springs. In 1855, the building was sold to Hanson Pinkney Helper, giving the building its other frequently recognized name – the Helper Hotel.
Carolina Inn as the Helper Hotel, circa 1870s.
The Helper Hotel was much more than just a hotel – the building also housed Helper’s store, and in the latter part of the 1800s, Dr. J.J. Dupuy operated a drug store on the premises. A peek at one of the pages of Helper’s 1896 store ledger gives a taste of what the Davidson community was able to purchase:
F.M. Hobbs’ account for 1896.
Fred Marvin Hobbs, a Davidson resident and member of the class of 1900, seems fond of candy, cigars, and bay rum. Sadly, Hobbs perished in a drowning incident in the Catawba River in July 1900 along with a fellow classmate, David Yonan. Both students are buried in the Davidson College cemetery.
F.M. Hobbs, a frequenter of Helper’s store during his days at Davidson.
In 1901, the Sloan family purchased the building and continued running both an inn and a store on the premises. The Sloan’s daughter, Sadie Sloan Bohannan, ran the building as a weekend rooming house for young women visiting Davidson in the 1920s and ’30s – former Library Director and first College Archivist, Dr. Chalmers G. Davidson (class of 1928), recalled that period as:
“…the day of the ‘great belle’ in the South, and ‘prom-trotters,’ as they were called, who made the rounds from Princeton to Tulane stayed at Mrs. Bohannan’s during their Davidson weekends. Mrs. Bohannan had beautiful antiques (she sometimes put as many as four girls in one four poster bed – for a dollar which was high pay) and she ran a highly reputable house. Davidson students could go only to the top of the stair to deposit suitcases and no farther.” (from Mary D. Beaty’s Davidson: A History of the Town from 1835 until 1937)
The College purchased the Carolina Inn from the Sloan family in 1946, and the building has been used as student housing, community gathering space (the town’s “Teen Canteen”), and as office and classroom space. Renovated in 1971 and designated as a Charlotte Mecklenburg Historic Site in 1977, the Carolina Inn still serves as a meeting place for the College community.
Returning to the four items found beneath the Inn, not much is known about them. The Lucky Strike tins could date from anytime in between the 1930s through the 1950s – this design was used throughout those years. Both of these tins have some loose tobacco remaining inside, and are a bit dented. The back of the tins list that these cigarettes were manufactured at “Factory No. 30 District of N.C.”
Lucky Strike “flat fifties” tin.
The bottle of castor oil from Eckerd’s is equally difficult to date – the label lists a Tryon Street address in Charlotte, as well as a recommended dosage of one to two tablespoons for adults or one to two teaspoons for children. Eckard’s expanded into North Carolina, including Charlotte, in the 1920s, and the store operated in the area until the company went defunct in 2006-2007. The slogan “Creators of Reasonable Drug Prices” appears to have been used by the chain for several decades, however, and no other markings on the bottle give further clues.
Eckerd’s of Charlotte, N.C., castor oil.
Finally, Sloan’s Family Liniment – Earl Sloan began marketing his father’s horse liniment for use on people by the late 1800s, and Sloan’s Liniment can still be purchased today. This bottle, like the one of Eckerd’s castor oil, does not have any date information but does include instructions for use.
Sloan’s Family Liniment: good for both animals and people!
If you have any information on our mysterious finds (or more finds of your own) from underneath the Carolina Inn, please get in touch with the archives!
For this Christmas Day edition of Around the D, we offer a play on “The Twelve Days of Christmas” – The Twelve Days of Davidson, collapsed into a single post:
On the first day of Christmas
Davidson College Archives & Special Collections sent to me
11 Seniors Graduating at the First Commencement Exercises (1840)
A young E. Constantine Davidson, one of the those eleven graduates in 1840, and the diploma of Oni Davis McNeely (Class of 1840), currently on display in the Library’s Davidsoniana Room.
10 Wins in the Undefeated 2000 Season for the Football Team
Excited Wildcat fans tear down the goalposts after the last game of the undefeated season; a few fans hang off the posts (from Quips and Cranks 2001).Those goalposts ended up in the senior apartments, as seen in this photo from Quips and Cranks 2001 – shown here with Chris Thawley, Jeff Larrimore, Rob Neuman, and William Childs (all Class of 2004).
Team photograph of the 1990 field hockey team, the first in the run of 6 championships (from Quips and Cranks 1991).1995 field hockey team, the last in the conference title run (from Quips and Cranks 1996; Davidson’s field hockey team currently plays in the NorPac conference, not Deep South)
Posters from the first three years of Ghosts in the Library (2009 – 2011)Posters from Ghosts in the Library, 2012 and 2013.
4 College Library Directors
From top, left to right: Cornelia Rebekah Shaw, 1907 – 1936; Chalmers Gaston Davidson (Class of 1928), 1936 – 1975; Leland M. Park (Class of 1963), 1975 – 2006; and Gillian Gremmels, 2007 – present.
Eben Hardin, Pender Porter, and Osmond L. Barringer snuck into Dr. Henry Louis Smith’s lab to X-Ray: a cadaver finger wearing a ring and stuck with two pins; magnifying glass; a pill box containing two 22 cartridges, one pin, two rings, and six Strychnine pills; and an empty egg with a button inside.
This week is North Carolina Archives Week, and since this year’s theme is “Home Grown: A Celebration of N.C. Food Culture and History,” what better time to delve into the history of farming at Davidson?
Davidson College was founded as a manual labor school, which meant that the earliest students “perfom[ed] manual Labor either agricultural or mechanical in the manner and to the extent determined by the Board of Trustees,” as mandated by March 1839 Constitution of Davidson College. Manual labor was seen as a way of reducing the cost of education and thereby making college affordable to more than the sons of the upper classes, and as a benefit to both the physical and mental heath of students. President Robert Hall Morrison spelled out the societal benefits that manual labor education could bring about in his August 2, 1838 close of term address, stating that:
The efforts of all enlightened men should be combined to improve the moral condition of society by rendering manual labor more reputable and inviting. This is not to be done solely by pronouncing eulogies, but, as time and circumstances will permit, by holding the spade, the axe, the plow, and the plane. Educated men should prove that they are not above doing as well as praising the labor by which society lives.
But while President Morrison waxed poetic on the possibilities of labor, the students had very different feelings. Alexander Bogle (class of 1843), wrote to a friend that “now comes the work which is not so pleasant… We have to work very hard three hours which is the time allotted and you know that it is pretty hard to work that long.”
Page 2 of Bogle’s letter, November 22, 1839
Similarly, Pinckney B. Chambers (class of 1840) recalled for the Charlotte Daily Observer in 1903 that “The farm work was greatly hampered by the tendency of the mischievous and shiftless to misplace the tools and outwit the overseer.” He was more colorful in his distaste for manual labor in a letter to John M. Sample in 1837, after he had transferred to Caldwell Institute:
There is no labor attached to it. (which is one of God’s blessings) All you have to do is to pay your money and go to school… It is I think a much better school than Davidson College. For several reasons but I will give you but two at present as I am in a great hurry, they are very particular reasons with me, the first is we do not have to work, and the second is we get plenty to eat and that, that is good.
First page of Chambers’ letter to Sample, December 9, 1837
By 1841, it was clear that the manual labor system wasn’t achieving its aims – rather than lowering costs and making education more accessible, Davidson was losing money on the endeavor. The Board of Trustees voted to abolish the system, and the college farm experiment came to a close.
More than 170 years later, Davidson students are back on the farm – this time on a voluntary basis, rather than a mandatory one. The Farm at Davidson, purchased in 2008, became a working farm again last fall. The College farm provides sustainable produce for Vail Commons, Davis Cafe, and Much Ado Catering, as well as a space for students and members of the Davidson community to learn about where their food comes from.
As Farm Manager Theresa Allen explains, there’s a great deal of student interest in the farm: some students help work the farm, some conduct soil experiments, and some even take naps – a far cry from the manual labor farm days! The farm’s office hours/ work days for this semester are Fridays from 1 to 4 PM, so head over to 1603 Grey Road to check out the veggies you’ll be eating later!
