Student Art History Projects

Have you ever wondered what life was like on UMD’s campus during the Vietnam War?  Or how our university handled sexual assault cases throughout the decades?  How did the Civil Rights Movement impact our campus?

Well, look no further because these five fabulous art history projects have all that information and more!

In the fall of 2018, the students in ARTH260 produced a variety of projects about activism, sexual assault gender inequalities and other important topics using research found in Special Collections.  Among these creations were four websites and a video.

Each group project was accompanied by a mixture of art, whether it was paintings, photographs or decorative flyers plucked from our very own archives, and extensive information each group researched for their topics.

The homepage of “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back.”

“One Step Forward, Two Steps Back” discusses the double-standards that women experience during their education and in the workforce.  Using yearbook photos from our archives and speaking with students, the website highlights sexist standards women are given — particularly in the mathematics and scientific fields — while men are provided with different guidelines to follow.

UMD’s Untold History

Have you ever heard of the College of Special and Continual Studies, or CSCS? Chances are, you haven’t. But it has a fascinating history. It was a significant part of the University of Maryland, beginning with its founding in 1947. Originally, CSCS was created to “coordinate the expanding off-campus” courses offered to officers at the Pentagon.

In 1949, CSCS became the first university to send faculty members, dubbed “the Original Seven,” overseas to Europe in order to provide education for the United States’ active-duty military personnel amidst the rubble of war-torn Germany, following World War II.

In the 1950s, CSCS expanded its offerings, including providing more locations stateside, as well as opening the Atlantic Division and the Asia Division, where faculty taught soldiers in Japan and South Korea.

At the request of its Dean, Ray Ehrensberger, in 1959 the College of Special and Continual Studies was renamed University College (can you see where this is going yet?).

Fun fact: University College is a term borrowed from British usage; it describes an institution that offers courses to all students, regardless of gender, social class, or religion.

Now for the really exciting stuff: in 1963 “the first classes are held in Saigon as the university extends into a war zone in Vietnam. By the 1969-1970 academic year, enrollments in Vietnam reach 11,000….[and] every new professor has to agree to teach in Vietnam.” Can you imagine getting a new job and being told that your first position would be in a war zone? There was even a professor still in Saigon when it fell on April 30, 1975!

Finally, in 1970, University College was, once again, renamed, becoming the University of Maryland University College, an independent and accredited institution, separate from the University of Maryland at College Park. That’s right, UMUC was originally part of the University of Maryland! In fact, the Center for Adult Education was built in October of 1964 to be used as the UMUC headquarters in College Park.

You can explore a more detailed history of the University of Maryland University College here: https://www.umuc.edu/about/mission-and-history/timeline.cfm

And for something even more interesting, you can watch our fascinating documentary “Over There: The Adventures of Maryland’s Traveling Faculty”: https://video.mpt.tv/video/over-there-the-adventures-of-marylands-traveling-faculty-qwxacw/

All images are from the UMUC Archives

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Post by Meaghan Wilson
Assistant Archivist, University Archives, University of Maryland University College

Join us for a pop-up museum celebrating activism

Participate in our pop-up museum celebrating activism on Wednesday, February 21st from 12-4pm in the first floor lobby of Hornbake Library.

Bring your badgers, flyers, posters, pins, photos, audio and music, video and other material from social media, marches and cultural events for our temporary museum.

We want to preserve your stories of activism. Record your story at the event.

Be a part of campus history!

Contact Laura Cleary with questions
lcleary@umd.edu
301-405-9988

Bobby Seale and the Black Panther Party in the Archives

Bobby Seale, one of the founders of the Black Panther Party, will visit UMD on February 1st, 2018 as part of the Arts and Humanities “2017-2018 Dean’s Lecture Series: Courageous Conversations”. Seale’s visit prompted us at Special Collections and University Archives to look in our collections for information on Seale and the Black Panther Party.

Student newspapers such as the Diamondback and The Eclipse tell us that Seale spoke at UMD in Ritchie Coliseum in 1972 and in Hoff Theater in 1995. Seale also spoke at the STamp Studnet Union in 1974.

Increasing our capacity

Last year, we began a major shifting project. The new shelves are ridiculously tall and very deep. Material can be “dense packed” meaning that there is a whole lot of stuff every shelf.

In January, library staff got a sneak peak and saw our books’ new home. The environment is highly controlled and the humidity and temperature are just right for keeping our material safe.

The best part of this is that we now have the capacity to collect and purchase even more material for you! This allows us to grow and adapt to better suit your, the researchers, needs.

Check out these photos from my visit.

Take a peek behind the scenes

What goes on behind the scenes in Hornbake Library?

This week we kicked off our Staff Spotlight campaign on Instagram. Follow along as we introduce some of our staff and provide a behind the scenes look at the work we do.

www.instagram.com/HornbakeLibrary

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by Laura Cleary

Special Collections Opens Their Doors

This semester we hosted an Open House for University staff and displayed some of the interesting material found within our collection.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Three of these items came from our literary collection and included an early edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, an inscribed copy of Mark Twain’s Sketches, New and Old, and a 1794 edition of A Vindication of the Rights of Women. These early editions provided insights into the times in which they were produced through their format, inscriptions or by the significance of their ownership. Much can be learned by looking at original copies of common works.

If you would like to talk to us about using our collections for your own research or to support your instruction, please let us know. We often work with faculty and look forward to the opportunity to get to know you and your students.

Research queries to askhornbake@umd.edu
Instruction support queries to lcleary@umd.edu

A Vindication of the Rights of Women

Mark Twain’s Sketches, New and Old

Versions of a book from manuscript through various publications

 

Achievements and Milestones in UMD Athletics

Have you ever been curious about the history of Midnight Madness? Have you heard talk of the women’s rifle team, which ruled women’s athletics in the 1920s and 1930s? Or perhaps you want to know just how big a size 18 basketball shoe really is.

Visitors to the Maryland Room in Hornbake Library now have the chance to learn more about university athletics through a special exhibit on display until September 18th. The exhibit features milestones in both men’s and women’s athletic competition at the University of Maryland and pairs interesting material objects with related photographs. For example, action photographs from a track meet in 1914, only three years after intercollegiate competitions in track and field began, sit in front of an original 1913 trophy from the Georgetown Relays.

One of the University Archives’ most fragile items can also be viewed here: a flag from the football team’s surprise victory over Michigan State in 1950. The team captured at least two flags from MSU and brought them back to Maryland. The flag in our collection includes signatures of the football team members, coaches, and staff, as well as university president Curley Byrd. Other football highlights include three helmets worn at different times in the 20th century, making obvious the drastic changes in helmet design and safety since the early 1900s.

Developments in women’s athletics feature prominently in the exhibit. For the first female students on campus, opportunities for recreation consisted of intramural competition in sports like tennis, basketball, and field hockey. In the 1920s, the women’s rifle team became the first to engage in competition with other schools. The teams did not travel, but rather transmitted scores via telegraph and exchanged their bullet-riddled paper targets through the mail! Since Title IX and the expansion of women’s varsity teams, many of UMD’s team have achieved national prominence – including women’s basketball, field hockey, and lacrosse.

The University Archives’ Athletics Collections contain much more than what’s highlighted in this exhibit. Documentation about the history of various sports on campus, in addition to statistics, programs, and media guides comprise the majority of the paper records. Many memorabilia items (such as t-shirts, bumper stickers, and gameday tickets), hundreds of trophies, thousands of photographs, and over 10,000 film reels and videotapes can also be found in the collections.

Most of the items on display are donations from university alumni or transfers from the Athletics Department. To find out more about these materials or other items in the collection, or to inquire about donating materials, please contact Athletics Archivist Amanda Hawk at ahawk@umd.edu.

Sharing Books in Hornbake Library

Did you know the 1st floor lobby in Hornbake Library has a free bookshelf? Stop by and pick up a title that catches your eye. You can also drop off books collecting dust at home to give them a new life.

The Hornbake Library free bookshelf is  great way to encourage sustainability and share you love of reading with others! Check out some of the titles available now:

Yuletide Books: On display now in the Maryland Room

Get into the holiday spirit than by visiting the Special Collections Literature and Rare Books Collection in Hornbake Library! On display now in the Maryland Room are books written by celebrated authors about the holiday season or retelling classic tales. Visit the UMD Libraries hours website for our holiday hours – you definitely don’t want to miss this display!

Books featured in the display include:

• The Night Before Christmas, Clement C. Moore. Porter & Caotes: Philadelphia, 1883
• A Christmas Story, Katherine Anne Porter. Mademoiselle: New York, 1958
• The Cultivation of Christmas Trees, T.S. Eliot. Farrar, Straus and Cudahy: New York
• Two Christmas Tales, Ernest Hemingway. The Hart Press: Berkeley, 1959
• A Christmas Dream, Louisa May Alcott. Little, Brown & Co.: Boston. 1901
• The Wood-Pile, Robert Frost. Spiral Press: New York, 1961
• Christmas Verse. Oxford University Press: New York, 1945
• The Untold Adventures of Santa Claus, Ogden Nash. Little, Brown & Co.: Boston, 1962
• A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens. G. Routledge: London, 1880
• Old Christmas, Washington Irving. Judd and Dettweiler: Washington, 1934
• Come Christmas: A selection of Christmas poetry, song, drama, and prose, Lesley Frost. Coward-McCann Inc.: New York, 1935