Category Archives: Oregon Archives Month

Oregon Archives Month 2016!

OSULP's OAM 2016

OSULP’s OAM 2016

SCARC is so excited for another great set of events planned for 2016 Oregon Archives Month – all of which are free and open to the public!

We have three events in October:

Hear the Stories: Oregon African American Railroad Porters Oral History Collection
A presentation by Michael Grice, oral historian, filmmaker, and educator, sharing the stories of Oregon’s African American railroad porters.
Location: 5th Floor SCARC Reading Room in the Valley Library
Date: Wednesday, Oct 12th
Time: 3-5pm

Recipe Showcase “Taste of the ‘Chives”
Celebrate the legacy of Obo Addy at the launch of the new i-Book on the Obo Addy Legacy Project with a showcase of prepared selections from the organization’s Hot and Spicy Cookbook.
Location: Willamette Rooms, 3rd Floor of the Valley Library
Date: Friday, October 21st
Time: noon-1:30pm

Glitter in the Archives! Using History to Imagine Queer and Trans Futures
An opportunity for community members to participate in an evening of crafting using archival materials and, of course, learn about OSQA (OSU Queer Archives) and OSU + Corvallis area queer history.
Location: 5th Floor SCARC Reading Room in the Valley Library
Date: Wednesday, October 26th
Time: 4-6pm
This event is also a part of the OSU Pride Center’s Queer History Month

Also, if you are headed to the Oregon Archives Crawl  in Portland on Saturday, October 8th, 11am-3pm, be sure to stop by the OSU table!

And coming to the SCARC Reading Room in November in celebration of OSU’s Year of Arts and Science, join us for two more events:

Photograph 51
A play about the famous photo by scientist Rosalind Franklin that led to Watson and Crick’s discovery of DNA.
Date: November 2nd
Time: 7pm

“Collections at the Center”
A public talk by historian William Robbins and archival materials from SCARC’s historical collections.
Date: November 3rd
Time: 4pm

Friday Feature: the Oregon Archives Month 2013 debrief

Wow, what a month. Oregon Archives Month at OSU was a great mix of activities and opportunities for connecting with the community.

Good Morning America, 1988

Karl McCreary started off the month with a film showing on the 8th. He arranged for the transfer of several “films from the VHS vault,” including one of Benny and Bernice Beaver celebrating on the Memorial Union steps in 1988, former library director Rodney Waldren talking about the McDonald Room in 1984, and the always mysterious “Mr. Wizard.” These films aren’t online yet, but you can view them in our reading room (8:30 – 5:00, Monday – Friday).

 

Next on the docket was an event hosted in our reading room celebrating the 50th anniversary of Linus Pauling’s Nobel Peace Prize. History of Science Doctoral Student Linda Richards hosted a session on peace crane folding and early arrivals were able to explore some of our collections. Richards also gave an introduction to the panel featuring Tim Naftali, Jacob Darwin Hamblin, Christopher McKnight Nichols, and Joseph Orosco.  It was well-attended and Mina Carson took pictures you can find on Flickr (thanks to her for the one above). History of Science librarian Anne Bahde says “this is definitely something we’d will do again.”

We took a bit of a break before launching into back-to-back events to highlight the new Oregon Hops & Brewing Archives. The first was a fun Saturday afternoon brewery crawl, history lecture, and showings of both the documentary Oregon Brewed and all the Hopstories mini-documentaries. You can read about it and find great pictures on our Tumblr blog. A few days later we hosted the 8th annual Taste of the ‘Chives, our historic recipe cooking event, and you can read about that on our Tumblr blog as well. This year we featured recipes cooked with beer or beer ingredients. You can imagine how aromatic that was! Check out the KBVR news piece (check minute 3:15 for us).

Our final event was a celebration of OSU (and OSC) alumni during Homecoming Weekend. We held an open house and film showing on the 26th before the big game against Stanford. While the game was a bit of a bummer, the visitors weren’t! Student Mike Dicianna wrote up a nice blog post about the event and included some fun pictures of what our staff are calling “The Super Alums.”

I send out my thanks to all who attended and gratitude for all those who helped make it happen. It takes a lot of work to promote, organize, and host events like this, but I am lucky to work with a talented and engaged bunch of people who love sharing out history stories.

Remember you can see lots of event pictures in our Flickr sets.

Homecoming Open House: a report from the field by Mike D

The 2013 OSU Homecoming game against Stanford may have not been the biggest success of the season, but SCARC’s open house event certainly was! Saturday, October 26th was a memorable day here in the reading room. Karl McCreary, Trevor Sandgathe, and Mike Dicianna played host to some excited patrons and alumni with a display of OSU Homecoming history in the SCARC reading room.

Throughout the day, visitors spent quality time with ephemera, yearbooks, and OSU Barometers highlighting homecoming history. Early in the day, a couple of OSU alumni from the early 1980s showed interest in our Memorabilia Collection (MC). They asked about our original documents from the Land Grant legislation, and were able to see some original OSU history. In speaking with them, I found they were OSU Marching Band alumni and she spoke of the band playing the alma mater after each game, a tradition that needed to be reborn, she added. I retrieved our original sheet music of “Hail to Old OAC”, written in 1914 by Harold A. Wilkins. This file in the MC contains a number of original copies of the music, probably used by the OAC Cadet Band of the era. I was gratified to see how profoundly moved this patron was to see these artifacts. I do believe her hands were trembling a bit as she handled this original score. This is what the Memorabilia Collection is all about!

The highlight of our day however, was an enthusiastic group of alumni that descended upon the reading room late in the day. The Class of 1959 contingent arrived in full Beaver regalia, and they were enthralled by the display of “their” history. The OSU Barometer bound editions we had on display were a huge hit! The stories from their years at OSC started to flow, and memories rekindled by the yearbooks and Barometer articles, entertained us for the rest of the afternoon.

We learned that the campaign for student body officers during the era was quite a contested affair. The Shamrock Ticket was standing before us! Harlan Smith, Dave Socolofski, and Jane Sailing all ran for ASOSC office for the 1959 year. And there, in the bound version of the Barometer on the table, was the news coverage of the race!
We also learned that the 1959 ASOSC administration was involved in the process to designate Oregon State College as a full University (finalized in 1961). These were the folks that helped make OSC history. Unfortunately, the Shamrock ticket was not elected that spring of 1958. Some interesting stories of the hard fought campaign were shared, involving toilet seats all over campus. Harley Smith served as the ASOSC First Vice President during the 1959 school year.

The alumni from the Class of 1959 were a joy to interact with. They were truly appreciative that SCARC would preserve the history of their college. Dave Socolofsky, Junior Class President of 1958 was especially interested in our collections. He had no idea that we would keep this stuff! Yes, Mr. Beaver Alumni, we do indeed. He took pictures with his I-Phone (cool guy) of the memories before him in the Barometers from 1958.
I have to admit my motives for the day were kind of self-serving. I was fishing for Oral History subjects for my OSU history project. Capturing the campus life stories of students from the different decades is my primary goal. This group of enthusiastic alumni was all interested in contributing! These stories of OSC/OSU are being captured in video interviews and will be part of the university’s 150th anniversary celebration.

All in all, the SCARC Homecoming Open House was a huge success! I can hardly wait until next week’s display for Dad’s Weekend! Maybe we can snag some more subjects for the oral history project!

Oregon Archives Month was a month of fun!

It’s hard to believe this month is over… We had a film fest, tours, historical goody treats, and some crawling (not in that order). Read on and read more!

Starting off the month on October 4th, in honor of the OSU athlete extraordinaire and Heisman Trophy winner Terry Baker we showed the 1963 TV documentary produced by KATU-TV, “A Day in the Life of Terry Baker.”

Once upon a time history-loving folks crawled around Portland talking to archivists. These archivists had brought information goodies from far and wide to share with the masses. Nope, this no fairy tale! On October 6th, SCARC staff and student workers journeyed to the far north end of our state (Portland) to join other culture and historic organizations for the Oregon Archives Crawl. To quote the Crawl website, there were “over 25 archives and heritage organizations in getting in touch with history and having fun doing it!” There were four host locations: Portland Archives and Records Center, Portland State University Library, Multnomah County Central Library and the Oregon Historical Society and at each site visitors met with “archivists, historians and other representatives from organizations that devote their time to preserving the past so that it will be available for you and future generations to use.” And yes, there is a Flickr set.

Chris Petersen led visitors on a tour of the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers on October 10th, highlighting the diverse and fascinating components of the Paulings’ Collection.

On October 26th Special Collections and Archives staff Anne Bahde and Trevor Sandgathe offered a fascinating glimpse into OSU’s oldest and rarest volumes that include cuneiform tablets, fine bindings, and incunabula. Check out the Flickr set and rare books site.

Fall in all its fiery hues and cold winds makes for good cooking when we look to the old standards to fill us up and keep us cozy. So it is in this spirit, that we hosted the annual Taste of the ‘Chives Recipe Showcase on October 29th — and took a bunch of pictures! This year we added an element of competition to the event and asked people to vote for the tastiest dish with pocket change (which was donated to the Linn Benton Food Share to keep other bellies filled). Fish pie won! Want to explore the many online offerings we have for recipes from days of yore? Check in ScholarsArchive.

 

 

 

Friday Feature: 10 Little Baking Club Lessons

Remember the Friday Feature “Ten Little Lessons on Vitamins“? Well these 10 Little Baking Club Lessons offer another view of cooking and health!

Brought to you from the Oregon Agricultural College Extension Service and Boys & Girls Industrial Clubs in 1916, these delicious little bulletins provide wonderful lessons for kids learning to cook.

Get inspired and get cooking! To find the full text of each, visit ScholarsArchive and search for “Baking Club Lessons.”

And don’t forget to Taste those ‘Chives Monday at noon.

Cook up some carbolicious history

We’ve rocketed into cold, wet, wintry feeling weather in the mid-Willamette Valley… Which brings to mind cozy kitchens, warm ovens, and bellies full of sweet treats and big loaves of bread! Following the food focus of the week, I wanted to offer up some more yummy recipes for you to consider for next week’s Taste of the ‘Chives (October 29 for those who may have missed it).

Friday Feature: Oregon Archives Crawl 2012

Once upon a time history-loving folks crawled around Portland talking to archivists. These archivists had brought information goodies from far and wide to share with the masses. Nope, this no fairy tale!

Oregon Archives Crawl 2012

Oregon Archives Crawl 2012

Last weekend several SCARC staff and student workers journeyed to the far north end of our state (Portland) to join other culture and historic organizations. To quote the Crawl website, there were “over 25 archives and heritage organizations in getting in touch with history and having fun doing it!” There were four host locations: Portland Archives and Records Center, Portland State University LibraryMultnomah County Central Library and the Oregon Historical Society. And at each site visitors met with “archivists, historians and other representatives from organizations that devote their time to preserving the past so that it will be available for you and future generations to use.”

Want to see more? Check out our Flickr set!

Want to know more? Read about the Crawl!

Time to taste those ‘chives!

Fall in all its fiery hues and cold winds makes for good cooking when we look to the old standards to fill us up and keep us cozy.

So it is in this spirit, that we bring to you the annual Taste of the ‘Chives Recipe Showcase!

You too can join us in sampling (AND COOKING!) dishes inspired by recipes featured in a variety of OSU sources from Extension circulars to student organization cookbooks to faculty newsletters.

  • When? Monday, October 29th, Noon to 1:00
  • Where? Willamette Rooms-third floor of the Library

Samplers are always welcome, but cooks are super-welcome!

So if you want to try your hand at recreating the flavors of the past, there many sources of online recipes in ScholarsArchive: http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/

  • Hint: search using words of foods like “carrots” or things like “menu” or “cookbook.”
This year we’re adding an element of competition to the event, so you can vote for the tastiest dish with your pocket change which will be donated to the Linn Benton Food Share to keep other bellies filled. There will be prizes to the cooks of the top five yummiest dishes!  

Any questions? Contact Karl McCreary, OSU Collections Archivist.

Hope to see you there!

 

 

Taste those ‘chives this Thursday!

Putting meringue on lemon pies, 1940

Putting meringue on lemon pies, 1940

Did you make your shopping list? Did you check it twice?

This Thursday (10/27) from 12:00-1:00 you can sample tastes of the past in our annual Taste of the ‘Chives recipe event! Bring yourself — and a dish if you wish to share — to the Willamette Rooms.

This year, you’ll find “international” recipes dating from 1928 to 2008. The publications are all available online at the OSU ScholarsArchive site and downloadable here as PDF files:

Remember, volunteers to help prepare the recipes are always appreciated! Contact karl.mccreary@oregonstate.edu for more details or to sign up.