University of St. Francis Library Archives

Part six of This Week in History will be diving into Scribner’s Monthly: An Illustrated Magazine for the People , specifically the March edition from 1877. Scribner’s Monthly was a pictorial publication focusing on bringing art, science, and literature to the American people. Unfortunately, this publication was short-lived, only lasting from 1870-1881. Scribner’s Monthly was renamed to The Century Magazine following the sale of the company. Founder Charles Scribner came back and created Scribner’s Magazine in 1887 to compete with the highly successful Harper’s Weekly (which is discussed in Part Four of this series). Interior of New York Aquarium Fortunately, the March volume of Scribner’s Monthly is full of interesting articles, poetry, literature installments, advice, and a few other oddities. The headliner for March was the New York Aquarium, which opened December 10, 1876. The article has no author but the illustrations were provided by a local artist who documented...

Hi everyone! I'm getting this blog in on the last day of the month, hence the title. USF is halfway through the semester (Spring Break is next week) and it seems people are ready for vacations. Student nurses coming out of St. Joseph College of Nursing ca. 1980s This will be a quick one because February has been a very quiet month in the archives. I am editing metadata for the soon to be published St. Joseph College of Nursing digital collection, which I think will add a great deal to the USF community. And that's about it for February in terms of archive projects. My other library duties are taking more time and consideration, so that's what I've been focusing on. Hopefully March will bring lots of donations and interesting stories! See you then.

Entering my third year as Archivist at the University of St. Francis, I have new responsibilities in the library and goals for the archives. A Quick Recap College of St. Francis cheerleaders practicing in hallway ca. 1980-1989 At the beginning of last year my student worker, Adjo Tameklo, and history intern, Madison Bowie, worked together to add metadata for over 500 new images for the digital collection, Sharing Our Past, A Visual History . Many of the pictures depict USF athletics from the 1970s-1980s, which had been a gap in the collection. I was also able to catalog 400 books from the Barbara A. Cooke Musical Theater Collection . Mostly autobiographies, biographies, and historical reference books the collection is available to search in the Brown Library catalog. During the summer I became the Library Archives & Catalog Manager for the Brown Library. Along with managing the archives, I am now responsible for overseeing the cataloging and classification of mate...

Excerpt from The Interlude December 12, 1941 Today marks the 75 th anniversary of the attacks on Pearl Harbor in 1941. This event propelled the United States’ military involvement in WWII. Interested to see how the attack affected the population at the College of St. Francis, I went through three of the archive’s collections ( the Interlude , Ephemera and Newspaper Clippings , and Sharing OurPast: A Visual History ) to find out. My first step was to check the student newspaper assuming there must have been something written immediately after the attack. To my surprise, I only found one small editorial written by student president, Emily Kernan. Speaking of the sudden shock, she wrote: “The psychological reaction is only natural, but we cannot rush out, grab a gun and start shooting; nor can we sit back and let out minds dwell upon the condition that have so suddenly overthrown our rather peaceful outlook upon life” (v. 14, no. 4, pg.1). Kernan stated CSF girls should contin...

(L to R) Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ross Perot Election Day is tomorrow , so I looked back in the student newspapers to see what USF students had to say about their elections. I found a very apt article from staff writer Paul Popek in volume 17, number 3 edition from the 1992 Encounter about the “mudsling tactics” which occur during campaigns.  For reference, there were three major candidates in 1992: Incumbent Republican President George H. W. Bush; Democratic Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, and independent Texas businessman Ross Perot. The 2016 election is one of the most divisive in our nation’s history. The article touches on how negativity and "dirty politics" has become expected during elections and the issues take a backseat to name-calling. Please take the time to read the entire article, and don’t forget to VOTE ! Volume 17, Number 3 of Encounter, November 6, 1992

Research room in the Chicago History Museum October is American Archives Month and in celebration I attended Chicago Open Archives: Yours to Explore last week. Over thirty local archives, research centers, and cultural institutions in the Chicago area offered special events open to members of the public. I visited three archives, each with different missions and goals for their collections. First up, the Chicago History Museum . “The Chicago History Museum is a research center and exhibition space focused on collecting and telling Chicago's stories. In addition to exhibitions on Chicago’s history, the Chicago History Museum houses a Research Center which serves the research collections of the museum—archives and manuscripts, prints and photographs, published material, and architectural drawings.” With such vast holdings the archivists focused on their sports-related collections. The two-hour tour began in the museum with the typical cases the public can easily view. T...

This past weekend was homecoming at USF and I hosted a “USF History in Pictures.” Over the two hours, there were alumni from the 1991 nursing class, a couple 1992 business majors, and about 10 women from the 1966 class. They were celebrating their 50 th reunion! They reminisced about dorm living in Tower Hall, which consisted of 10pm curfews and 10 person rooms during their freshmen year. Still an all-girls school in 1966, they needed permission from their parents to go on dates with students from Lewis University. They also pointed out that the Uno Lounge where my display was used to be the mail room and a security guard was stationed there at night. Thank you to everyone who came out on homecoming weekend!