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A n I n t r o d u c t i o n t o t h e A r c h i v e s
Archival Minute April 2013
In previous Archival Minutes I’ve written about people and events in Wayne State history. Much of
the material for these histories can be found in the WSC Archives. For this Archival Minute I
thought I’d take the opportunity to give you an introduction to the Archives itself.
Historical Background
When I came to Wayne State in August 1988, there was what was called an “archives” housed in
book cases with locked glass doors just outside my office on the first floor of the Library. This
collection consisted of copies of The Spizzerinktum (or Spizz), the yearbook, old college catalogs,
copies of The Judas Goat, the student literary publication, and a number of old (presumably rare?)
books.
In addition, there were stacks of boxes of documents and other items stored in a locked room in the
basement of the Library. For the most part, the contents of these boxes had never been inventoried,
organized or cataloged. The exceptions were the papers of Val Peterson and J.G.W. Lewis which
had been partially processed.
Val Peterson (1903-1983), after whom Peterson Fine Arts building is named, was a 1927 Wayne
State graduate, a teacher, coach, school superintendent, and newspaper editor. He was awarded the
Bronze Star for his service in the Army Air Corps during World War II. He served three terms as
Governor of Nebraska, 1947-1953. President Eisenhower appointed him as his administrative
assistant, then Federal Civil Defense Administrator, and in 1957, ambassador to Denmark. During
the Nixon administration he served as ambassador to Finland. Peterson was also instrumental in the
establishment of the Wayne State Foundation in 1961 and served as president of the foundation
from 1972-1979.
Wayne State College - U.S. Conn Library
Marcus Schlichter, Archivist 402-375-7266
P a g e 2 A r c h i v a l M i n u t e
Several years before his death, Peterson donated several boxes of materials containing
correspondence, photographs, tape recordings, electrical transcriptions, awards, plaques and
various other items. There were also a number of scrapbooks, containing newspaper clippings and
photographs chronicling his public career from his campaign for governor through the 1960s. Also
donated were over 1300 books from his personal library.
J. G. W. (John Greenleaf Whittier) Lewis (1875-1973) was one of the original members of the
State Normal School at Wayne faculty in 1910. Lewis taught history and political science. He left
Wayne State in 1935 for a position at the University of Nebraska after a confrontation with
President Conn (a possible future Archival Minute). In spite of that confrontation, however, Lewis
received the Distinguished Service Award from the College in 1967 and one of the campus streets
is named after him (although considerably shorter since the creation of the Commons).
Lewis took a leave of absence to serve as a member of the Nebraska Constitutional Convention
from December 1919 to April 1920 and again from September 1922 to September 1923 to finish
his doctoral work at the University of Chicago. The subject of his dissertation was the Nebraska
Constitutional Convention.
Val Peterson Scrapbook
There are four boxes of materials labeled “J. G. W. Lewis
Collection” (the boxes are numbered 1, 3, 4, and 5—I’m not
sure what happened to box 2). The boxes contain a carbon copy
of Lewis’ dissertation, materials relating to the constitutional
convention, “selected essays” written by Lewis (some
handwritten) on state and municipal government and Native
Americans as well as several books: Proceedings of the
Constitutional Convention, a four-volume collection of
messages of the governors of Nebraska from 1854 through
1942, Nebraska party platforms (1858-1940) and Nebraska
Survey of Social Resources in two volumes.
As stated above, these were the only materials that had ever
been processed to any degree when I came. That processing
was done by Dr. Michael Blayney, then associate professor of
history at Wayne State. In a May 2, 1985 memorandum to
Wayne State President Ed Elliott, Dr. Blayney reported on the
completion of the Peterson / Lewis project and presented an
argument in favor of the establishment of a college archives:
The Val Peterson and the John G. Lewis papers have
now been processed. These collections raise the larger
question of the possibility of establishing a college
archives. I believe an archives would be highly
desirable for Wayne State College, as a valuable
service for students, faculty, and alumni.
The first function of the archives
would be as part of a center for
regional studies. The archives
would function in the library in
conjunction with the new Great
Plains Room to stress our
Nebraska and Great Plains
heritage. The Peterson and Lewis
collections provide the nucleus
for other collections dwelling
with state and local history.
P a g e 3 A r c h i v a l M i n u t e
Great Plains Room
The Great Plains Room in the
Library was dedicated on April
28, 1985. The room is located to
the left as you enter the Library.
Today current newspapers and
the Popular Reading collection
occupy this area, but when it was
dedicated the room was meant to
be part of The Great Plains Expe-
rience in Northeast Nebraska
project. The goal of the project
was to “[encourage] reading and
developing an interest in the
Great Plains.” In 1985 the room
was to “include the Kind Indian
artifact collection, books on the
Great Plains, as well as photo-
graphs, paintings and other arti-
facts that are unique to northeast
Nebraska.” This goal has obvi-
ously long since been aban-
doned.
Invitation to Great Plains Room Dedication
P a g e 4 A r c h i v a l M i n u t e
One of the main duties of the College Archivist would be to acquire more collections for the
archives.
Now that the Peterson and Lewis collections have been processed, we must ask ourselves,
what is the best use to which this material can be put? The Lewis collection is highly relevant
to political scientists, and the Division of Social Science is beginning a new course in
Nebraska history in which students will profitably use both collections. A second function of
the college archivist would be compiling finding lists to aid students in researching the already
processed materials. The archivist should also compile summaries of the vast amount of taped
Peterson interviews. These materials are of little use to students in their present form.
A college archives should also serve as the repository of the history of the college. This
includes all college yearbooks, catalogs, etc. as well as photograph collections. The archivist
should work closely with the Alumni Office in providing relevant documents and photos for
alumni publications and for interested alumni. In this way the archives plays a valuable public
relations role for Wayne. The archivist should keep in touch with fellow college archivists
around the Midwest to heighten Wayne’s visibility.
Finally, both students and faculty who do not use the archives directly should be made aware
of it through displays in the library on relevant themes in college history such as athletics, the
changing face of the campus through the years, etc.”
No immediate action was taken on Dr. Blayney’s recommendations and the collections processed by
Dr. Blayney continued to sit in a room in the basement of the library along with the many boxes of
unprocessed material. The one exception came in 1992 when WSC education professor Dr. Morris
Anderson received a $400 administrative grant from the Nebraska Humanities Council to “document
and file Val Peterson’s papers.” Dr. Anderson, who was a friend of Val Peterson, selected and
organized Peterson’s correspondence filling 13 bound volumes (over 20 boxes of other materials still
remain).
The next step in the effort to establish a college archives came in the mid-1990s. An Archival Task
Force was formed in the fall of 1996 with Library Director Dr. Stan Gardner as Chair. The task force
inventoried the materials of historical value held by College Relations, the Office of the President and
the Library. They agreed that “many files should be digitized to preserve the information, as many
documents are not valuable in and of themselves, only in the information they contain.” They also
discussed other issues such as the space needed to house an archives, hardware and software
requirements for the process of digitization, costs, and sources of funding.
President Sheila Stearns wrote on September 14, 1999:
While new to Wayne State College, my extensive experience in education has taught me to
appreciate the need for not only preserving our historical material, but also the importance of
developing a strong strategic plan to assure that none of our traditions, photographs,
academic records, and other related material is lost to future generations. Much of the
College’s history is currently scattered throughout the campus buildings in less than
satisfactory storage facilities. We are determined to change this situation.
I strongly support the Library’s effort to employ a professional archivist to not only develop
a long-range plan for preserving and maintaining these materials, but also to organize,
catalog, classify, and prepare these materials for use, not only for our purposes, but for
research and as a legacy for future generations of students. With the training and expertise of
an archivist, access which is not possible now because of the scattered and disorganized state
of the records will be alleviated by providing inventories and other findings [sic] aids to the
material.
I am committed to this project. In recognition of its value to the College and surrounding
community, the College will support the continued maintenance of the archive. [Emphasis
in original]
Archives Established
President Stearns left in 2003 before a college archival plan could be put into place. It was up to her
successor, President Richard Collings, to establish a college archives officially. An Archives
Committee was formed and I was given the task of organizing the materials and establishing an
archives in the Library.
In the summer of 2006, approximately 20 boxes of materials were sent to the Library from the
President’s office. Most of the files in these boxes had been selected and sorted by Lucille Peterson,
retired secretary to the president and one of the members of the Archival Task Force who had long
felt the need to preserve Wayne State’s history. In addition, Human Resources sent over old (pre-
1970 or so) personnel files (after removal of “sensitive” material). I made a preliminary inventory of
those materials as well as the boxes that had been stored in the Library basement for so many years
(including the Peterson and Lewis collections). As expected, most of the material in the boxes
consisted of correspondence, memos, college publications, reports, newspaper articles, and
P a g e 5 A r c h i v a l M i n u t e
P a g e 6 A r c h i v a l M i n u t e
documents, as well as plaques, a couple student scrapbooks, photographs, etc. Perhaps the most
surprising item found was a bag of .38 caliber bullets! (Found in one of the boxes of the Val Peterson
material, the bullets were quickly turned over to Campus Security).
Another interesting item was an envelope with a handwritten note “taken from a bottle concealed in
the basement of West Hall when it was torn down in 1925.” (West Hall was a wooden dorm built
approximately on the east edge of the current site of Connell in 1901. It was actually razed in 1922—
not 1925—to make way for Connell) The envelope contained several torn, soiled, water-damaged
documents: a copy of the constitution of the Philomathean Literary Society, several pages of
signatures of the Nebraska Normal College Class of 1901, and a barely readable note dated May 3,
1901:
To the finder: We have just come out of the bon[ds] of quarantine from small pox. We were
quarantined eight weeks and had thirty-two cases non[e] serious. Out of over three hundred
students only about sixty…….for the sum[er] is very ……….
When you find …….. you will please notify F. H. Willis as [he] is ……. Who got …… up. You will
find him among the legal profession or in politics.
The name of F. H. Willis does appear on the list of 1901 graduates. Nann Whitmore’s history of the
Nebraska Normal College (1939) notes only that Fred Willis “[w]ent to Indo, Calif.” The 1920 U. S.
census does show a Fred H. Willis living in Indio, California. His occupation was listed, not in the
legal profession or in politics, but rather in farming. There’s no evidence whether or not he was ever
notified that the note was found.
As to the severity of the small pox outbreak, The Wayne Herald of May 23, 1901 commented “[t]he
‘small pox’ or what is it [sic], has been knocked out again and all quarantines raised, and we hope for
keeps. The last cases seem to have been more scare than small pox.”
In October 2006 a mission statement for the Archives was developed:
The mission of the Wayne State College Archives is to serve as the institutional memory of the
college through the identification, acquisition, maintenance, and preservation of records of
enduring historical, legal, fiscal, and/or administrative value, in all formats, that chronicle the
activities of the college’s administration, faculty, staff, and students. The archives shall also
appraise, maintain, and preserve the records of alumni and friends of the college received as
gifts should the subject matter of the records relate to the mission or history of the college. The
archives shall make records available, according to an access policy that safeguards
documents and privacy, to all those seeking to learn about Wayne State College and the
college community.
P a g e 7 A r c h i v a l M i n u t e
The first files to be processed were those files Lucille Peterson had placed in boxes labeled “historical
files” as well as files labeled “historical” found in other boxes. These materials were divided into two
collections:
Nebraska Normal College Collection. This collection consists of materials relating to James Pile,
the Pile family, and the Nebraska Normal College. Among the materials are newspaper
clippings, several Nebraska Normal College catalogs, a few copies of the Nebraska Normal
College Journal, commencement programs from 1901 through the final commencement in
1910, the aforementioned notes from the basement of West Hall, correspondence of the
Nebraska Normal History Committee and a manuscript of Nann Whitmore’s book which grew
out of that committee. Also there are several stock certificates sold to raise funds for the
Nebraska Normal College and two
NNC diplomas. The finding aid is
at http://academic.wsc.edu/
conn_library/services/archives/
findingaid/normal_college/
index.php.
Nebraska Normal College
Stock Certificate
Nebraska Normal
College Diploma
P a g e 8 A r c h i v a l M i n u t e
Normal College Journal
P a g e 9 A r c h i v a l M i n u t e
Wayne State College History Collection. This collection consists of materials from the time the
state took control of the Nebraska Normal College in 1910. The collection is subdivided into
two parts. The first subset of files is made up of those that had been labeled by decade. The
second subset is organized by subject. The finding aid may be found at http://
academic.wsc.edu/conn_library/services/archives/findingaid/wsc_history/index.php.
Collections now being processed are college bulletins and catalogs, alumni and faculty newsletters
and audiovisual materials (including the tape recorded interviews with Val Peterson mentioned by Dr.
Blayney). There is an urgency to preserve older media such as 16mm film, audiocassettes, reel-to-reel
tapes and videotape (both VHS and ¾ inch cassettes) before the machines that can play them
disappear (I still have to find a film projector that can play a film with a magnetic audio strip for a
commencement address by John G. Neihardt). While the originals will be kept, a digital copy will be
created and made available to the public.
There are also a small number of photographs dating from the Nebraska Normal College period and a
scattered few of the state college from before the 1960s as well as thousands of negatives, slides and
prints from the 1960s and later that were transferred to the Archives from College Relations. These
must all be scanned and the originals preserved.
College Relations sent many boxes of other materials as well when they had to move out of Hahn
during renovation: scrapbooks from the late 1940s on, college press releases, newspaper clippings,
publicity files on faculty and staff, and videotapes of commencements and promotions for the college.
Since 2006 other campus offices and departments have donated materials to the Archives. Among
these are:
Old campus maps from Facilities Services.
Boxes of correspondence, financial records and promotional materials for the Black & Gold
Series from the Music Department.
A scrapbook documenting musical performances from the 1930s to the 1960s, also from the
Music Department.
A draft of Dr. Brandenburg’s doctoral dissertation (President’s Office) and class lecture notes
(Social Science).
Copies of student theses and file papers from the Vice President of Academic Affairs.
Oral histories by students in Dr. Joseph Weixelman’s American Experience class.
P a g e 1 0 A r c h i v a l M i n u t e
Donations have come in from alumni and others as well. These range from copies of The Spizz to
items saved by Mary V. Walker, secretary to President J. T. Anderson, donated by her niece.
Finds on eBay
I’ve been able to find many NNC and WSC items on eBay. Among the items are postcards. There
were a small number of postcards in the boxes stored in the Library and in those boxes sent over from
the president’s office in 2006. There are many scenes of the campus over its history. Some of the
cards have interesting messages from students writing about campus life. The collection of postcards
was expanded to include scenes of the City of Wayne, northeast Nebraska and Nebraska schools,
concentrating on the early 20th century. No doubt more than a few Wayne State students graduated
from the schools pictured in these postcards and perhaps taught in them after graduation. All the
postcards have been scanned and can be viewed on the Archives web page http://academic.wsc.edu/
conn_library/services/archives/images/index.php
Some Items Collected
by Mary Walker
Mary Walker,
1941 Spizz
P a g e 1 1 A r c h i v a l M i n u t e
Copies of the Spizz turn up on eBay from time to time. While the Archives already has multiple copies
of most years of the Spizz, there’s an occasional rare find, such as a 1940 Spizz (the Archives had no
copies) and the first Spizz published in 1914 (it had only 2 copies previously).
This poster (on right) was found
on eBay. The poster honors
National Guardsmen from
Wayne who had been called to
the border with Mexico in 1916.
One of the officers was First
Lieutenant James H. Pile, son of
NNC founder, James M. Pile.
That in itself makes this poster a
valuable artifact; however, there
is another element that, if true,
brings additional value: the
possibility that this poster was
once owned by a member of the
Pile family. The seller was
located in Rochester, New York.
James M. Pile’s other son, Fred,
and his daughter, Helen Pile
Newton, both lived in Rochester.
Mrs. Ella Pile, James M. Pile’s
widow, lived the final days of her
life there. The seller said he had
bought the poster at an estate
sale, but as far as he knew, the
names Pile or Newton were not
associated with the estate. So, at
this point there is no conclusive
proof that this poster belonged
to a member of the Pile family,
but it seems to be more than a mere coincidence that the poster turned up in the city over a thousand
miles from Wayne where members of the Pile family lived. In any case, the poster is an interesting
witness to a largely forgotten event in Wayne history.
National Guard Poster
P a g e 1 2 A r c h i v a l M i n u t e
This poster (on right) advertises a group called
The Chessmen. The booking address at the
bottom of the poster is Wayne State College, so
the members of the group must have been
students (or less likely staff or faculty). The
school was not officially named Wayne State
College until 1963 and the use of zip codes
began on July 1, 1963, therefore it must date
from 1963 or later. However, the hairstyles
suggest the poster does not date much later than
the mid-1960s. I’ve not located any information
about this group (so far). Please let me know if
you know anything about The Chessmen.
Several plates (on left) with the
name Wayne State Normal have
turned up on eBay as well as a
cup with painted images of the
first two Nebraska Normal
College buildings. The plates
likely are from the cafeteria and
date from the early 1920s. The
cup may date between 1906
(when the second building was
constructed) and 1910, when
the State took over the NNC.
The Chessmen Poster
Wayne State Plates
P a g e 1 3 A r c h i v a l M i n u t e
A number of souvenir booklets dating from the early 1900s have been found (below). These booklets
include a picture of the teacher, a list of students in her class that year, members of the school board,
and often poetry and artwork.
These two spoons (on right)
have engravings depicting the
Nebraska Normal College.
While I can’t at the time of
writing this locate the article, I
seem to recall The Wayne
Herald reporting in the early
1900s that Mines Jewelers was
selling a spoon commemorating
the Nebraska Normal College.
One of these spoons may be an
example of that spoon.
Souvenir Booklets
Spoons
P a g e 1 4 A r c h i v a l M i n u t e
Several athletic programs such as this one (below-left) have been added. This tray (below-right)
commemorated James Pile and the Nebraska Normal College was also found.
Research
The purpose of the Archives is not simply to be a storehouse of historical materials. As the mission of
the Archives states, those materials must be made available “to all those seeking to learn about Wayne
State College and the college community.”
I receive email questions from people, both from on and off campus (in state or out of state). They
usually are looking for information about a family member who attended NNC, WSC or the Training
School (Hahn School) or at least had some connection with the school. Some request photos. Last year
I found photos of someone’s uncle who was on the football team in the 1960s, for example. I was also
able to send some photos of the laying of the cornerstone of Terrace Hall to a woman in Montana
whose father was the architect of that building.
Athletic Program Pile Tray
P a g e 1 5 A r c h i v a l M i n u t e
One of the more interesting research questions came a couple years ago. I was asked to verify a story
of someone’s aunt who said that President Woodrow Wilson had made an appearance at the college
when she was a student. When he heard that she was too ill to attend the event, the President made a
visit to her in her dorm room. I did find a story in The Goldenrod that this woman in question was
seriously ill with the flu and her father had to come to take her home, but I could find no evidence that
President Wilson had ever made an appearance on campus (although he was in Sioux City on a train
trip to promote the League of Nations at about that time). I did find, however, that former President
William Howard Taft had been on campus (he even stayed the night in President Conn’s home) and
Taft did visit a female student who was ill and confined to her room—but it wasn’t the aunt who was
supposedly visited by Wilson. Evidently she got her story mixed up with this other girl’s story and
Taft somehow turned into Wilson.
As you may already be aware, people sometimes get Wayne State College confused with Wayne State
University in Detroit. I had a phone call once from a man wanting to know about a U. S. Navy ship
that had been named in honor of Wayne State. After doing some research I discovered that the ship in
question had been named for the other Wayne State.
On campus I’ve helped students doing research on the history of the college and answered questions
from faculty and staff, such as fact checking a story Morey Hall had originally been a hospital (not
true).
The Future
This is just a sampling of what can be found in the Archives and the service the Archives provides.
While only a small part of the materials have been fully processed so far, progress is being made.
Certainly there’s been an improvement over how things were when Dr. Blayney wrote his memo in
1985.
Today the materials in the Archives—even those already processed—are distributed among 4-5 rooms
in the basement of the Library awaiting a permanent home. As you may have heard, plans are now
being considered to renovate the Library. According to the plans, the Archives will at last have a
permanent home in the basement in a portion of the area now occupied by the government documents
and the book collection. Having a permanent home for the collection (including an area for
researchers using the collection) will be a major boost to the Archive’s presence on campus and its
role being the institutional memory of the college as well as meeting the research needs of all “seeking
to learn about Wayne State College and the college community.”
P a g e 1 6 A r c h i v a l M i n u t e
Final Comments
Sorting through and processing these materials has been a real challenge as I’m starting from scratch
and the task can be somewhat overwhelming at times. But there’s also great satisfaction (and
fascination) in discovering more about the history of the college and the vision, aspirations, thoughts,
daily lives and hard work of the people who came before us; those who laid the foundation and helped
shape what Wayne State College is today.
At the same time it can be sad—sad to realize that, while some materials have survived, so much of
the college’s history has been lost. Few photographs of the campus, faculty, staff or students before
the 1960s exist outside the Spizz and Goldenrod. Nann Whitmore Stated in her history of the Nebraska
Normal College how hard it was to locate the NNC records; only part of the records was finally
located (and what became of them?). Extant correspondence of any Wayne State president before Dr.
Brandenburg is rare. When the college was celebrating its Golden Anniversary in 1960 there were
references to films of early college life, Dr. Conn and the 1925 Silver Anniversary celebration being
shown. Those films have apparently been lost (although one can always hope that these films turn up
some day, found in a closet, garage or storage locker just as Hollywood films or episodes of old TV
shows thought to be lost occasionally show up). I’ve been unable to find out what became of the
records of the Hahn Training School when it closed in the 1960s. Neither the college nor the Wayne
public school has them.
But it isn’t only the history of 50 or more years ago that is missing. There’s been no yearbook since
1971, a fact the late Dr. Kent Blaser lamented when he wrote his centennial history book, Far from
Normal. This means part of the college’s more recent history is incomplete as well.
This is why it is so very important to make every effort to preserve what we do have and why I am on
the lookout for college-related items such as what is on eBay. I’m very happy when someone on
campus or an alum contacts me asking “I have _____. Would you be interested?” It’s also why I enjoy
sharing the stories of the people and events from Wayne State’s history in these Archival Minutes,
thereby helping to keep that history alive.
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