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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.


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


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



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.


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

http://academic.wsc.edu/conn_library/services/archives/findingaid/normal_college/index.php





Normal College Journal


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.

http://academic.wsc.edu/conn_library/services/archives/findingaid/wsc_history/index.php

http://academic.wsc.edu/conn_library/services/archives/findingaid/wsc_history/index.php

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

http://academic.wsc.edu/conn_library/services/archives/images/index.php

http://academic.wsc.edu/conn_library/services/archives/images/index.php


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


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


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


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


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.”


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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