The Washington College Archives recently received a generous donation from Rena Fowler; those funds allowed us to digitize some of our oldest audiovisual materials, including film reels, reel-to-reel audio tapes, audio cassettes, and VHS tapes.
*And for those seniors who are still plugging away on edits and revisions to your Senior Capstone projects, we see you. Hang in there. You’re almost there!
It is one of the most iconic buildings on campus, and it is only fitting that it should bear the name of our first President, the Reverend Dr. William Smith.
Since its first celebration at Washington College in the spring of 1967, May Day has involved different traditions that have changed with the times. Last year, we covered the earliest May Day traditions, when free cases of beer were given to the first student arriving at the local liquor store sans clothing on May 1, and naked photos graced the pages of the Elm in the days following.
The Clifton M. Miller Library was built in 1970 on the location of the old Cain Gym. Before this, the library had been located in several different buildings.
The archives hold a vast amount of material and material types, some of which are easier to preserve and make accessible than others. Often it is the more recent items that have the most issues. The pages of an 18th-century letter book are made of sturdier material than a newspaper from the 1930s. A letter from the Revolutionary War will be readable for centuries while your emails will be lost to obsolescence in a few years. And a videotape from the 1980s… well, that requires some outside help.
The American Library Association’s National Poetry Month poster this year features Maryland’s first African American Poet Laureate of Maryland, and just the second woman to hold the position, Lucille Clifton. The lines come from her poem, blessing the boats. She visited Washington College and gave a talk and poetry reading in March 1989 and received an Honorary Doctor of Letters in the 1989 commencement ceremony.
April is National Poetry Month so come and explore what the Library & Archives of Washington College have to offer.
The National Home Front Project is a major grassroots initiative under the leadership of historians at Washington College. Our innovative oral history program partners with individuals, communities, and organizations across the United States to record, preserve, and share audio interviews with civilians who experienced World War II.
Most campus buildings bear the names of prominent donors or institutional figures. So, let’s talk about the Gibson Center for the Arts and its namesake, President Daniel Gibson.
