Elaborate student scrapbooks from Rice’s early days capture memories of campus life from a bygone era. But their unpredictable contents (chewing gum, cigarette butts and plant material, for example) present vexing challenges to the Woodson Research Center’s archivists. Words Lynn
Gosnell Photos Tommy Lavergne
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ondren Library’s Woodson Research Center is the home of Rice’s institutional memory, the place where official records, personal papers, rare books, manuscripts, photographs, and audio and video collections are housed for preservation and study. Occupying 8,000 square feet over two floors in Fondren, the archive also houses such delicate ephemera as costumes from the annual Archi-Arts balls, trophies, jewelry and china. Another 5,000 rare books and records are stored at an off-campus facility. In the past year, librarians and archivists welcomed hundreds of visitors to Woodson. Included among this archival treasure trove are 31 scrapbooks created by Rice students from 1912 to 1970, with most of the albums dating from the first half of the century. Frequently overstuffed with Rice memorabilia and in various states of disorder and decay, the scrapbooks deliver tantalizing glimpses into their owners’ lives. The carefree students who assembled the journals left a delightful, and at times intriguing, record of time and place. At the Woodson, Lee Pecht, university archivist and director of special collections, oversees these records, which rest in acid-free archival boxes. Inside their tidy boxes, the books themselves bulge and overflow with an astonishing array of keepsakes that have been glued, stuffed, pinned, taped or otherwise attached to now-fragile pages. “They’ve never been displayed because there are some inherent problems,” Pecht said, referring to what archivists call different formats within the books. On any given scrapbook spread, there can be, for exam-
ple, photographs, sealed letters, invitations, organic material (plants), greeting cards and small booklets. Most examples find their way to the Woodson through the descendants of alumni, whose families may have discovered the books among the effects of loved ones. Each one is an improbable survivor of time and erratic storage conditions. Neither Pecht, nor any of his staff, have ever discovered one in an antique shop or flea market. Pecht fears that most scrapbooks have, for lack of appreciation of their historical significance, ended up in the trash. Occasionally, a scrapbook will arrive at the Woodson via a surprising route, as happened last fall when a current Rice student contacted Melissa Kean, centennial historian, to inquire about a photo she saw on a Centennial Celebration event schedule. “She pointed out one of the pictures on it, a nice shot of Rice students dancing in the ballroom of the Rice Hotel at the 1948 Rondelet, and suggested that the couple right in the front might be her grandparents,” Kean wrote in an entry on her popular blog. It turned out the photo was indeed of the student’s grandparents — and she also had their scrapbooks, which she brought to the archivists for appreciative viewing. Student scrapbook donations are very welcome, Pecht said, despite the preservation issues they present. The paper is of varying quality, depending upon its age and storage history — older paper being generally less crumbly than newer stock. Plants, leaves and flowers, no doubt souvenirs of special occasions, attract insects to the pages. “We can’t do a lot of preservation work on them,” said Pecht. The acid-free storage boxes impede acid migration, but don’t stop it. Some libraries simply photograph the pages and discard the original notebooks, a practice Pecht does not condone. Each scrapbook invites viewers to get to know college student life from a bygone era. For example, when we say that someone’s “dance card is full,” we’re generally not referring to actual dancing. Instead, we mean that someone is busy or preoccupied with a task. But who has seen an actual dance card? Dance cards of all shapes and sizes, with tiny lead pencils still attached, fill Rice scrapbooks. Carefully glued and arranged on the page, they attest to a student’s popularity and social standing, and perhaps to the popularity of the formal dance itself. Historians and archivists learn much from original scrapbooks. “We’ve seen photos of professors and buildings and interiors of buildings that we’ve never seen before,” Pecht said. By looking through these scrapbooks, the archivists know what early dorm rooms looked like; they’ve peered into the past to see the interiors of labs in the Physics Building (now Herzstein Hall). Such visible records of Rice’s past exist today, said Pecht, “only in the scrapbooks.”
William Max Nathan ’16 (1894–1979) A Houston native, Nathan was a member of Rice’s first graduating class and the first student to graduate with distinction. He was very active in student organizations, including the Debate Club and Honor Council. After graduation, he served in World War I and then got a law degree at the University of Texas. In Houston, where he married and raised a family, Nathan was very active in the Jewish community and participated regularly in Rice alumni events. He was a faithful attendee of reunions, said Kean, and a regular speaker at meetings of the Menorah Society and later, Hillel.
Allie May “Sally” Autry ’25 (1903–1998) Allie May Autry was a member of a prominent Houston family with strong ties to Rice. Both she and her brother, James ’21, attended the Rice Institute. As a student, she was a class officer and May Fete queen. She married Edward Watson Kelley in 1935 and had two children, Edward Watson Kelley Jr. ’54 and Allie Autry Kelley Dittmar. As an alumna, she helped establish Autry Court, the Allie Kelley Dittmar lounge in the student center and the Friends of Fondren Library.
The following pages display excerpts from scrapbooks that by accident and luck have made their way home to Rice. �D
S p r i ng 2 0 1 3 · R i c e M a g a z i n e
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