Category Archives: UC Libraries

President Williams Speeches Are Now Available in the University Archives

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By Tyler Morrison, ARB Student Worker

Greg WilliamsGregory H. Williams became the University of Cincinnati’s 27th president when he took office in September 2009.  Among more than 100 applicants for the position, he was selected in part because of his outstanding work in transforming the City College of New York, where he served as president before joining the UC.  Williams received national acclaim for his book, Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black (New York, NY: Dutton, 1995).   Over a decade later, he still received feedback from his readers while serving as the president here at UC. The memoir was his way of telling the world about struggling with poverty and acceptance during his youth and dealing with his biracial identity in Muncie, Indiana at a time when segregation was still highly overt in the United States.   The book also brought to life other family issues such as alcoholism and abandonment.  Throughout his account, he told the story of a normal childhood that spiraled into one of torment, welfare, and segregation, and then how he made the best of it.  Williams became the star quarterback of his high school’s football team, excelled in college to earn four degrees, and worked his way up in higher education system until he became president of College City of New York from 2001-2009 and then president of the University of Cincinnati from 2009 to 2012. Continue reading →

How Much Did You Pay For That Education?!?!

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By Tyler Morrison, ARB Student Worker

Oh, the things you can find when you go to an auction.  Even the typical items that you find for sale, such as books, sometimes contain a surprise for the unsuspecting buyer.  That’s exactly what happened to Linda Sheets of Jonesboro, Indiana when she bought a box lot of books and discovered a University of Cincinnati tuition receipt dated October 1, 1917.  The strip of paper has yellowed with age, and fortunately Ms. Sheets realized it might have historical value for UC, and was kind enough to share her discovery with the Archives and Rare Books Library.

Jordon Alcott, the student from the 1917-1918 academic year, probably thought that $63.50 in tuition for one semester here at the university was expensive.  That total comes from a $5 library fee, $50 for tuition to the College of Liberal Arts, a $ 1 registration fee, $2.50 fine to use the gymnasium, and a $5 contingency fee.

Receipt for Tuition

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Home Interiors of the 1920s = Adventures in the Subway and Street Improvements Digitization Project

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By:  Angela Vanderbilt

Contained within the subway portion of the photograph collection are images of the interiors of homes along McMicken Avenue taken during the construction of the subway. Originally intended to serve as evidence for claims by homeowners of structural damage to the houses caused by blasting for the subway tunnels, the pictures now serve as a historic reference of domestic life during the 1920s.

Interiors of Homes with damaged walls

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Ezzard Charles Drive, the Making of a Parkway

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By Angela Vanderbilt

Road construction. It seems like it’s never ending. Some have joked that Ohio has only two seasons – winter and road construction. And the images in the Street Improvement collection would certainly seem to validate that. What is interesting about the images in the collection of street improvements is that many of the streets recorded in the photographs no longer exist. Or, where they do still exist, they are named differently or the surroundings have been altered to the point that the location in the photograph is no longer recognizable.

One major example of a street changing in both name and appearance is Laurel Street – or as we know it today, Ezzard Charles Drive. Originally a narrow street lined with brick row houses and businesses, Laurel Street extended from 1247 Plum Street west to Freeman Avenue, with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Hall towering over the eastern end of the street, as if keeping watch over all who passed. In the winter of 1921, subway construction made its way north along the canal bed to the Laurel Street intersection, where a tunnel ventilator was constructed.

Music Hall and Ventilator Construction

(Left) Construction of subway ventilator opposite Laurel Street, January 12, 1921, 2:02 p.m.
(Right) Laurel Street, west of Canal, with Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Hall in center background, April 21, 1920, 3:47 p.m.

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Paving the Way through Cincinnati = Adventures in the Subway and Street Improvements Digitization Project

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By:  Angela Vanderbilt

Downtown Cincinnati at the turn of the 20th century was a bustling business and commercial center, but with a dangerous mixture of pedestrians, horse-pulled wagons and carriages, street cars, and unseasoned automobile drivers. Add to this a mess of unpaved or cobblestoned streets, a lack of traffic laws, speed limits, and stop signs at intersections, with streetcar tracks criss-crossing lanes. It was a recipe for disaster.

Miami & Erie Canal

On the left, deliveries to the Raschig School are unloaded from a horse-drawn wagon while, on the right, automobiles park along a drained Miami & Erie Canal, looking east down Canal Street as subway construction begins, April 20, 1920

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Eugene Ruehlmann, former Cincinnati Mayor, will be missed

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By:  Suzanne Maggard

Construction of Riverfront Stadium

Construction of Riverfront Stadium begins, Eugene Ruehlmann is second from the right

We began our Monday in the Archives and Rare Books Library with the sad news that a dear friend of our library passed away over the weekend.  Former Cincinnati mayor and city councilman, Eugene Ruehlmann died on Saturday June 8 at the age of 88.  Since the Archives and Rare Books Library holds his papers, I had the pleasure of assisting Mr. Ruehlmann on several occasions.  For someone so accomplished, I always found Mr. Ruehlmann incredibly approachable, easy to talk to, and humble.  Our student workers especially enjoyed meeting and talking with him.  He will be greatly missed.

Ruehlmann, 1947

Eugene Ruehlmann, 1947, from The Cincinnatian Yearbook

Eugene Ruehlmann, the second youngest of John and Hattie Ruehlmann’s ten children, was born in 1925.  He grew up on Cincinnati’s West Side and attended Western Hills High School and graduated in 1943.  After high school, he joined the U.S. Marines and served in World War II.  He then entered the University of Cincinnati, where he was a successful and active student.  Ruehlmann was a member of Beta Theta Phi, ODK, and Sophos and was on the board of The Cincinnatian (yearbook) and was a member of the varsity football team.  He graduated with honors in 1948 with a degree in Political Science and received the McKibbin Medal from the College of Arts and Sciences.  Ruehlmann earned his law degree in 1950 from Harvard. Continue reading →

June Lunch & Learn Series

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lunchANDlearnThe Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library invites you to join us for our June Lunch & Learn instruction series, Thursdays, June 13 – 27, 12:10-12:50pm, in the Health Sciences Library Classroom (MSB G005G).

Bring your lunch and learn during these quick information sessions. Come to one session, a few, or them all! Seating is limited, so registration is recommended.

Schedule:

Thursday, June 13         iPad 101

Thursday, June 20         Excel Tips

Thursday, June 27         Free Screencasting Tools

View the complete Lunch & Learn schedule below. See descriptions and register online at http://webcentral.uc.edu/hslclass/

False Facades Offer Aesthetic Disguise = Adventures in the Subway and Street Improvements Digitization Project

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By Angela Vanderbilt

The story of abandoned subway stations and tracks hidden beneath busy city streets is not unique to Cincinnati. Other large cities, such as New York, London, and Paris have similarly mysterious and intriguing stories to tell. An article I recently read in The New York Times introduced me to this underground world of hidden subway ventilation shafts disguised by false building facades, with doors from which people occasionally exit, but never seem to enter. Some of these subterranean secrets are in use, while others have been abandoned like Cincinnati’s own subway stations beneath Central Parkway.

What’s fascinating is the effort made to disguise these facilities, to blend them in with the neighboring buildings. While it seems a logically aesthetic means of making the utilitarian more appealing, some have argued that the cities in which these structures are located are trying to hide a deep secret. For comparison, consider the Cincinnati subway – when the subway and Central Parkway were first being constructed, the ventilation chimneys and the entrances to the below-ground stations were nicely appointed with decorative stonework.

Ventilation Shart

Ventilation shaft, looking north along Parkway from Liberty St., July 2, 1928

Ventilation Shaft

Close up of decorative stonework for ventilator railing, Central Parkway,
Nov. 19, 1928

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Quarters to Semester Conversion Records now in ARB

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By:  Janice Schulz

The Archives and Rare Books Library has made available a collection of records from University Communications covering the University’s conversion to semesters in 2012. The collection concentrates on the comprehensive communication plan developed to educate students and other stakeholders about the conversion and includes communication plans, planning documents, research, publications, and clippings. Also included are some promotional items such as t-shirts, protective hats, and sandwich boards declaring that the world will END – not really, just convert to semesters – in 2012.

A complete finding aid for the collection can be found on the OhioLink Finding Aid Repository at http://rave.ohiolink.edu/archives/ead/OhCiUAR0367. For further information on the Archives & Rare Books Library and its holdings, please call 513.556.1959, email archives@ucmail.uc.edu, or visit our website at http://www.libraries.uc.edu/libraries/arb/index.html.

Semester Conversion Poster with Bearcat

Digitized Correspondence and Photographs of Albert B. Sabin Available on the Web

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sabin1The University of Cincinnati Libraries have completed a  three-year project to digitize the correspondence and photographs of Albert B. Sabin,  developer of the oral polio vaccine and distinguished service professor at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Research Foundation from 1939-1969.

The collection is freely and publicly available via the Albert  B. Sabin website at http://sabin.uc.edu/ and includes approximately 35,000 letters and accompanying documents totaling 50,000 pages of correspondence between Sabin and political, cultural, social, and scientific leaders around the world. Also included are nearly 1,000 photographs documenting the events and activities worldwide that were part of Sabin’s crusade to eradicate polio. Continue reading →