North Central College Archives

Plainfield Site

2009-06-02T08:01:00.000-07:00

A question that has repeatedly come up here at the Archives is 'where was the College located when it was in Plainfield?' (For those who don't already know, the College was organized in 1861 as Plainfield College. We moved to Naperville in 1870 as North-Western College). The Sharon Evangelical Church was instrumental in the choice of location by donating land and building/money for the College and thanks to their timeline on the website, we gathered enough information to track it down more specifically.

With the online Sanborn map from 1893 in hand, my student assistants Adam and Brittany and I all headed to Plainfield this past Friday for a research trip - to investigate what is there currently and take some photos. Turns out the Plainfield Academy on Lockport at Dillman is currently on the land originally used by the College.

Special thanks to a member of the congregation who let us into the Sharon United Methodist Church where we found an excellent photo on display showing exactly where the replacement building (the original College building was destroyed by fire in the early 1870s and rebuilt by Plainfield citizens as a public school) was located. The church is in the center of the photo and the old school building is in the upper right corner.

The Safe

2009-05-19T14:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry - it's been a long while. Busy, busy and not much to say, I guess. Thanks to two history students prodding me, I've finally uncovered the story on the safe! (It's no longer a summer research project!). Thanks to Diebold company's 150th anniversary website (2009), the answer was easily found. According to their information, the company moved to Canton, Ohio and was named Diebold, Norris, and Co from 1874-1876. I finally had a manageable date to work from! Prior to this, I only knew it was purchased between 1864 and 1926 since the name on the safe was North-Western College.

I checked our newly transferred financial records from that time period and after skimming through everything from those years, found an entry in August 1876 for $200 for the purchase of a "new office safe". Since no more details than that are available, I'm making the leap that that is the one and same office safe that now lives in the archives reference room.

Fun photo

2009-02-20T09:04:00.000-08:00

I ran across this fun picture in the online Chronicle from May 1959 and thought I'd share. I have no idea what the story is with it, but the picture made me smile.

2009-02-16T11:48:00.000-08:00

On February 12 Oesterle Library hosted a party celebrating Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday. The turnout was amazing and it received great local media coverage. While the majority of the items on display in the Archives Reference Room were from the special collections collection that Emily, our technical services coordinator oversees, I did find a few cool items in the College's Archives to add to the display. This was one of the items I pulled out.

One of the sons of the first president enlisted in an Ohio regiment and fought for the Union Army during the Civil War. He died of fever following the siege at Vicksburg in 1863. We have his diaries as well as some letters. This is one of the letters sent back to his family. I liked it particularly because of the stationery which says "But one flag from Ocean to Ocean."

The letter and diaries are part of our Smith Family Papers collection.

Other new stuff in the Archives

2009-01-20T06:57:00.000-08:00

In addition to the digitization of the Chronicle, a few other projects have finally been or are close to completed. After quite some time, the topical files from the Office of Public Information have been processed (meaning weeded of duplicates/extraneous materials; placed in acid free folders and boxes; container list typed up; and labels put on boxes).

Another project that's coming up on completion is an in-house digitization project. In Merner Fieldhouse, the Athletic department over the years have hung photographs of individual and relay team CCIW champions, all-Americans, and National Champions. We've been working with Athletics and maintenance staff down there to get those scanned. We've scanned at archival resolution and format and are close to having these finished (560 with approximately another 50 remaining). This photo is of the 1996 4x400 women's relay team.

Additional materials received that are currently in process include the financial records of the College from 1860s through approximately 1950 (when they went machine readable) and the records of the Dean of Faculty from about 1960 through the early 1990s. More about these files as we get them prepared for researchers.

post-holidays update

2009-01-05T13:12:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a while now, hasn't it?? Vacation around Thanksgiving and then December general craziness. But, now the students are back and things are settling into a busy term. The biggest deal occurrence for the Archives this winter break was the digitization of the student newspaper. This is a project I really never expected to see happen, but it did! Planning for the College's 150th anniversary is happening now and the coordinator for the celebration saw the Chronicle digitization project as a crucial part of the preparations for the celebration of our long history.

We selected ArcaSearch as our vendor for this project for a variety of reasons and I cannot be happier with the job they did. It's an unbelievably useful resource for me and I anticipate many researchers using it in the future. For the first time ever, the student newspaper is keyword searchable (no index had existed previously) and it's available whenever, wherever with computer access. I'm still trying to figure out how to really get the word out there, but tomorrow I meet with the Capstone History class (our original research/historiography class for majors). If you're interested in taking a look, just head to https://www.arcasearch.com/us/nc/

I'll update in the next little while with other events & new accessions that happened this December.

Class Rock

2008-11-19T12:25:00.000-08:00

The class rock. The class of 1876 presented the College with this huge boulder as it's class memorial. I have no idea why a big rock was even an idea. But aside from that, the Rock played an impact for many years here at the College. The original campus for then North -Western College consisted of Old Main (without the south tower) and the surrounding land. The Rock was placed in front of Old Main, but given that the Old Main lawn also served as the College's athletic field, it was ultimately buried. In 1928, this group of men determined where the Rock had been buried and staged an excavation.

The Rock remained in the Old Main lawn for many years after the initial excavation and became the site of many class rivalries. A tradition was for different classes to paint the Rock in their colors/class year and then post members of the class to guard the Rock from other classes 'stealing' it by painting it in their colors.

The story of the Rock sadly comes to an end sometime in the 1960s. I haven't yet discovered what happened to cause the Rock to be buried again, but in 1965, a group of student re-excavated the Rock and christened it with 'holy pond water' from the Fort Hill pond. However, apparently under the cover of darkness the Rock was hauled away and it's whereabouts are currently unknown (at least to me!).

The Carpenters

2008-10-30T12:37:00.000-07:00

Since my last blog entry was a bit serious, I thought in this one I'd share a very fun factoid. On Halloween in 1974, as part of the Homecoming festivities for the year, the Carpenters performed at North Central College in Pfeiffer Hall.

Light damage

2008-10-28T09:50:00.000-07:00

I'm moving a bit away from normal College history fact for this entry. First I have to credit my husband with the idea for this post. He was in my office and noticed some faded pictures tacked on my bulletin board and asked how old they were. He was shocked to find out they're just 3 years old - "they look like something my mom has from the 70s".

Here is the original image as taken in the fall of 2005 right before we moved to our newly renovated archives space in the lower level of Oesterle Library. (just a note -all the little green tags were prepping for the move - we don't actually have those all over the place now!)

This image is a scan I did today of an ink-jet print onto photo paper that I used for a display in fall of 2005. I've left these photos tacked up on my bulletin board under flourescent lights since then. And to be honest, not as any full-on experiment - more, it's just a reminder of how cramped we used to be - I completely and every day marvel at my new space. Who knew I could get so excited about shelving and tables?!?

I'm not specifically a preservation specialist, but I did make you aware of the impermanence of home ink-jet printers. I'm not saying don't use them - they're great for convenience and what they can do. I just want to point out that photographic prints from these are generally far more susceptible to light damage (and you probably already know what happens if water gets dumped on them) - so you will have the knowledge to be careful about storage and access if your prints are something you want to keep long-term.

I do encourage anyone on campus that is having photographs made for framing and hanging on the wall to invest in professional processing. While it's all mostly digital now, the product that you're able to get from the professional processing machines are far more permanent than what you can do at home. And, especially if you're paying to have something framed - it's worth the extra step of paying for the photo as well!

Fort Payne

2008-10-23T12:01:00.000-07:00

Since we're seeing a sudden increase in questions about Fort Payne and the historical marker, I figured I'd share with everyone what I know about it. The physical marker erected in 1964 still stands on the Fort Hill area of campus. Specifically it is behind Ward Hall at the top of the hill overlooking the pond.

According to Genevieve Towsley's "A View of Historic Naperville", the area of land south of Chicago Avenue where Ellsworth Street ends was the site of Fort Payne. In 1832, during the Black Hawk War, the early citizens of Naperville evacuated to Fort Dearborn (Chicago) following massacres at other settlements. Upon their return, they urged the building of a fort for protection - it was named Fort Payne to honor the commanding officer at the fort. In 1836, Lewis Ellsworth bought the land, built his home on the site of the old fort, and called it "Fort Hill". He ran a store in town, but did eventually sold it and established the DuPage County Nurseries. After Ellsworth's death in 1885, the estate was sold to the John Batten family who remained there until 1902, when Judge John Goodwin purchased the estate.

The Goodwins built a new home in the southern colonial style on the site of the original Ellsworth home and called their estate Heatherton. North Central students often used Heatherton/Fort Hill as picnic and outdoor recreation areas. The same night that Judge Goodwin passed away in 1920, the house was destroyed by fire. In 1924, North Central College (then called North-Western College) purchased the estate and since then this area has been known as Fort Hill providing the campus with athletic fields and residence halls.

Homecoming 08

2008-10-21T19:25:00.000-07:00

So. It's been a while. It was Homecoming here at North Central last weekend and the Archives and staff (read me and my two student assistants) was sucked into the whirlwind. The events involving the Archives included preparing information for a large display actually designed by Mary in the Office of Marketing and Communications. I still can't believe she fit in everything from the timeline and all those pictures! It looked awesome! It was the first public display for the 150th anniversary of the College and was up at the new Wentz Concert Hall and Fine Arts Center for Friday night and Saturday morning and then moved down to Championship Plaza outside of the stadium. Sorry I didn't get a picture of it to post! It really was cool. However, there will be a chance to see it again on November 11 - the 150th committee is hosting the campus coffee - on a special day -Tuesday - to kick off the 150th internally at least. (Incidentally - the reason for November 11 as the date to remember - Nov. 11, 1861 was the first day of classes for the College).

Additional activities for Homecoming included an open house in the Archives on Friday afternoon, Video interviews completed with several Trustees and award recipients on Friday and Saturday both, display boards from Archives for each of the 10 reunion years, and a video booth at the plaza on Homecoming Saturday. So, it's been a busy couple of weeks here and hope you understand the delay!

More soon with interesting photos and factoids.

The school song

2008-10-07T14:22:00.000-07:00

So, as promised, here is a new post - this time a question I answered that I thought might be of interest to those with general curiosity in the archives. The Alma Mater school song was written by Albert Krug and Jessie Cowles (both class of 1908) in response to a contest announced at a chapel service in 1907. Albert wrote the words and Jessie composed the music for what became known as our Alma Mater - still sung today at nearly every ceremonial event here on campus. The College Archives has the original copy of the school song submitted by the duo. Albert Krug and Jessie Cowles married in 1911, after Albert had completed seminary. Albert returned to North Central as the Dean of religion before passing away in 1931.

My first post - ever

2008-10-02T19:31:00.000-07:00

Ok, so here's my first post. I know, it's boring, but hey, I'll get the hang of this whole thing. I'm planning to use my blog not as anything deep and meaningful, but to share on a regular basis interesting factoids about the Archives and what we're doing. What I'm envisioning is tidbits of college related historical facts (when I've done research in answering a request that I think people might be interested in), posting unidentified photos and seeking input about who the people or places might be (or years as so much of our stuff is undated!), and generally letting people know what's new and happening in the Archives. I'm sure personal stuff will leak through - GO BEARS!! - but mostly it's going to be work-related.

Ok, so one of the things we're working on in the Archives right now is Homecoming - coming up very soon! First - the image - this is the queen's court from a Homecoming parade in the 50s sometime. We get lots of image use and requests leading up to Homecoming.

We'll also have an open house in the Archives reference room on Friday afternoon of Homecoming weekend and by then I have to have a new display up in our reference room cabinet. We've decided to focus on 'what's new in the Archives' - so new artifacts, new manuscripts, new official records from offices. Look forward to some of these items to become posts!