To mark the Libraries’ current exhibition, Inventing the Page: Student Literary Magazines at Drexel, the Archives’ blog continues its series of essays about past literary magazines by Drexel alumna and Archives volunteer, Martha Cornog. Inventing the Page is on display at W. W. Hagerty Library until June 11.

All’s Unfair in Love and War: The Roaring Twenties, the Depression, and World War II in Drexerd

by Martha Cornog

A wonderfully fetching and fashionable young flapper decorates the cover of the second issue of Drexerd, a Drexel literary magazine running from 1921 through 1942. Enthusiastically serving up mostly humorous material at first, a majority of the longer stories in the earlier years give glimpses of romantic rivalries and conquests with a lighthearted touch. The Great War was over at last, and frivolity as well as coquetry rushed in to soothe the hangovers of battle, if only aggravate the hangovers from Prohibition’s bootleg booze.

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To mark the Libraries’ new exhibition, Inventing the Page: Student Literary Magazines at Drexel, the Archives’ blog will feature a series of essays about past literary magazines by Drexel alumna and Archives volunteer, Martha Cornog. The new exhibition opens Wednesday, April 18, with a reception from 5-7 p.m. at Hagerty Library.

Echo of Things to Come: Drexel’s First Literary Magazine

by Martha Cornog

“We propose to entertain and be entertained,” wrote The Drexel Echo‘s fledgling editors, “to encourage and be encouraged, to be instructed, and, if possible, to instruct.”

Drexel’s first campus publication with literary content, Echo blossomed from the student body in 1907, a mere sixteen years after the institution was founded. By then, college literary magazines had become academic standbys. The Columbia Review claims to have been the first in the nation as of 1815, but then Columbia University itself was founded in 1754. The much older Harvard, first U.S. academic body as of 1636, dates its own Harvard Advocate magazine to 1866. So while ever so much younger, Drexel’s Echo was certainly faster off the mark.

Actually, the monthly Echo resembles more an all-purpose campus magazine than a literary journal. While a handful of creative efforts—prose and poetry—open each issue, a “School Notes” section of news items follows with brief notes about class officers, faculty changes, news of the Library School, and the perennial sports updates. Reports on goings-on among student organizations and a jokes section close out the first issue. And on the back cover linger four paid advertisements: for a meat market, two photographers, and a sporting goods store.

Cover of the first issue of the Drexel Echo, 1907

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Each year the Archives prioritizes one or two areas of Drexel history to strengthen and develop our collections.  In 2012, those priorities are Athletics and Greek Life.  For that reason, we were especially delighted to receive a donation from alumnus Bernard Kurek that included the unusual Sigma Pi sleeping cap and ROTC drill team beret (both pictured below).  The Archives is working with other alumns to better preserve the history of fraternity and sorority life at Drexel, and objects like this are among the items that further that goal.  Do you have interesting items from your time at Drexel that you’d like to donate to the Archives so that we can preserve them for future generations?  Please contact us!

Sigma Pi cap and ROTC beret

Ever since learning about the dink while working on our Fall 2010 exhibition, “Greetings on Thee, Little Guys: A History of Freshmen at Drexel,” Archives staff have wished for one of these blue and gold beanies to add to the Archives’ collections. That wish has finally come true.  Just this month we received not one, but two dinks, donated by two different alumni. Paula Milmon Hutt ’55 mailed hers from Denver, Colorado. George Piper ’57 dropped his off. George also donated his game ball from the penultimate game of the 1955 season.

Stop by Hagerty Library to check out our current exhibit Dragons on the Gridiron on display until March 30th. Don’t miss your chance to see more items from the Archives’ collections!

It’s National Engineers Week—here’s a look at three innovators in the field who were honored by Drexel with the Science and Engineering Award: Portia Isaacson, a female pioneer in the computer industry; Jacques Piccard, a Swiss oceanographer whose father Auguste Piccard was the inventor of the first bathyscaph FNRS-2; and Wernher von Braun, a NASA aerospace engineer who helped to land the first man on the moon with Apollo 11!

If you didn’t have the chance to read Martha Cornog’s blog posts 2 years ago, then you’ll want to check out these amazing individuals who have helped to impact our world with their revolutionary contributions.

Celebrating Engineers: Drexel’s Egg-ceptional Golden Anniversary

Portia Isaacson:
Engineers Week in history: the first personal computer store in Texas

Jacques Piccard:
Engineers Week continues: Celestial Space and Eternal Darkness

Wernher von Braun:
Engineers week concludes with a bang

"The Triangle" - December 07, 1962

The strange and wonderful Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499), called by some the most beautiful book of the Italian Renaissance, is the subject of a seminar at Penn Libraries tomorrow. Architectures of the Text: An Inquiry Into the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili will feature Penn professors and librarians, as well as Drexel’s own Shushi Yoshinaga, assistant professor of graphic design at Westphal College, in an exploration of “the beauty, meaning, and mysteries contained within the book’s text and images.”

If you can’t make it to the event or can’t get enough of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, come on down to Drexel University Archives and take a look at our facsimile reproduction of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Here’s a sample:

Two pages from the 1904 facsimile of the 1499 first edition of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Learn about the history of the football program at Drexel in the Archives’ new exhibition, Dragons on the Gridiron, which chronicles the program from beginning to end, on and off the field. The exhibition includes items selected and contributed by Drexel football alumni.

Harry Purnell is tackled by a Coast Guard player, 1963

Cheerleaders in the Homecoming parade

This is the second in an occasional series of stories from the collections of the University Archives. Today Brian Stewart tells a tale he uncovered while researching the former home of Sarah Drexel Van Rensselaer.

Every college student knows that residence halls are named after important people, but how many can say why that person was important? Sometimes, as is the case with Van Rensselaer Hall, the name seems to come from nowhere. Why name a building after a family who founded a different school? The fact is that there were Van Rensselaers in the Drexel family, and they were important not just to the University, but to the city of Philadelphia. The following is a brief history of those Drexel family members; their lives, times, homes, and contributions.

Sarah Drexel Van Rensselaer (1860-1929), called ‘Sallie,’ was the fourth Child of Anthony J. Drexel and Ellen Rozet. Considered by some to have been the most confident and forceful of Tony’s children, Sarah would become an active philanthropist and one of Philadelphia’s premier socialites. In 1879 she married John Ruckman Fell, a director of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and later member of the Board of Managers of the Drexel Institute. The couple had five children; Amanda, Ellen, Mae, Francis, and John; and together purchased a significant track of land in Fort Washington.

John R. Fell died of a stroke on November 12, 1895, leaving Sarah in possession of their home, Camp Hill Hall, and the financial resources of both the Fell and Drexel families. In 1897, Sarah proposed the construction of a second home in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood of Philadelphia, and announced her engagement to Alexander Van Rensselaer (1850-1933) following a cruise aboard the May, her yacht. Sarah Drexel Fell became Sarah Drexel Van Rensselaer on January 27, 1898. (more…)

This is the first post in an occasional series of stories from the collections of the University Archives. Today Brian Stewart tells a tale he uncovered while researching Jessie Smith.

Howard Pyle (1853 – 1911), author and illustrator of children’s books and a member of the Drexel faculty (1894-1900) is perhaps best known for The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, first published in 1883. The Merry Adventures was one of the first modern interpretations of the story of this now-famous outlaw, and featured a new standard in detailed illustration and a storyline that greatly appealed to children. The book is often credited as being the foundation for the character’s popularity, which continues to this day. Another of Pyle’s works, the novel Men of Iron, was later adapted into the 1954 film The Black Shield of Falworth. Pyle was also a much sought-after instructor in the art of illustration, and both established and directed the Drexel Institute Department of Fine Arts’ School of Illustration in 1894. Though Pyle retired from the Institute in 1900, he went on to found his own school; the Howard Pyle School of Illustration Art. The distinctive style that characterized the work of Pyle and many of his students would become known as “the Brandywine School.” (more…)

Do you find inspiration in a library?  Astronaut Paul Richards did.  At today’s “Dragons of the Space Shuttle Era” event, Paul Richards ’89 explained that he prepared himself to become an astronaut while at Drexel not just by studying mechanical engineering but also reading biographies of astronauts on microfiche here in Hagerty Library.  Mr. Richards fulfilled the dream he first had while watching the Apollo 14 launch in kindergarten in May 2001 when he become the 400th human in space.  Richards and fellow astronaut Chris Ferguson ’83 shared these and other stories today in Drexel’s Mitchell Auditorium.  The astronauts answered questions from moderator Terry Ruggles and from the audience, including these highlights:

Asked if piloting the Space Shuttle was like flying a brick, Ferguson answered, “You can make a brick fly if you put a big enough engine on it. That’s what we’ve done with the space shuttle.”

Asked about his spacewalk, Richards answered, “It’s a misnomer to say you walk. You move with your fingertips and your hands. If your feet are moving, you’re probably kicking something that shouldn’t be kicked.”

Asked about the future of the space program, Richards answered that the moon should be our next target. He dismissed the “been there, done that” attitude, explaining that the moon landing in 1969 was comparable to Columbus’s 1492 landing in the new world; whereas a permanent base on the moon would be like the 1620 settlement at Jamestown — wholly different.

Chris Ferguson shared his enthusiasm for the upcoming launch of the Mars Science Laboratory and encouraged attendees to watch the video simulation of the MSL’s landing on the surface of Mars, which is scheduled for August 2012. Perhaps a whole new generation of Drexel students will be inspired by explorations of Mars and the moon, as Ferguson and Richards were in the 1980s.