Wofford College - From The Archives

Wofford College Illustrated, 1898

2008-10-13T15:27:45-04:00

And a happy post-Homecoming Monday to all of you.

Lest you think all of us on campus are taking a day off to recover from the weekend's festivities, here's some evidence that some of us are working.

This summer, my student assistants and I worked on several scanning projects. Now that I've dug myself out from a few other projects, I've finally gotten around to posting some of the evidence of their work. One project involved scanning a small booklet of photographs from 1898 called Wofford College Illustrated. It's sort of like an early version of an admissions brochure and a yearbook. I've put the images on Flickr, which some of you may be familiar with. The booklet is 32 pages, and has pictures of what a Wofford chemistry or mineralogy lab looked like in 1898. There are also photos of the gymnasium, the library, the faculty, the four classes as well as the fitting school class, and a few Spartanburg scenes.

So, I invite you to check out Wofford College Illustrated at your leisure. There's also a link to the booklet from the Archives Digital Collections page (you can also check out the Carlisle "Memories of Wofford College" and the "Memoirs of Sandor Teszler" while you're visiting Digital Collections.

My Brother, Kenneth

2008-10-08T16:01:13-04:00

Wofford has always been characterized by characters. A professor who once walked the grounds of the campus and taught English for some 41 years, Kenneth Coates was one of the legendary characters of the college.

A native of Smithfield, North Carolina, Kenneth Daniel Coates graduated from the University of North Carolina. After a few years of teaching in the Tarheel State, Coates spent a summer in law school. After deciding he didn’t much care for law, he took a position as an English instructor at Wofford. He was married three days before he started his career at Wofford. That was in 1928.

Coates had a curmudgeon-ly (if that’s a word) reputation. He acknowledged that he was the “baby” of the faculty, a position he held for years. When he came to Wofford, he wasn’t much older than his students. He took a master’s degree in English at UNC a few years later, but never completed a doctorate. Coates quickly became involved with student publications in the 1930s, helping to create an independent board of student publications that still exists today. He strongly defended student freedom of the press and resisted any efforts at censorship. On four separate occasions, in 1933, 1937, 1952, and 1969, the Bohemian Staff dedicated the yearbook to him. Coates brought journalism and creative writing to Wofford, teaching the college’s first creative writing courses in the 1930s. He inaugurated the Helmus Award for student writing in 1958. During World War II, with most Wofford students away from campus, Coates became acting editor of the Spartanburg Journal, the daily afternoon newspaper. He also edited the college’s alumni newsletter, which helped alumni in the military, many of whom were serving far away from South Carolina, keep in touch with each other and the college. At the end of the war, he chose to return to teaching, but continued to write and be active in community affairs.

Having been the junior member of the faculty for so long, he suddenly became one of its senior members when most of the older professors retired right after World War II. He became part of the college’s institutional memory, defending traditions loudly and vociferously whenever he felt them threatened. He loved students, and although some of his former students went on to become generals and college presidents, he said he was just as proud of “those with small talents who have gone out and have not made Wofford ashamed of them.”

One of his former students, William E. Rone Jr., became the editorial page editor of the State newspaper, and on Coates’ retirement, devoted a column to his old professor. Rone called Coates “a bundle of eccentricities clothed in a rumples, tobacco-flecked suit… He loves to talk, and he’s not above listening. If there’s a subject that bores him, I don’t know what it is.”

“'‘fesser Coates,” as he was known to generations of students, was a bundle of contradictions. Though a traditionalist, he opposed mandatory chapel and refused to attend as a faculty member, but according to Professor Lewis Jones, lamented its demise when it was abolished. He would always be working on a proposal or policy for debate at faculty meetings, but got to the point where he refused to attend. He always wanted to know what was going on around campus, so he’d sit outside the room where the faculty met and listen in.

After his death, his brother, Albert Coates, compiled many of the stories about him into a book, which he entitled “My Brother, Kenneth.” (If anyone wants a copy, let me know. We have extras.)

The college collected “final lectures” during the 1960s, and in his, Coates advised his students: Take time to be curious, but about small things that have a way of giving color and perspective and excitement to life. You will find your life filled with little serendipities if you take time to be curious. Sounds like good advice.

Below: The "Eric Hoffer Hat Full of Peas" Award that Coates frequently gave.

Homecoming

2008-10-06T16:29:57-04:00

Homecoming is one of those rituals of the fall with which we are all familiar. Class reunions, football games, Homecoming queens, Homecoming dances, the ceremonies are similar from one college to another. Homecoming at Wofford has evolved through the years, with different traditions being dropped or added as times change. Before the 1960s, many class reunions actually happened at Commencement, and we've reverted to that in a small way in the past 5 years with the fifty-year class having its reunion at Commencement. Homecoming has been re-energized at Wofford in the past six years or so, with reunions, street parties, and all manner of events on campus and around Spartanburg.

Below are some accounts from earlier Homecomings. In 1958, fifty years ago this fall, the Terriers played Catawba at Homecoming, and the game was at 8:00 pm on Saturday night. The main Homecoming dance was on Friday night, in the arena of Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium, and it featured Tony Torre of Columbia. The campus abandoned the tradition of a Homecoming parade that year, instead displaying floats around the fraternity houses. The article in the Old Gold and Black describing the change said that the students wanted the event to be more campus-centered.

The alumni council met on Saturday (as they still do) and fraternities had open house on Saturday afternoon. Following an alumni dinner and the football game, students sponsored an informal dance in the "little gym" in Andrews Fieldhouse at 10:30 PM. Without any women students, the homecoming queens generally came from other colleges, including Converse, Limestone, and Winthrop.

Whether in 1958, 1968, or 2008, Homecoming remains one of the highlights of the fall at Wofford.

Photo: Buddy Hammond '55 poses with the SAE Homecoming float in 1952, the program from Homecoming 1969

A lost tradition - Literary Societies

2008-10-01T09:06:25-04:00

In the Wofford Today this fall, the From the Archives column is about the history of the college's literary societies. The earliest society, the Calhoun, was the first student organization to be founded, getting its start on October 1, 1854, 154 years ago today. Virtually the entire student body joined. One supposes that they had little else to occupy their time. The faculty gave them a room in Main Building which they furnished, and Professor James H. Carlisle suggested the society's name.

The Calhouns were the only society for four years, but student body growth led to the creation of a second society in the fall of 1858, the Preston Literary Society. The group was named, again on the advice of Professor Carlisle, for William C. Preston, who was the president of South Carolina College and a former United States Senator from the Palmetto State.

The last third of the 19th century was the heyday of the societies, though even by the 1880s other distractions began to draw the attention of students away from the debates, orations, and other business of the societies. From the 1870s to the 1930s, the faculty required that each student join one of the societies, and eventually two more societies, the Carlisle and the Snyder, joined the Calhoun and Preston. Their weekly meetings, often on Friday night or Saturday morning, often lasted for three hours or more, and roll was called at both the beginning and the end of the meeting. The art and practice of public speaking, or debate, and of careful attention to parliamentary rules were an important part of a student's training in this era, and students left the societies to enter public service, the ministry, and small-town leadership better prepared for their time in the societies.

In effect, the societies did not survive World War II, though they had been in a period of slow decline for decades. They are important for the relics they left behind. And by relics, I don't just mean the bust of Patrick Henry in the college archives, given to the Prestons by William C. Preston himself, or their ledgers and photo albums that are also in the archives. They left behind three student publications that continue to this day. The societies founded The Journal in 1889, the Bohemian in 1908, and the Old Gold and Black in 1915. They also commissioned and purchased a number of the older portraits in the college's portrait collection, including the Albert Capers Guerry portrait of John C. Calhoun.

One final note - a correction to the published column in Wofford Today. The portraits of the two society presidents were reversed in the article. And, I got two Lawtons confused. We ran a picture of Calhoun Society President Robert Oswald Lawton, class of 1905, but identified him as Thomas Oregon Lawton, class of 1904. These two society presidents were first cousins, and their pictures were separated by one page in the photo album. When I went back to check, I saw "T. O. Lawton" and figured I'd made an earlier mistake. Thanks to Anne Clardy for calling me with the correction.

E. L. Culler, Class of 1897, of the Preston Society

Robert O. Lawton, class of 1905, president of the Calhoun Society

Politics and Elections exhibit

2008-09-24T09:03:02-04:00

This fall, Littlejohn Project Archivist Luke Meagher and I have put together an exhibit of political items from the college archives and the Littlejohn Collection. The exhibit is in the display cases just inside the front door of the library, and it should be up for several weeks.

From the archives, you'll find a photo of Ambassador Ben Hill Brown, class of 1935, receiving his credentials as ambassador to Liberia from President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. The photograph is autographed by President Johnson. There's also a photo of retired Air Force Major General John Beverly Montgomery, class of 1933, with President John F. Kennedy in 1962. There's an autographed photo of a young Olin D. Johnston, Wofford's most prominent alumnus-politician in the middle years of the twentieth century. We have some campaign matreials from different alumni who have run for public office.

A few Old Gold and Black stories round out the archives portion of the display, including an article about students' preference for Richard Nixon over John Kennedy in 1960 and one showing 1980 vice presidential candidate George H. W. Bush speaking in Leonard Auditorium.

Come by the library and take a look at some interesting artifacts from past political seasons.

Football, Fall 1933

2008-09-22T10:01:43-04:00

I was looking for a story about an old football game this morning, and I wanted to reprint something from 1933- seventy-five years ago - and the first game I came across was against USC. Since Wofford played USC on Saturday, this seemed like more than a coincidence, so here's the Old Gold and Black's story about Wofford-USC, the 1933 version.

From the issue of September 30, 1933

"Gamecocks Click Against Terriers"

Wofford's gridiron warriors journeyed down to the State capital last Saturday (September 23) and met the Carolina Gamecocks in a game of good, hard football. The Terriers fought gamely, but were overpowered by a score of 31-0.

Sidelights on the Game:

The two Clarys, Earl and WIlbur, were the outstanding stars for the gamecocks. E. Clary, with his eel hips and llos-jointed stried, was a difficult target for our warriors to get a firm and secure hold upon. W. Clary, with his smashing and hard running, was even more difficult to halt. The Carolina line was almost impregnable, and their charges were hard and timed. The backfield was outstanding on passing and blocking and their punters showed up well.

The Terriers were by no means a disappointment to their alumni supporters. Wofford's line held on many an occasion and stopped the enemy backs before they could get going The line, made up mostly of sophomores, gave promise of being a formidable one when the get to clicking together.

Gallman and Moore on the flanks turned in a neat game. Often they gummed up the enemy interference and the backs were stopped at the scrimmage line or hurled back for losses.

King and Hardin were stalwarts at the tackle posts, and King displayed promise of cinching an all-state tackle's berth if he wants it bad enough.

Knotts and Lineberger played well at guard, and were fast on interference. Mullikin held down the center position in fine style and stopped many n enemy advance. The Terrier backfield failed to click, but appeared to run as smoothly as could be expected in the initial gameof the season.

Bouknight was up to form, and he punted, passed, and ran well. Funderburk, subbing for him, gave an exhibition of how he can lug the ball if he has a little interference.

Chandler held down the blocking position in a creditable way, and wa s best on hitting the line for a few yards. Jones, switched from guard to fullback, was green at the post,but clearly showed that he intends on cinching the position. Quarterback Anderson called the plays in fine style, mixing them up, and kept the Carolina line guessing. His steadiness under fire will add much strength to the backfield and make them more dangerous.

The substitutiona proved to Coach Scaffe that he has a few reserves he can depend upon. Crouch, Hoover, and Hawes played admirably under fire, and will be much needed as reserves.

Wofford has no game for September 30. A game with High Point College was scheduled, but their athletic board eliminated football from this year's program because of heavy losses incurred in financing it heretofore. (Remember, this was in the middle of the Great Depression)

The Terriers' next game will be with Davidson on Oct. 7, at home on Snyder Field.

Unfortunately for the Terriers, Davidson's Wildcats won that game, 28-13. Wofford finished the season with a home game against Clemson (yes, Clemson played Wofford on Snyder Field) on Armistice Day, and Wofford won that one, 14-13. They wound up 3-6 for the season.

Andrews Field House - a gym for the ages

2008-09-16T16:06:27-04:00

Andrews Field House is place of many memories, and is another of those buildings on the campus that has found many uses in its nearly 80-year lifespan. From the 50-year era when it was the Terriers’ varsity gymnasium, there are memories of cold nights, noisy crowds, and Little Four Tournaments, coaches like Joel Robertson ’41 and Gene Alexander; and Hall-of-Fame players like Slim Mooneyham ’33; Daddy Neal ’53; George Lyons ’65; and Doug Lowe ’75.

Even after the varsity team moved to the Benjamin Johnson Arena, students still have Andrews Field House memories of playing the faculty in Friday afternoon pick-up basketball and involuntary visits to the campus safety office. It became a home (literally) for numerous assistant coaches and sports interns, though most of them recognized it was sub-standard at best. Some coaches thought it was great living in a building with racquetball and basketball courts, while others didn't especially enjoy the old-gym smell that permeated everything.

Originally consisting of just the varsity basketball arena, the field house as we know it today was constructed in three stages. In 1929, Spartanburg businessman Isaac Andrews gave $20,000 to the college for the construction of a gymnasium. Andrews, born in Belfast, Ireland in 1876, emigrated to the United States at age 4. He moved to Spartanburg not long after the beginning of the twentieth century, and was involved in several area businesses.

The total cost of the field house was $65,000. Designed for all indoor sports, Andrews Field House served as the home of the basketball team until 1981. With a seating capacity of 2,500, the large gym also served as the setting for the college’s seventy-fifth anniversary celebration in 1929.

As part of the college’s post-World War II facilities improvements, Isaac Andrews made a second pledge to expand the field house. The additions included offices for the athletics staff, shower and locker room facilities, and an auxiliary basketball court. The new court, on the campus drive side of the building, later became handball courts.

In the early 1960s, additional gifts from Mrs. Isaac Andrews and Mrs. A. J. R. Helmus helped to renovate the interior of the gym and the entrances to the building. In the mid-1960s, other gifts allowed the college to add new locker rooms onto the Snyder Field side of the building, which were used primarily for football teams until the opening of the Richardson Building in the mid-1990s.

With the opening of the Campus Life Building and the Benjamin Johnson Arena in 1981, the Andrews Field House arena became an auxiliary gym and intramural facility. Little work beyond routine maintenance was done for almost twenty years after that, though its locker rooms, offices and classrooms have remained in use for various purposes and for storage. The college band used one of the classrooms on the end of the building nearest the baseball stadium. Later the brick building received a new white exterior veneer so that it would match the nearby Campus Life Building and Richardson Physical Activities Building.

A gift in the early 2000s allowed the college to renovate Andrews again, this time for new meeting and office spaces for student groups, particularly the sororities. A new multipurpose, formal assembly room called the Anna Todd Wofford room was created in the space once known as the “little gym,” and it has proved to be a popular meeting space.

The old arena, scene of so many Terrier basketball triumphs, continues to serve as an intramural gymnasium, and was even the site of January Smackdown in 2008, an Interim that brought real, honest-to-goodness wrestling to a wildly enthusiastic campus audience.

Rat Season - another word for freshman indoctrination

2008-09-12T08:25:08-04:00

I’ve mentioned “ratting” or “rat season” already, but to understand the true nature of this long-gone Wofford tradition, I felt like I needed to share the ratting rules. So, below, please enjoy the rules of the so-called Freshman Control Board, the group that administered ratting. Here's a picture of one version of the rat cap - they evolved over the years. This cam appears to come from the 1960s. The archives has versions from the 1920s and the early 1950s as well.

Freshman Control Board, 1958-1959

The purpose of the Freshman Control Board is to build school spirit and to help Freshmen meet Upperclassmen and classmates.

All Freshmen and Upperclassmen are expected to comply with the following rules and regulations of Wofford College.

1. Freshmen will stand at the close of chapel and will remain in place until all Upperclassmen and faculty members have left. This will be compulsory throughout the year and will be enforced.

2. Every Freshman will wear a “rat cap” at all times. For a specified number of days to football games, Freshmen must wear “rat signs” stating some form of encouragement for the Terriers. The sign must bear the name of the wearer, the name of his home town, and the name of the opposing team for the week. It must have at least one illustration and a varied color scheme. The minimum width of the sign must be equal to the width of the wearer’s shoulders. The length must be equal to not less than one-half the width. Freshman football players are exempt from the wearing of “rat signs” but they must abide by all other Freshman Control Board rules.

3. Simple errands may be required of Freshmen by Upperclassmen

4. Freshmen will attend all athletic contests, football games, campus, or any other announced places. They must learn all official yells and are required to sit in body at the function.

5. Freshmen are forbidden to trespass on the front steps of the Main Building.

6. While on the campus, all Freshmen will be required to confine their movements to the paved sidewalks and parking areas. Exceptions to this rule are the areas in front of Carlisle Hall and the athletic fields.

7. It is compulsory that all Freshmen wear fore-in-hand ties tied in a Windsor knot to supper in the College Dining Hall each night. Dress shirts are not required.

8. For the first three weeks of ratting Freshmen, before speaking to an Upperclassman, will automatically give their name adding “Rat” as a prefix and “Sir” as a suffix. Example “Rat John Doe, Sir.”

9. Freshmen are required to know the following, if questioned by any Upperclassman:

a. Founder of Wofford College
b. Date of founding
c. Presidents of Wofford College
d. Names of all buildings and dates of their construction
e. Wofford College motto and meaning
f. Student Council Members
g. Number of seats in the auditorium
h. Number of steps on front entrance to Main Building
i. Alma Mater
j. After first week of ratting, the names and at least one identifiable characteristic of at least twenty Upperclassmen and thirty classmates.

10. All Freshmen are expected to participate actively in the singing during Chapel. Any violator of this rule will be asked to sing a solo for the entire student body.

11. At any time the Freshman Control Board may recommend a Freshman to the Dean of Students for further action.

12. A tug-of-war between Freshmen and Sophomores will be held on the first Tuesday following ght efourth Freshman Control Board meeting. At this time, all requirements of Freshmen contained herein will be discontinued, except article 1, provided they win the tug-of-war. If the Freshmen lose, “ratting” will continue for two more weeks.

13. No Freshman shall be subjected to any type of physical or mental punishment. This regulation forbids, for example, paddling and belt-lines.

14. Any violation of regulation 13 above by Upperclassmen will be subject to stringent disciplinary action by Wofford College.

15. Freshmen will carry their “W” books [the student handbook] with them at all times

16. At the end of “ratting” all Freshmen will be required to undergo a test on the “W” book. The test will be given by the Freshman Control Board. Failure on the part of a freshman to achieve a passing mark on this test will result in further ratting duties and a retaking of another similar test.

Ratting existed before World War II, and again for a few years in the 1950s and 1960s. If any of the alumni who are readers of this blog care to share stories about their experiences with ratting, please feel free to offer a comment. I’d be happy to see a little interactivity with readers.

Back to School

2008-09-09T15:32:11-04:00

Those of us who work on college campuses become creatures of habit. I've been part of a college community ever since I came to Wofford 18 years ago, and like many of my colleagues, I have come to appreciate the rhythms of the academic year. Each September brings a new year of a different kind, along with a new crop of students, colleagues, ideas, speakers, and events. I'm sure that the faculty in the 1850s also came to enjoy the chance for new beginnings.

But even the annual new-ness is actually fairly regimented. Wofford, and no doubt many similar colleges, has developed a number of routines that have come to define the early days and weeks of each academic year. These routines do evolve over time, though most members of the Wofford community would recognize similarities over time.

Since I posted a welcome to new students in the fall of 1958 last weekend, I thought it might be interesting to see what was going on at Wofford in September 1958.

Wofford was welcoming a new president that fall as Dr. Charles Marsh had recently been named to that office. The college was also welcoming nine new faculty members. A new residence hall, the original Wightman, was opening that fall, and for the first time, the Student Affairs office announced that a house on campus was being made available for use as a student activities building. Wightman was the college's first air-conditioned dorm, though the OG&B immediately complained that the rooms were too small and the beds were too short.

The student council, the predecessor to Campus Union, had already met and discussed various student concerns. Strangely enough, one of their concerns was parking. Student Body President Charlie Bradshaw also noted that concerns about registration, fees, and textbooks were being discussed. It was announced that Professor Sam Britt's dog would be available to serve as the mascot again that year. And perhaps in an announcement we can all appreciate today, Bradshaw told the students that he had been in contact with several local gas stations to see about discounts for students.

The pages of this first OG&B of the year were also full of information about Rat Season, which was the period of cultural indoctrination required of all new students. Especially popular from World War II through the mid-1960s, rat season was part of how freshmen learned Wofford history, the alma mater, and school spirit. Apparently the freshmen in 1958 could dish it out as well as they could take it, for the newspaper reported they had kidnapped the president of the sophomore class - who was by virtue of his office the student who ran rat season. The newspaper reported that the freshmen might have to scrub Main Building as punishment.

Ratting has, of course, disappeared into the pages of history, but the same can not be said for other activities featured in the fall issues of the newspaper, such as football, fraternities, and intramurals. IFC introduced new rush rules that fall that prohibited fraternities from speaking disrespectfully about other fraternities, that fined them if they broke rush rules, and set a maximum amount they could spend on rushing. Rush was set for Nov. 12-25. And, of course, students planned on attending football games against Elon and Presbyterian and cheering on the Terriers.

Times change, events change, but the interaction students have with each other, with their professors, and their desire to enjoy themselves while learning in this special place has not. The rhythms of campus life, the excitement of a new year, the noise of football games, of rush, of a hundred conversations in the dining room ebb and flow throughout the early months of each new year.

Photos, a scene from registration, a photo of the newly-opened Wightman Hall, a photo of two "rats," all from the Bohemian.

Welcome to Wofford - Fifty Years Ago

2008-09-06T13:03:07-04:00

The next several blog posts will be about orientation, student organizations, and events surrounding the opening of school each year. About once a week, I try to post a document from the archives. Today's document is the welcome message to the freshmen of fifty years ago - in the fall of 1958 - the members of the Class of 1962.

The student handbook of that era was called the "W" book and was published by the Student Christian Association. It contained greetings from Wofford's new president, Charles F. Marsh, along with SCA President A. V. Huff '59, student body president Charles Bradshaw '59, and Interfraternity Council President Jerry Richardson '59, along with rules and regulations. The handbook also contains the rules for "ratting," which will be the subject of a future post.

Welcome to Wofford! This phrase may seem a little trite to you by this time, but with it we wish to extend the warm and sincere greetings of the Student Christian Association to you, the Class of Sixty-Two. For each of you there is a definite place waiting in the SCA.

As the first contribution to you for a successful college career, the SCA presents this handbook to guide you through these first excitingly new and important days.

There are many spills that can be avoided by simply reading and heeding some of the material within this small book. Become familiar with the rules that apply to "ratting" since many of the initial blunders are caused by ignorance. Every upperclassman is your friend. If you want questions answered about ratting or college in general, just ask.

No doubt you have watched a child's first efforts to walk. When the child falls no one worries about it except the child himself. So it is here at Wofford -- it matters not that you fall but how you get up and push forward.

Whatever you accomplish here at Wofford will be the result of your own individual worth and effort. Now you are on your own--away from home and life-long friends. You must mold and guide your own life and work in college. The result will be the sum total of effort that you put forth. In short, your life here can be what you want it to be -- success or failure -- to any degree The opportunities are here. Rise and meet the challenge.

To the men in the Class of Sixty-Two who rise after falling and answer the challenge of Wofford -- this book his humbly dedicated.