Blog featuring news and updates about collections, discoveries, exhibitions, and public programs of the University of Oregon Special Collections & University Archives
“It is difficult to express one’s appreciation for the many generous assists from the people in our great state of Oregon — I take this method, telling of my observations of the places seen, the people met, and some of the ‘inside’ on the 1956 Olympic games.”
— Bill Bowerman, San Francisco, November 18, 1956
So begins the first of 19 pages handwritten by Bill Bowerman to document his trip to Australia for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. This collection was recently rediscovered in the University Archives while processing correspondence and other papers from various University of Oregon coaches from the post-war period of the 1950s and 1960s.
The Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) archivists have been hard at work and six more collections were made available for research in April.
The James Berwick papers contain photographs of Berwick, who was, according to the University of Oregon Athletics Hall of Fame, “The defensive captain of one of Oregon’s greatest football squads ever…a vital cog for the 1949 Cotton Bowl team”, which was ranked ninth in the nation in an Associated Press poll. His time at UO as a three-year starter saw Berwick playing both offense and defense, earning him three letters from 1946-48, culminating in being selected to play in the Hula Bowl following his final collegiate season.
Ellen Schmidt-Devlin ran for UO (1976-79) under the mentorship of Bill Bowerman. She graduated in 1981 and spent 27 years working for Nike in marketing, primarily in Asia (Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, and Korea) and the United States. She received her MBA from UO and was co-founder of the University’s Sports Product Management program. In 2012, she produced the documentary We Grew Wings: The Untold Story of the Women of Oregon, highlighting women’s track and field at the University of Oregon, inspired by her experience in the program. This collection is comprised of production materials related to We Grew Wings, including a full copy of the released film, raw and production footage, promotional material and related ephemera such as posters, tickets, and attendee favors.
Mary Frances Brackney, née Dilday, was a student at UO from 1926-1930. In addition to studying English, journalism, economics, and history, Brackney was the Day Editor of the Emerald, was active in the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority, including managing the house in her later years. This collection consists primarily of correspondence from her time at UO, but also includes a scrapbook, a photo album and other items of realia and ephemera.
Richard Brooks (b. August 20, 1941) coached the UO football team from 1977-1994, during which time the team won the Pac-10 and played in the 1995 Rose Bowl, leading Brooks to receive several national coaching awards. After leaving UO, he coached the NFL’s St. Louis Rams from 1995-1996, moving to the University of Kentucky from 2003-2009. Brooks is credited for reviving UO’s football team and setting the stage for its rise to national prominence under future head coaches. This collection contains newspaper and publicity around his time at UO, as well as ephemera, notes and memos and photographic materials. Most of the collection dates to the 1995 Rose Bowl game.
Alexander E. Borthwick was born in 1835 in in Schoharie County, New York and enlisted to fight for the Union in the Civil War in 1861 as part of Company B, Fourth New York Artillery. Discharged on account of disability in 1862, he reenlisted in 1863 into Company C, Second New York Veteran Cavalry, where he served until he was honorably mustered out in 1865. As part of his time as a soldier, Bothwick took part in the Red River and Mobile campaign and was twice wounded, first at Marksville, Louisiana, and again at McLeod Mills, Mississippi, on the Davidson raid.
Following the War, Borthwick attended school and in 1867, traveled west, where he assisted in building the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railways. He was present at Promontory, Utah in 1869, when the last spike was driven connecting with bands of steel from New York and San Francisco. In May 1869 he went to Nevada, worked in various mining camps, and then migrated to Canyon City, Oregon, and from there to The Dalles and Portland. Over the years, Borthwick would work as a schoolteacher, stationary salesman, railroad surveyor, county clerk and miner in Oregon and across the Pacific Northwest.
William L. Borthwick (1881-1958), was the son of Alexander E., and from 1915 to 1918 was employed in river and harbor work by the U.S. Army Engineers, later going on to work for the Bureau of Construction in Portland, Oregon. The younger Borthwick was active in politics and joined the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.
Leo Huberman was a teacher and educator born in Newark, New Jersey in 1903, who taught social studies, labor and economic history. Huberman served variously as Chairman of the Department of Social Sciences at the New College at Columbia University, as Labor Editor of PM, Director of Education and Public Relations of the National Maritime Union and founded and co-edited Monthly Review. Huberman wrote many books, articles and pamphlets on labor and labor history from a Marxian socialist point of view. Notable material in this collection includes testimony and papers related to Huberman’s testimony before Joseph McCarthy in Congress, his work with the case of California vs Earl King, Ernest G. Ramsay, and Frank Connor, his times working with the National Maritime Union; and documents related to Harry Bridges, including testimony in the Bridges court case with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
This collection was processed by Lara-Marie Frick, SCUA’s History Graduate Archival Training Fellow. Read her blog about Huberman here.
William Jay “Bill” Bowerman was born February 19, 1911 in Portland, Oregon and came to the University of Oregon (UO) in 1929 to play football and study. After graduation, Bowerman taught high school biology and coached football, first in Portland and then in Medford, where he started a track team in 1937. In 1948, Bowerman became the freshman football coach at UO and by the 1950’s, was coaching track and field. During a trip to New Zealand in 1962, Bowerman was introduced to the concept of jogging as a fitness routine. He brought this concept back to the United States, and began to write articles and books about jogging, in addition to creating a jogging program in Eugene that became a national model for a fitness program. Bowerman was a highly inventive man. In addition to experimenting with many different types of shoes, he experimented with different types of track surfaces, creating a rubber and asphalt mix for track runways. He helped to create portable runways with this same mixture for use on indoor tracks, but his main area of invention was in the realm of athletic footwear. Before and after retirement, Bowerman worked with Phil Knight as a co-founder of Nike (initially Blue Ribbon Shoes) to develop new and innovative shoe designs. After retirement, Bill devoted more of his time to these endeavors, once using his wife’s waffle iron to create a new type of “waffle” sole for running shoes.
Bowerman (left) conversing with Phil Knight and two other members of the Oregon track team in 1958.
This collection contains two pieces of rubber/synthetic shoe tread, one in waffle pattern, and one pattern Nike patent pending.
The American Federation of Teachers, founded in Chicago in 1916, is the second-largest teachers’ labor union in the United States. The University of Oregon chapter was established to advance the professional interests of teachers at UO, improve terms and conditions of employment, fight bias, promote reciprocal accountability, and support the national AFT. The local chapter has since also affiliated with the national American Association of University Professors and, as of 2007, organizes and advocates as United Academics.
The Oregon State Board of Higher Education was the statutory governing board for the Oregon University System from 1909 to 2015 and was composed of eleven members appointed by the Governor of Oregon and confirmed by the Oregon State Senate.
This ledger details the approved final budget for fiscal year 1933-1934 and includes summaries of budget authorizations, notices of changes in budgets for employees and departments, details of salary changes and other documented budgetary considerations.
Field Hockey was one of the first and most popular women’s sports offered at the University of Oregon (UO) after being established formally in 1945. Throughout its
Women’s Field Hockey, 1970s
history, the women’s field hockey team made the National Championship tournament several times and, in 1978, under coach Nancy Plantz, was ranked eighth in the nation. Women’s field hockey at UO The team was formally dissolved in 1979.
These grade books are the personal records of University of Oregon professors B.J. Hawthorne (English composition, rhetoric and linguistics) and William E. Overholt (Latin language and Roman history). Spanning the years 1884-1898, the books contain grades, marks and notes for students.
John V. Bovard a was faculty in the University of Oregon (UO) Biology department starting in 1906. In 1920, he became the inaugural dean of UO’s Physical Education program, the first such program established in the United States. After leaving UO in 1937, Bovard finished his career at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where his research examined problems related to human fatigue.
This collection includes the papers created in Bovard’s capacity as a professor of physical education at both UO and UCLA. Topics covered include lecture notes and class records, material related to the Northwest Council of Teach Education Standards for Health, Physical Education and Recreation. A small amount of personal material relates to Bovard’s involvement in clubs and organizations such as the Obsidians, an outdoors enthusiast group based in Eugene.
The Committee on Status of Women at the University of Oregon was formed in the 1970s as an ad hoc committee meant to study the status of female employees at the University of Oregon. By the 1990s, the committee reported to the University Senate. The Status of Women Committee ceased to be active in 2005 and was abolished by US07/08-3 in November 2007.
Material in this collection includes committee charges, correspondence, and reports, covering topics including sexual discrimination, tenure, and pay rates.
William Franklin Goodwin Thacher came to the University of Oregon in 1914 as a Professor of Rhetoric. In 1917, he taught the University’s first advertising course – a copywriting class in the English Department. In 1932, he was named a Professor of English and Advertising and from there developed the advertising program in the School of Journalism and Communication.
This collection consists of Thacher’s course notebook on Constitutional Law of the United States, taught by Prof. Woodrow Wilson in 1898 or 1899. Pages contain notes from lectures, doodles, including drawings of houses, people (perhaps other students), various scribbles of the name “Janet” and doodles referencing “Little Orphan Annie.”
Tau Kappa Epsilon, commonly known as TKE or Teke, is a social college fraternity founded on January 10, 1899, at Illinois Wesleyan University and has chapters throughout the United States and Canada. In 1928 TKE became one of the first fraternities to ban hazing, and also never had a racially exclusive policy for membership.
This collection documents the fraternity at University of Oregon from 1943-1949.
This collection consists of correspondence and telegraphs between George Korn of the Korn Baking Company and Mel Le Mon, a broadcaster at radio station KFAC in Los Angeles, and detail the whereabouts of Joe Duck, as well as upcoming or recent Oregon sporting events. George Washington Korn (1898-1995) was raised in Oregon, first in Portland, and then in Eugene, where his father, Harry, owned and operated the University Bakery. George worked as a clerk at the bakery, first located between the University of Oregon campus and downtown Eugene.
The collection also includes scrapbook pages of photographs and news clippings which document the travels of Joe Duck, and the activities of the Monday Morning Quarterbacks. Of note is a letter from Bing Crosby, claiming to be unaware of Joe Duck’s present location. Loose photographs of a vacation to Cedar Pines Park in 1941 are also included.
The University of Oregon chapter of the Young Women’s Christian Association was a student group on the University of Oregon campus founded in 1894. The group’s mission was to promote the principles of religion, democracy, and fellowship, as well as student activities, and served as a resource and gathering space for the university’s small female student body. They hosted teas, luncheons, hobby groups such as photography classes, Bible studies, and dinners. The group also published a newspapers, hosted school dances and events for freshman, and sponsored lectures and programs open to the campus community. The collection contains administrative materials such as advisory board minutes, staff meeting minutes, and conference files, as well as constitutions and by-laws. Also included are announcements, evaluations conducted by the national group of the local chapter, reports and resolutions, a copy of the advisor’s handbook, Big Brother/Big Sister program files, and files related to the 1974 Women’s Forum.
Mary Elizabeth “Betty” Underwood (1921-2009) was an award-winning author and activist in the Oregon women’s movement. Born in Illinois, she graduated with honors from Pennsylvania State University, and worked as an information analyst for the federal government during and after World War II. Her career in public relations and editing saw her with jobs at Houghton Mifflin, Oregon Public Broadcasting, the Oregon American Civil Liberties Union and George Washington University medical school.
Her writing career saw the publication of two novels for young adults, The Tamarack Tree (1972) and The Forge and the Forest (1975), as well as a memoir, Hostage to Heaven (1979), co-authored by her daughter detailing the Underwoods’ experience with the Unification Church, widely considered to be a cult. The Tamarack Tree received the Jane Addams’ Children’s Book Award in 1972.
Underwood also served on the Portland Cable TV Regulatory Commission (1981-84) and the Oregon Governor’s Commission on the Status of Women (1972-1979) and was extremely active in the Oregon Association of University Women (AAUW).
The Fortnightly Club of Eugene was organized in December, 1893 by Dr. Alice Hall Chapman, wife of Charles Hiram Chapman, the second president of the University of Oregon. Dr. Hall Chapman was the first president of the original group consisting of twenty-two members, generally conceded to be the first women’s study club west of the Rockies. In 1895, The Fortnightly Club began its first move toward what became a continued dedication: providing and supporting desirable library facilities for Eugene.
This collection includes photographs, news clippings, scrapbooks, meeting records and other materials related to the functions of the Club.
Gum Moon Women’s Residence, previously known as the Oriental Home and School, is a United Methodist Women National Mission Institution that provides women and children in geographic and social transition with short-term housing and life skills training.
The records in this collection document the work and history of Gum Moon Women’s Residence, its predecessor organizations, its programs, and its service to the Asian immigrant community of the San Francisco Bay Area since 1868. The collection contains administrative records, case files, historical materials and publicity, photographs, and certificates.
Nomenus, Inc. is a non-profit religious organization founded in 1984 to create, preserve and manage places of spiritual and cultural sanctuary, for Radical Faeries and their friends to gather in harmony with nature, for renewal, growth and shared learning. Since 1987, Nomenus has maintained an eight-acre Radical Faery Sanctuary in Wolf Creek, Oregon. This collection contains the documents provided by Nomenus Inc. including business papers, correspondence, financial documentation, and building plans, as well as publications of newsletters and magazines, photographs of members, posters of gatherings.
James Ivory is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He was born in Berkeley, California on June 7, 1928 and in 1933, moved with his family to Klamath Falls, Oregon. After high school graduation in 1946, he enrolled in the University of Oregon’s (UO) School of Fine Arts majoring in architecture, later changing to a general art course. In 1951 he began a graduate program in film production at the University of Southern California. In 1953 he was drafted into the U.S. Army and was trained for the Signal Corps. Through a stroke of luck and resourcefulness on his part, he was assigned to Seventh Army Special Services in Europe with the job of booking cultural events for army units in Germany. During leave times he was able to continue working on film. He returned to the U.S. in 1955 where he completed Venice: Theme and Variations and his master’s degree in Cinematography in 1957.
The University of Oregon Ivory collection presently represents forty years of work, particularly the basic artistic foundation of the Ruth Jhabvala-James Ivory collaboration, backed up by the inventive financial and logistical support of producer, Ismail Merchant. The collection includes material relating to Ivory’s feature films, television programs and commercials, Merchant Ivory Productions materials, and Ivory’s published and unpublished writings, including literary and artistic work done while Ivory was a college student at UO. The collection includes correspondence, screenplays, treatments, storyboards, production notes, promotional material, legal and financial notes, articles, reviews, sketchbooks, notebooks and photographs.
Sally Sheklow (1950-2002) was a Jewish lesbian activist, columnist, public health workers, and improvisational performer who lived in Eugene, Oregon. Sheklow arrived in San Francisco in 1967 for the Summer of Love in San Francisco, but after a couple of weeks moved to Eugene, where she enrolled in the University of Oregon (UO) and eventually earned a Bachelor of Arts in Speech, a certificate in Women’s Studies, and a Master’s in Leisure Studies and Services.
After her time at UO, Sheklow worked with the Willamette AIDS Council and the Feminist Women’s Health Center and led workshops on safe sex during the AIDS crisis. She worked as an activist for gay rights and reproductive freedom and organized against a variety of anti-gay political campaigns and legislation. Sheklow also created Balaboosteh, a Jewish lesbian networking group for exploring Jewish feminist spirituality and culture.
This collection includes correspondence, personal papers, activism resources, audiovisual material, and artifacts pertaining to the personal life and activism of Sheklow.
SCUA recently received two accessions documenting UO track and field history. The items were donated by two alumni, Clayton Steinke and Kenny Moore, who competed during the 1960s under head coach Bill Bowerman. These new materials complement existing administrative and coaching collections, but also contribute to understanding the unique perspective of the student-athlete. Coincidentally, both accessions include uniforms that provide a visual component of the legacy of UO track and field.
In 1962, four members of the UO team broke the world record for the four by one mile relay. Later that year, Steinke served as an alternate runner on the UO team invited to compete in the same relay distance in a meet against the New Zealand national team. As representatives of both the United States of America, and the University of Oregon, Bowerman devised a unique uniform. In order to satisfy the AAU (Amateur Athletic Union), the resulting singlet and shirt include references to the AAU and USA, but also pays homage to the University of Oregon. In addition to his uniform, Steinke donated his letterman’s jacket, scrapbooks, a memoir, correspondence and photographs.
This is the second of a series of blog posts highlighting the ongoing work of the Documenting UO History Project within the University Archives. A major part of this project is researching and documenting the often untold and hidden histories of the university’s diverse and underrepresented communities. This year our focus will continue to focus on Black history on campus, specifically Black student activism from the 1960s to present. Prior posts can be seen here.
Herman Brame and Bill Bowerman, ca. 1980s, photo courtesy of Herman Brame.
“I went to the student union to get something to eat and on the tables were all these flyers. So I picked one up to read it and some white supremacist group had put out flyers that had a picture of an ape and a picture of a black person comparing their anatomies. Saying these are one in the same.” – Herman Brame, Black student experience, University of Oregon, 1968
Last year, the UO Black Student Task Force released a list a list of 12 demands to the university administration — the demands included the immediate renaming of campus buildings, efforts to increase the black student population and an increase in black faculty. The demands were strikingly similar to the list of demands and grievances offered by the University of Oregon Black Student Union in 1968 — many of which have been echoed on campus for decades. A strong African studies program has been another area where the university seems to lag behind counterparts in Portland and other west coast universities. Many black students say there is general feeling of exclusion on campus and in the community. This is a century-old dilemma plaguing minority groups throughout Eugene and Springfield – something that both lists addressed and that has come to the forefront recently on campus. This post highlights some of those recent activities and our current outreach with UO alumni on this topic. Continue reading →
