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And it’s not even really that late. I mean, people on the quarter schedule aren’t even through commencement yet, so it’s totally reasonable to be sending out my graduation thank you notes this week. I made that little crimson graphic for cards and got them printed on decently nice cardstock today at Kinko’s. The illustrations are from the 1908 and 1920 Chinook yearbooks. I wish I had more time to go through old Evergreens and Chinooks to scan their crazy art. I had a few other graduation-themed ones saved and didn’t really plan the cards looking this way, but it worked well enough so I just went with it. It took me about 35 minutes total I think.

Everyone seems to be leaving Pullman, finally, including me. My last phone conversation with Victor before he left Sunday reminded me of this farewell from the Evergreen staff in the 1898 commencement issue:

“To the graduating class the Evergreen bids you God-speed, and wishes you all the success possible. May your lives be examples which will bring credit upon yourselves and your alma mater.”

Another little gem from a turn-of-the-century Evergreen:

I was trying to come up with a more modern equivalent but couldn’t think of anything. Though I think it’s worth noting that Evergreen ladies have been harassing male Evergreeners about smoking ever since the paper first appeared.

And yes, the Evergreen used to publish poems and other little ditties and jokes. The “Ex” means it came through Exchange, a pretty informal content-sharing system between college papers. It was kind of a matter of pride to publish clever little things other papers would find witty enough to publish.

Also, I apologize in general for the poor quality of these old images. I take pictures from the microfilm tables so I don’t have to write everything down, but they don’t turn out great because 1) I have to take them from a slant because getting directly above the projected image blocks the light source, 2) the machine itself and the old microfilm rarely focus perfectly, 3) my camera doesn’t focus well in such low light, but flash washes out the projected image, and 4) I get lazy when I’m doing this for multiple hours. Lo siento.

I spent a good portion of the afternoon rolling through old microfilm of the days of the Evergreen to finish up that history project. Lest we too often think about how awesome it would be to have a teletype machine and all the other great thing that came with being a journalist in the past, I can safely say I am glad I was not editor of the Evergreen during a time when it was okay to publish racist advertisements:

This is the layout of the Murrow East basement when the Evergreen first moved in back in August 1972.

I made a rough updated version of the map for those of you who don’t spend more than half your life here.

The Evergreen moved into the new Murrow Communications Complex after it was renovated from the old Arts Hall to house the communications department, radio, television and Student Publications. They added Murrow West at that time and moved the Evergreen from its home in the basement of the CUB, where it had been since 1952 when the CUB opened.

Murrow East was originally called Science Hall when it was built in 1899. The structure was partially designed by college president E.A. Bryan, who added the semicircle shape to draw in more light for the new microscopes used on upper floors. The space now known as the Evergreen newsroom was originally an animal husbandry demonstration room. Victor says this explains all the cow ghosts.

I dove back into the archives today for my 499 special project. Try to guess the answers:

1. When did the Evergreen first have AP wire?

2. When did the Evergreen first become “daily”?

3. When did the Evergreen move to its current location?
Read the rest of this entry »

Journalist and WSU alum Edward R. Murrow would have been 100 years old today. Happy birthday!

Incidentally, the 1930 Chinook we have at Student Publications has had all of its pages including Murrow’s photo clipped out. Like five of them. It’s a shame. Only his standard senior photo is still there, so I scanned it in.

Nick has been really bored recently, but I’m not envious. It sounds nice at first, but it’s like walking home freezing in the middle of winter and thinking how those really, really hot summer days would be pretty nice. And then you remember sweating all the time and sunburns and how it’s not really that nice at all. Neither extreme is fun, and I’ve always preferred to be too cold than too hot anyway.

Today I decided work and stress should follow an ice-cube tray model. A certain amount of work gets poured onto each person, but it spills over to other people before anyone gets over-filled. I’ve been right up to the brim and relying on surface tension for like the past month. It’s just stupid and inefficient to have some people completely overworked and while other people have nothing to do.

It would be like communism, I guess, but only with the smart people you like and trust to do work well. Like a responsibility commune.

Today I walked by a tour guide pointing out Stevens Hall to a group of high school students for how old it is.
“It was built in the really early 1900s I think,” she told them.

I did not loudly say, “1894 actually!” But I wanted to.

Apparently it’s WSU’s birthday today. It was March 28, 1890, that the Washington state Legislature established the land-grant college named Washington Agricultural College and School of Science. I would have known this if I’d thought about it, though it was the Student Alumni Connection’s cake distribution on the mall that tipped me off. I took pictures, and then cake, because it was lunchtime and I think it’s a reasonable bias that I support my university’s longevity. I mean, my degree would not be worth much if WSU keels over before its 119th.

Just because I was curious, there are no people in the world alive today who were around when WSU was born. The oldest person in the world right now is only 114 years old (though almost 115). She’s older than the Evergreen.

I was, however, aware of another reason today is special, and it gives me a certain amount of delight that they fall on the same day because it represents two of my favorite interests. I’ll leave that for the next post.

The New York Times has a rather scattered story about how major publications are dusting off their archives and getting the historical material online. They are seeing impressive reader interest, which may eventually get advertisers on board. I wonder how you get a job doing this, or maybe it’s what media companies are doing with the librarians and research assistants whose jobs became obsolete when Google appeared.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that I’m not crazy. Other people - including readers - are interested in this history stuff.

Here it is. Coming soon

I was going to make a shorter version to actually comply with the two-minute limit, but then I decided it just wasn’t worth fighting with Audacity any longer than necessary.

“Welcome to the Evergreen podcast for the second week of February, 1927.An unusually small number of WSC students failed during the past semester, registrar Frank T. Barnard announced. He said two weeks will be allowed for making up incompletes. Although final registration reports are not in, it is estimated that enrollment this semester will be approximately the same as last semester.

The Husky five will come across the Cascades to meet the Cougar hoop aggregation Saturday night in the second cross-state match-up of this basketball season.
The dope favors the Washington squad after they won the first tilt 39 to 16. There is hope, however, that the crimson and gray will emerge from its slump for an upset like the one against Idaho before the disastrous Coast tour.
Remember to wear your rooters cap to support our valiant boys of the hardwood …”

Thanks to Victor Graf, Christina Watts, Nick Eaton, Mike Feigen, Dan Herman and Brian Everstine for their vocal talents. An additional thanks to Victor and Nick for their technical support.

The Evergreen had a female editor-in-chief for a few months in 1899, but 1904-05 marked the first time a woman led the newsroom the whole year. Her name was Zella Bisbee, and she was a Spokane native who majored in mathematics and physics. She seems kind of humorless, but that’s okay. Here’s what the 1905 Chinook had to say:

“It has been said that a lady was not fitted for the editorship of a college paper, and not without some reason. Nevertheless, the fact that we have had a lady editor during this entire year and a college paper that has been up to the standard of any in the Northwest in every particular, has proven conclusively that there are exceptions to this rule. The other members of the staff, it is true, were loyal in their support, but the burden of work and responsibility were borne by the Editor.”

And this is the face Christina made last weekend when we thought the only thing wrong with her car was a little snow covering. We have since discovered the front door was left slightly ajar through two feet of snowfall, the battery died and could not be easily jumpstarted, and there is mold growing on the back seat. Gross.

This is the vehicle Christina and I will be theoretically using to get over to the other side of the state this weekend. The plan includes emus, ocean, Irish cream and an exchange of hostage books.

It also means I won’t be getting much work done on my thesis in the next few days. This is probably bad, but I’m not much of a worrier.

The actual audio isn’t finished since we got an extension, but here’s the graphic I’m putting together for it. Blending interests, I’m doing my required 475 podcast as if it’s an Evergreen podcast from 1927.

Fun was more important than historical accuracy – it’s more like how we like to imagine 1927. However, all the stories and much of the text* is authentically from February 1927 issues of the Evergreen.

Why 1927? Because it was the oldest book in the archives room that I could reach without difficulty.

The actual 1927 Evergreen staff looks like kind of a dour bunch, though the women had awesome names: Theda Lomax, Lyla Appel, Georgia Grimes, Lucille Weatherstone.

*UPDATE: I want to specifically mention that the Lucky Strike advertisement is entirely authentic, and not meant to glorify smoking. Those who know me, especially from the Evergreen, know how I feel about that. The logo does look cool in the graphic, though, and some weeks it seems like Lucky Strike cigarettes were entirely responsible for the financial health of this newspaper. Cigarettes and men’s suits dominated printed Evergreen ads back then, and there were always a bunch for typewriters at the beginning of a semester.

From the 1903 Chinook, one of my favorite passages ever:

“Of the ’success and futility’ of the Evergreen it is useless to speak – every one connected with the college knows all about that, especially the futility. Neither would it be worth while to trace the history of this remarkable enterprise from its earliest beginnings in the dawn of the Washington Agricultural College down to the present time. It is likely that no one but students of economic science and history (possibly biologists also) would be interested in such an account, and it would be better for such students to so ’source work’ than to depend upon any statements we might make. We will simply leave it recorded here that the Evergreen is in the eighth year (tenth, if we include its predecessor, the College Record) of its promising career, and that the present staff go about their work as if it were really important.

Apparently paging through old Evergreen tomes is contagious. It warmed my heart to see my fellow editors enthralled with achives books I left around the newsroom a while after the final thrilling moments of Super Bowl XLII. They were amused by alcohol advertisements and articles about the booming popularity of videocassette technology.

What I was looking for were the last times the WSU campus was closed. This was a big question last week, and there was a surprising lack of anyone at WSU who could say for sure. This is what I found:

Feb. 9, 1996: Flooding forced road closures and made the administration question how many faculty members would make it to campus. Faculty and staff were still expected to be at work if possible, and canceled classes were not rescheduled.

Nov. 22, 1985: Snow and cold temperatures around the state prompted WSU officials to cancel classes the Friday before Thanksgiving break. Classes from that day were made up on Dec. 7, a Saturday.

Jan. 4 and 5, 1982: The first two days of spring semester classes were canceled after snowy weather statewide kept students from returning to Pullman. Classes had to be made up on the following two Saturdays.

May 19 to 22, 1980: After ash from the Mount St. Helens eruption blanketed Pullman, hindering travel and raising health questions about air quality, classes were canceled for four days. President Glenn Terrell considered closing WSU for the rest of the semester, but decided to reopen. More than 1,000 students applied for emergency leave due to medical or psychological concerns.

“The student voice of Washington State University since 1986.”

This was the motto beneath the Evergreen flag when I first started working as an editor in the summer of 2006. Simple, noble, straight to the point – a pretty nice motto, I suppose. Except that it was wrong.

The first issue of the Evergreen came out in March 1895. Washington Agricultural College (known as W.A.C.) had about a dozen faculty members and no more than 200 students. The only building on campus still standing today was Thompson Hall.

So yeah, it was a long time ago, and a difference of one year isn’t all that long in the course of a century. But that one year is the difference between being correct and being wrong about our history, which is why it matters to me.

I figured out the error that summer when looking through the first Chinook yearbook (appearing in 1899, just a few years after the paper). I double-checked against the first issue of the Evergreen on microfilm in the library, and it was corrected to 1895 for the first fall issue in 2006. (Click on my crude little infographic to check out the actual difference in the Evergreen flag.)

It makes me wonder when the “voice of the students” motto was first used, and why the first person to type in “1896″ got it wrong. Is it listed incorrectly somewhere else? Too lazy to check the original source? A simple typo that slipped into the template? Perhaps I’ll stumble across the answer as I go along.

I came across a nice tidbit about Evergreen history in the 1940 Chinook today.

“Strikes and walkouts in the Evergreen office kept Editor Lloyd Salt constantly changing the masthead till order finally arose from chaos, with an editorial staff revision at the start of the second semester. For the first time in campus history, the paper and journalism department worked in close co-operation.
Journalism students were assigned to beats as reporters and proof-readers. New copy rules were devised and deadlines were vigorously enforced in the successful effort to improve the paper’s efficiency.”

A major question in reconstructing Evergreen history is determining oversight. The Daily Evergreen is currently a part of Student Publications, which falls under the new Division of Student Affairs, Equity and Diversity. Back when WSU wasn’t a university yet, the Evergreen was a part of student government. I previously knew that somewhere in between it got absorbed by the journalism department for a while. Now I know when that started: 1940.

As I alluded to previously, I’m working on a project about the history of the Evergreen, WSU’s student newspaper. During this semester I aim to compile enough information to write a comprehensive institutional history.

Why? Well, like Everest, because it’s there and no one has done it before.

Check out the full plan by clicking on the page image to the right.