Thank you to all who share

Happy thanksgiving from Around the D.  This week, we’re highlighting some of our 2015 donations.  Along with the regular transfer of files from campus offices and departments, donations from alumni and friends help build our collections.  We are very grateful for those gifts.

The very first donation of 2015 brought back memories of the 1960s and the college’s very active Civil Defense Committee. This copy was used by chemistry professor Thomas Logan.

Music history has been a theme this year. Starting with donations of scrapbooks and materials related to music professor James Christian Pfohl.

We learned more about Neal Scott, class of 1940 with the receipt of a booklet of radio interviews that included a program on him and his WWII service.

A Japanese plane crashed into the ship Scott served on. Although severely burned, he called out “Keep the guns firing, mates.” He died shortly after leaving as his last words, ” To Dr. L. R. Scot, Goldsboro, North Carolina. To have you and mother for all these 24 years has been all that I could ask for in this world. Neal.”

Another donation from the 1940s came in the form of 3 mounted photographs submitted to the Camera Club Exhibit for 1940. The photographs were by Angus Lytch.  He was an active photographer as a student and the archives photograph collection has almost 100 images taken by him.

Fitting for a year that saw the opening of the Vance Athletic Center, we received a scrapbook and memorablia from Harry L. Vance, class of 1926.

Another scrapbook, created by his classmate Wade Hampton Allison came in adding to our understanding of student life in the 1920s. Along with photographs of students and campus, Allison used his scrapbook for a diary. Entries for November 1925 include:

Went to see Mrs. Smith tonight and had a big feed. Wrote to Happy and to Laura & home as usual.
Two letters today! Whoopee! Nice long one from Piggie and actually one from Eliza.Had Law review, but didn’t make 100 this time. Big races in Charlotte but too much to do here.
Big pep meeting and bonfire. On to Duke! Judged a debate & ha to give decision to the Pans.
Thanksgiving. Beat Duke 26-0. Left after game for Laurens. Took supper at Torrence’s. Spent night in Spartanburg. Got to Laurens at 8:30am. M. Mart met me. Mrs. looked well & was so glad to see me.

From slightly later in the 1920s comes the list of physical feats required to become a member of the honorary Sigma Delta Psi.

Going a little further back in time but just in time for an Africana Studies class project this semester is a bound typescript of a book written by John A. Leland who taught at Davidson from 1854 to 1860. In 1879, he wrote about Reconstruction in South Carolina.

These are but a sample of the donations received since January 2015.  To all donors — thank you for deepening our collections and providing research materials for current students.  It takes a community to document a community!