The Bret Harte Library of First Editions was gifted to the Archives and Special Collections during 1958 by former DePauw president, Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam. At the time of the donation, Oxnam was a Methodist Bishop in Washington, D.C. A formal presentation took place at DePauw in honor of Bishop Oxnam and professor emeritus Raymond W. Pence.
The collection contains 78 volumes and an original manuscript, titled "Two Americans." The volumes were written by California author Bret Harte between 1864-1902. Bishop Oxnam was born in California, near the locale of Harte, and began collecting the first editions in the 1930s.
Sources: The DePauw student newspaper, April 11, 1958. The Daily Banner, Greencastle, Indiana, April 16, 1958.
Image: Photograph of Bret Harte by Napoleon Sarony. Albumen silver print. National Portrait Gallery.
John William Jakes was born in Chicago in 1932 and spent most of his life pursuing his passion for writing. He was a prolific author, publishing over 80 books in his lifetime and selling more than 120 million copies worldwide.
Jakes enrolled in the creative writing program at DePauw University following a year at Northwestern. At DePauw, he met Rachel Ann Payne, class of 1951, who was a teaching assistant in one of his classes. They were married for 71 years. After earning a masters degree, Jakes embarked on a 17-year career as an advertising copywriter and creative director. While working, he wrote for two to three hours almost every night. Some of his early books developed a following and in 1971 he quit advertising to write full time.
Jakes was fond of his alma mater and returned regularly for speaking engagements and even spent a semester guest-teaching a senior-level writing course during the time one of his daughters, Victoria Jakes Montgomery, class of 1982, was a DePauw student. “That was tough on me when my dad gave a Delt that I had my eye on a ‘C’” says Victoria. “Dad loved being on campus and had a great affinity for DePauw.”
As a student, Jakes loved Dr. Raymond Pence, a tough professor famous for his red pen. Dr. Pence was one of his DePauw connections who really inspired him to be committed to the craft of writing. As an alum, Jakes was vocal in his belief in the liberal arts education and active in his engagement with the university. He served on the DePauw Board of Trustees and the Board of Visitors. He also gave the commencement address to the DePauw graduating class of 1995.
In his commencement address Jakes told the graduates, "The world needs smart people like you. It needs your mind along with your heart. Indeed I go so far as to assert that the degree you receive today confers a special responsibility, a duty. As an educated man or woman you have to know more all your life so you can do more that's enlightened and moral, that's beneficial for your family, your community, your future employers, your country and the increasingly complex world in which we all live together. The ideas encompassed by the liberal arts at DePauw, were for you and are for everyone, a wonderful starting point."
Jakes passed away March 11, 2023 at the age of 90.
Source: DePauw University, DePauw Stories website, "DePauw remembers John Jakes '53, prodigious author and loyal alum." Posted on March 16, 2023.
Image: 1984 DePauw University Old Gold Goblet Recipient, John Jakes, class of 1953. DePauw University Archives and Special Collections.
John Clark Ridpath, a Putnam County native, was an Indiana Asbury University graduate (class of 1863). Holding first the title of professor of English literature and normal instruction, he was named to the chair of belles-lettres and history in 1871. Ridpath served as vice president of the university after 1879 and finished his career as a professor of history and political philosophy from 1881-1886.
1870s
1880s
Ridpath, John Clark. An inductive grammar of the English language : for the use of common and graded schools, 1881.
Archives and Special Collections General Collection
PE111 .R57 1881
Ridpath, John Clark. The life and work of James A. Garfield ... embracing an account of the scenes and incidents of his boyhood; the struggles of his youth ...; his election to the presidency; and the tragic story of his death, 1881.
Archives and Special Collections General Collection
E687 .R56 1881
Ridpath, John Clark. Alexander Hamilton : a study of the Revolution and the Union, 1883.
Archives and Special Collections General Collection
E302.6.H2 R47 1883
Ridpath, John Clark. Cyclopædia of universal history : being an account of the principal events in the career of the human race, from the beginning of civilization to the present time, 1885.
Archives and Special Collections General Collection
D20 .R54 1885 (3 volumes)
Ridpath, John Clark. Ridpath's history of the world: being an account of the principal events in the career of the human race from the beginnings of civilization to the present time, from recent and authentic sources, 1885.
Archives and Special Collections General Collection
D20 .R54 1885
Ridpath, John Clark. Beyond the Sierras; a tour of sixty days through the valleys of California, 1888.
Archives and Special Collections General Collection
F865 .R53 1888
1890s
1900s-1920s
Image: John Clark Ridpath. DePauw University Archives and Special Collections.
Guy Morrison Walker was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana on January 24, 1870. He was the eldest child of Reverend Wilbur Fisk Walker and Mary Florence Morrison Walker, who were early Methodist missionaries to China. Mr. Walker spent about ten years of his early childhood in Peking.
Walker received his A.B. degree from DePauw University in 1890 and an LL.B. degree in 1891. Early in his career he became interested in finance and wrote articles on the subject extensively. His writings appeared in many publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Barron's Weekly, The Boston News Bureau, Finance, and the Trust Company. In addition, he was an authority on China, and edited all the matter relating to China in Leslie's Weekly during the Chinese-Japanese war. He was a member of the bar in Indiana, New York, Arkansas, Tennessee, Ohio, Michigan, and California.
Walker specialized in the reorganization of public utilities and financed and owned properties in Oregon, Kansas, Iowa, and Mississippi. He also reorganized properties in California, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, New York, and Mississippi. In 1894, Walker organized the Terre Haute Trust Company and the Security Trust Company of Toledo, Ohio. In 1908, he reorganized the Hattiesburg (Miss.) Light and Railway and in 1910 reorganized the Laurel (Miss.) property and built the trolley lines. In addition to holding offices in several railway and traction companies, he also reorganized the Detroit and Toledo Shore Railway, the Columbus, Delaware and Marion Railway, the Pittsburgh Railway and Light Company, and the United States Light and Heat Company.
In 1891, Guy M. Walker married Minnie L. Royse, an 1890 DePauw graduate. They had two sons -- Merle R. and Ray M., both also graduates of DePauw. Walker died on August 4, 1945 in Laurel, Mississippi.
The Guy Morrison Walker collection was gifted to the Archives in March 1962. Major topics include, Chinese economic potentials and transportation, primarily railroads; trust companies and their functions; condemnation of anti-social personal and group economic practices; interurban systems; public utilities, primarily electricity; Federal Reserve policies in the late 1920s-1930s; and printed material used by him throughout his studies.
Winona H. Welch was born in Goodland, Indiana. She enrolled at DePauw in 1919 and graduated in 1923. She went on for advanced study in botany, receiving an M.S. from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. from Indiana University.
Welch joined the DePauw faculty in 1930 and was the chair of the botany and bacteriology department in 1956. She taught general botany, ecology, morphology, anatomy, mycology, plant pathology, landscaping, spring flora and methods of teaching biology in high schools. She was a world authority on two families of mosses – the Fontinalaceae (water mosses) and Hookeriaceae (a tropical family). Welch spearheaded the assembly of a 40,000 specimen collection of mosses and liverworts which she referred to as her “life’s savings.” She was the author of two books, Mosses in Indiana and Monograph of the Fontinalaceae as well as numerous scientific articles. In 1948-1949, she served as the first woman president of the Indiana Academy of Science.
Welch gifted her personal book collection to the Archives and Special Collections after her retirement in 1956. She also oversaw the DePauw University Truman G. Yuncker Herbarium transfer to the New York Botanical Gardens in 1987.
Image: Winona H. Welch, professor of botany and bacteriology, sitting at a microscope, 1938-1939. DePauw University Archives and Special Collections.
James Whitcomb donated his personal library to Indiana Asbury, now DePauw University, as part of his estate. Reuben Riley, the father of notable Indiana poet, James Whitcomb Riley, was a friend of Governor Whitcomb and named his son after him.
Additional information about Whitcomb's personal library can be found within an Archives and Special Collections guide, here.
Image: Indiana Governor James Whitcomb, circa 1870. Indiana Historical Bureau.
In the years between the "dime novel" and the television, pulps were "the principle entertainment vehicle for millions of Americans," according to pulp publisher Henry Steeger. There were pulps for sports fans, pulps for detective-story fans, love story pulps, weird pulps, war pulps, western pulps, and pulps for dozens of other varied interests. The first pulp was created in 1896 when Frank Munsey changed THE ARGOSY from a boy's magazine to a fiction magazine for all ages, and printed it on the rough, wood-pulp paper that gives the pulps their name. The poor quality wood-pulp paper was a fairly recent invention at that time. For centuries paper made from linen or hemp rags; worn out canvas sails, discarded clothes sold to the papermills by thrifty housewives and the like provided the raw material from which paper was made. Thus, when Munsey decided that a story was more important than what it was printed on, it was wood pulp that was the cheap alternative. Pulp stories were important in launching the careers of such writers as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, H. P. Lovecraft, and Cornell Woolrich.
DePauw University received the Mullen Pulp Magazine Collection from the estate of Richard Dale Mullen, founder of Science Fiction Studies and professor of English at Indiana State University. It contains pulp magazines ranging in date from 1874-1965. The collection includes all genres of fiction, but more than half of the collection consists of science fiction titles such as Amazing Stories, Astounding Stories and Science Wonder Stories.
Two additional series of pulp magazines from two donors in 2009 and 2014 have been added and are in separate series described at the end of this finding aid. These science fiction magazines extended the date range of the collection. Stephaine Wood, a DePauw alumnus who had taken a science fiction class at the university, added two more science fiction titles, Astounding Science Fiction and Galaxy Science Fiction, to the collection in 2008. Joe Decker donated additional Galaxy Science Fiction issues up to 1979.
While not complete, many of the collection's titles are long runs of magazines. One of the most complete in the DePauw collection is Hugo Gernsback's first title, Amazing Stories, that begins with the first issue from April 1926 and runs through June 1938, well after Gernsback lost ownership of the magazine in 1929. Some subsequent Gernsback titles are also present in the collection, Science Wonder Stories and Air Wonder Stories. Other popular magazines featuring science fiction writing and illustration are also represented in this remarkably large collection.
The Society of Professional Journalists was founded at DePauw University in 1909 as Sigma Delta Chi, Honorary Journalistic Fraternity with 11 original members. The organization was originally the idea of Laurence Sloan and William Meharry Glenn and was planned by the two for most of the 1908-1909 academic year. Its announcement on campus is described in the May 6, 1909 issue of DePauw University's student newspaper, The DePauw Daily. "The curiosity of the college world was aroused this morning by the appearance in chapel of ten men in black and white colors. ... It is their intention to include among their members only those men who expressly intend to engage in either newspaper or other literary work as a life profession."
In 1916 the word "honorary" was dropped from its name and the organization became Sigma Delta Chi, Professional Journalistic Fraternity. This is significant as the founders had debated whether Sigma Delta Chi should be an honorary or professional organization. Undoubtedly, changing from an honorary to a professional organization was done to reflect the fact that many Sigma Delta Chi members were now well into their profession and there was need for chapters outside of college campuses.
Through the years many name changes were proposed, debated and voted down. Then, in 1960, the name became Sigma Delta Chi, Professional Journalistic Society, again moving it away from its collegiate roots with the replacement of the word "fraternity." Another change occurred at the 1973 convention when the name became Society of Professional Journalists/Sigma Delta Chi.
The current name was adopted in 1989 when it became simply the Society of Professional Journalists, eliminating the collegiate style Greek letter name completely. Sigma Delta Chi is still preserved in the organization's foundation of that name established in 1962.
The Society of Professional Journalists has a membership of thousands of journalists, both professional and collegiate. The first convention (the governing body) was held in 1912 in Greencastle, Indiana moving to different sites every year thereafter with a few exceptions due to war or financial problems.
One of the results of the first convention was the establishment of The Quill as a newsletter for the fraternity members. At the 1914 convention, steps were taken to ensure the continuation of The Quill as more than a newsletter by designating a portion of the initiation fee for maintenance of a permanent Quill fund. Financial and personnel problems continued to plague the magazine. In 1923 an endowment fund was proposed to provide monies for the publication and pay a full-time editor. In the mid 1930s after much reorganization, The Quill became a monthly magazine and has continued as such with the exception of a period during World War II.
In January 1928 a national headquarters was established in Chicago, Illinois. A fire at the headquarters in 1934 destroyed many of the minutes of earlier conventions, files of The Quill and all office equipment and supplies. Membership records were saved, however.
The goals of the membership are varied and numerous. Committees were formed to deal with issues and problems in journalism. Among these committees and issues are Ethics, Freedom of Information, the First Amendment, open public meetings and records, state shield laws, free press, fair trial, cameras in the courtroom, the Equal Time Clause and the Fairness Doctrine. Lectures, films, grants and books have been produced through funds including the Kilgore Memorial Award, the Eugene C. Pulliam Fellowship for Editorial Writers, the Frank W. Corrigan Internship and the Taishoff Memorial Fund.
Awards are a major part of the Society of Professional Journalists' activities. Many are given to those who have made major contributions to journalism or service to the organization. Some of these awards include the Distinguished Service Award recognizing 16 categories of journalistic performance, the First Amendment Award for contributions advancing freedom of the press, the Mark of Excellence Award for students, Distinguished Teaching Award, and the Historic Site Award.
The Society of Professional Journalists records contain correspondence, minutes, reports, photographs and other media relating to its conventions, administration, membership, projects, awards and publications.
The North Central Jurisdiction Commission on Archives and History was originally known as the Association of Methodist Historical Societies. In 1940, the General Conference of the Methodist Church suggested historical societies should form jurisdictions to provide joint meetings. The Historical Society of the North Central Jurisdiction was organized in 1948 and later became known as the North Central Jurisdiction Commission on Archives and History in the 1970s. The North Central Jurisdiction Commission on Archives and History serves the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, Illinois Great Rivers, Indiana, West Michigan, Detroit, West Ohio, and East Ohio Conferences.
Source: Brunger, Ronald, Donald Triff, and David Laechel. Ms. "A Concise Record of the North Central Jurisdiction Commission on Archives and History." North Central Jurisdiction Commission on Archives and History, 2019.
This collection includes annual assembly/meeting reports and proceedings created by the North Central Jurisdiction Commission on Archives and History from 1940-2022, conference programs, Council on Ministries documents, The Daily Christian Advocate materials, delegate handbooks, United Methodist Women documents, Women’s Society of Christian Service-Wesleyan Service Guild documents, North Central Jurisdiction Camp Executive Network materials and audio recordings of proceedings.
North Central Jurisdiction Commission on Archives and History records