When did DC get the internet?

When sorting through newspaper clippings on Defiance College history from the 90’s recently, I came across this one, dated 9-18-95, announcing that DC had received a grant from the National Science Foundation to begin the process of connecting to the Internet.  The grant provided hardware and paid for the first year of connection to the network.

The timing of the grant allowed DC to become connected in time to catch the boom:  Wikipedia’s article on the Internet says: “During the late 1990s, it was estimated that traffic on the public Internet grew by 100 percent per year.”

So DC’s link to the Internet happened 23 years ago.  Most of us old enough to remember pre-Net days had no idea back in 1995 of the changes to work and personal life that connectivity would bring.  But current DC students have never known what it was like to be without the Internet.

P.S.–DC issued a press release on February 24, 1997 announcing that the College had just created its first web page, with the same address we use today, http://www.defiance.edu.

Barb Sedlock

Lead Librarian and Coordinator of Metadata and Archives

Advertisements

20,000 and counting

The DC Archives’ Image Bank (collection of images from our past) has now reached the 20,000th photo.  The above is number IB20000, taken at summer orientation in 2002.  These two came from a batch donated by the Admissions Office recently.  Here’s IB20001:

These are 2002 student orientation leaders letting off a little steam.

Our Image Bank collection documents Defiance College history.  It largely grows through donations of photos from alumni and/or their families, and from various offices on campus which donate pictures they no longer need for their own purposes.

Unfortunately many come to the Archives with no names or explanation of what event they are from.  Sometimes I have to guess the date from clues in the photos from hairstyles and fashions, makes of cars in the background, or what I know the campus looked like in a certain era.  For the last couple of Homecomings, I have taken a bunch of unidentified photos for alumni to look through at the tailgate party tent, to see if they remember what the picture is of or who is in it.  And sometimes I ask faculty or staff who have been at DC for a long time for help identifying people.  There are probably some emeriti who run when they see me coming, because I have also asked them for help many times.

If you have photographs from your time at DC you would like to donate to the Archives, please contact me.  There is a “Deed of Gift & Collection Policy form on this page of our website that needs to be filled out.  The form transfers ownership to the Archives and gives permission for us to digitize or otherwise use the photo in future publications.

Barb Sedlock

Lead Librarian and Coordinator of Metadata and Archives

 

HOMECOMING 1956: RICHARD NIXON VISITS CAMPUS

He’s rather hard to see in this slide, but then-Vice President Richard M. Nixon visited Defiance College’s campus in October 1956 as part of Homecoming week activities.

Nixon is standing to speak at the podium a little to the right of the U.S. flag.  A special platform was built for the event in front of Trowbridge Hall, visible in the background. The Convocation was held on Monday, October 15, 3 years to the day after President Dwight Eisenhower visited campus to lay the cornerstone to what is now Hubbard Hall.

The College asked the Convocation speakers to avoid politics–it was being held during Eisenhower and Nixon’s campaign for re-election as President and Vice-President.  Nixon chose to title his speech, “The World,” and praised small colleges like Defiance and the one he attended himself.  Four thousand people attended the speech, and many more lined the roads from the airport to campus to greet Nixon and his wife.

The above photo shows Nixon arriving on campus.  A corner of what is now Hubbard Hall, then the Anthony Wayne Library, is visible in the background, back when the entrance to the building was on the southwest corner, before the McCann addition was constructed.

Homecoming week also featured a tea party, a parade, football game against Ohio Northern, an all-campus BBQ offered by Kenneth Wells, President of Freedom’s Foundation, Inc., and additional speakers.

To read more about Nixon’s visit, consult:

Defender, October 26, 1956

Defiance College Bulletin, Fall 1956

The Convocation program

And view two more photos:

Mr. and Mrs. Nixon in what is now Hubbard Hall

Nixon standing at a microphone

 

Barb Sedlock, Lead Librarian and Coordinator of Metadata and Archives

IN MEMORIAM: LIESBETH WIEBE

Liesbeth “Elisabeth” Wiebe passed away on June 28 in Columbia, Missouri.  Funeral services were held today, July 6, at St. John UCC on the DC campus.

She taught German at DC, and was a DC alumnus.  She was married to Professor Hermann Wiebe, who died in 2006.

Betty helped Hermann with research for his historical paintings.  I remember getting interlibrary loan books on the history of Ohio court houses for them back in the 1980s, when Hermann was creating his Ohio courthouse paintings, which now hang in the Pilgrim Library and are featured in a video on the Ohio Supreme Court website.  Betty also is seen in the photo below, working with Hermann on a translation of Bible commentaries into Russian, which were published by Herald Press in the 80s.

She and Hermann are sorely missed by the DC family.

Barb Sedlock

Lead Librarian and Coordinator of Metadata and Archives

IN MEMORIAM: PRESIDENT EMERITUS MARVIN J. LUDWIG

Former President Dr. Marvin J. Ludwig passed away on May 16, 2018.  The above is an undated photo (likely early 1990’s) of him on the steps of Defiance Hall.

Here’s a photo of President Ludwig at his last Commencement in 1994, doffing his cap to the crowd as they acknowledged his receiving President Emeritus status:

Dr. Ludwig served as DC’s President from 1975-1994, and presided over the construction of four new buildings on campus.  He was active in organizations outside of campus, such as Rotary International, YMCA (as Secretary General of the YMCA of Ethiopia before coming to DC), and the United Church of Christ.  The College awarded him the Pilgrim Medal on his retirement.   A memorial service will be held at St. John UCC on campus on June 29 at 11:00AM.   Read his full obituary in the Crescent-News.

Barb Sedlock

Lead Librarian and Coordinator of Metadata and Archives

COURTHOUSE PAINTINGS ON LOAN TO FULTON COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

This is a photo by John Myles of two of Professor Hermann Wiebe’s Ohio courthouse paintings, nine of which are on temporary loan to the new Museum and Welcome Center of Fulton County, Ohio, in Wauseon.

The original oils depicting the courthouses of Defiance, Fulton, Henry, Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky, Williams, and Wood counties, plus the Statehouse, are now on exhibit at the Museum.   Here’s another photo showing how the Museum has enhanced the Sandusky County painting with other Sandusky courthouse pictures:

If you would like to visit the Fulton County Museum, which just opened this month, it is across Rt. 108 from the fairgrounds, north of Wauseon and the turnpike exit.  Here is their website:

Museum & Welcome Center of Fulton County, Ohio

The Museum is open from 10-4, Mon-Sat., 12-4 Sundays, and closed on Tues. and Weds. from November through April.

The other 81 paintings of Wiebe’s collection can be viewed at their home in Defiance College’s Pilgrim Library.  The loaned paintings currently in the Fulton County Museum will return to the Library in January, 2019.  Digital images of all the courthouse paintings are available on this section of DC Memory.

Read Wiebe’s descriptions of the paintings on this section of DC Memory.

The Ohio Supreme Court made a video about Wiebe and his paintings, which is available at this section of their website.

Copyright of the paintings is owned by Defiance College and images may not be reproduced without permission.

Barbara Sedlock

Lead Librarian and Coordinator of Metadata and Archives

 

 

NEW ITEMS IN THE ARCHIVES

Recently, former professor Jo McCormick donated a scrapbook she found at an auction or flea market (she doesn’t remember exactly where) that has Defiance College content.  The business card glued into the front says Charles David McMillin, and the name is echoed on the above page from the scrapbook, on the athletic game tickets.  We can’t find McMillin in our alumni directories, but there is a Charles McMillin listed as a freshman in the student roster of the 1915 academic catalog (which would be listing the student registered in the previous year).

Since the one ticket is dated 1914, it’s probable that the above photo of a baseball diamond is from the same year.

The scrapbook also includes many other photos, none of which are identified, unfortunately.  This is one of them, possibly members of McMillin’s class in 1914?:

There are also some amusing hand-drawn caricatures, photos of bands, general candid student photos, and a page of decaying organic matter which might have been the remains of a cigar.  There are no plans to digitize the scrapbook in the near future, but the original can be viewed in the Pilgrim Library’s Archives.

Another new addition to the archives is a set of glass lantern slides, depicting college buildings and scenes such as May Day, all undated.  We don’t know where they came from; Institutional Advancement found them in a storage area.  It was difficult to get a good scan.  This is the best I could manage without having the proper equipment:

The typed label on the other side reads” “Defiance Chapel with Service Flag, Slide No. 14.”  This is apparently the auditorium in old Weston Hall, where chapel used to be held.  Notice the Red Cross flag on the balcony to the right, which makes me wonder if the image is from the World War I era.

Note the company name printed on the side of the slide: Kansas City Slide Company.  Walt Disney worked for the KCSC early in his career, around 1920.  There’s no evidence Walt worked on Defiance College’s slides, but it’s fun to think about an association, a sort of “six degrees of separation” between DC and Disney.

We currently don’t have the equipment to properly digitize these glass lantern slides, but hope to in the future.  Schauffler College’s archives, curated by Defiance, also contains a large collection of glass slides waiting to be digitized.

Barb Sedlock

Lead Librarian and Coordinator of Metadata and Archives