Past of the Signs

I'm going to take a moment to break away from the past and talk about the future for a little bit. I'm probably not going to continue this particular blog into the next semester. It's been fun to write, but also occasionally frustrating and tedious. There's certainly plenty of material still remaining that could potentially be covered, but I feel that the items that most interest me, which inspired all of this in the first place, are ones that I have already written about.

Well...there's one more item that strikes me as exceptionally important for this blog.

(compliments of The Pennsylvania State University)

The signs dotted around Penn State campus explain many details of the university's history, but there's one thing in particular that they don't say very much about: themselves. Who made them and set them up, and why? Well, if you look at some of the example signs here which I didn't devote whole posts to, you'll notice that the bottom of each sign says "Penn State Alumni Association". Mystery solved.

...no, I'm not ending the post there. That would be a little funny, but it wouldn't reach the word quota.

The Penn State Alumni Association is an organization of Penn State graduates dedicated to staying connected to the university and to each other, while preserving its history and legacy for future students. They began the historical marker project in the spring of 1990 with ten signs, in order to remind students, teachers, visitors, and random passersby of the rich history of Penn. The hope was that by installing these signs at locations where pedestrians might see and read them, they would be able to learn a little bit more about the university on whose campus they walked, and even if they ignored the actual words on the sign, the general idea of Penn State having an important legacy would be communicated at least. 

To this day, the Penn State Alumni Association funds and maintains the sign project. As of 2011, the association reported that sixty signs had been put up on the University Park campus. The program has expanded to other Penn State campuses as well, with sixteen signs at nine locations outside of the main campus. In addition, the association occasionally puts up new signs as well. In fact, they are taking suggestions for new signs to write and put up, so if there is a particular historical location in Penn State which you think deserves this token of commemoration, you can read submission guidelines and find an e-mail address here. 

So, have the signs accomplished their mission? It's hard to say. From the comments on this blog, it seems that many students are aware of the existence of the historical markers, but not nearly so many have actually taken the time to read through them and research the subjects on their own time. As far as educating random pedestrians, the signs have done little, at least for students in this section of CAS137H.

I do think that, while most viewers ignore the facts on the signs, the mere presence of the signs does have some effect on how people see Penn State. The simple fact that there are historical events to put up signs about, and that some people did take the time to put up those signs, instills a sense of accomplishment, that Penn State has done significant things to affect the world other than just eating up millions of tuition dollars. While this may not be a conscious thought upon looking at the signs, it is possible that people who notice the signs dotted around the campus come away with that feeling of being part of something important. 

Even if there really is no significant effect for most people, I think that the effort put into the historical marker project shows that people really do care about Penn State's history, and perhaps the markers have brought other people to enjoy this legacy as well. And, if absolutely nothing else, these signs have given me something worth writing about for a few months, which in turn has hopefully given you something worth reading about.

Is a calorimeter for a cow called a "coworimeter"? Probably not

"CALOIMETER: Designed and first operated in 1902 by pioneer animal nutritionist Henry Armsby, the calorimeter was housed in this specially constructed building and monitored an animal's metabolism to determine the net energy value of food - the portion of food energy that an animal used to produce milk or meat. It attracted worldwide scientific interest and helped to develop feeds of higher nutritional value."

If you've taken chemistry classes in high school or college, you may already be familiar with the basic concept of the calorimeter, a device used to measure heat in a reaction. You may have even made one yourself in class using a paper cup. 

The calorimeter here is not the paper cup kind, unless you happen to have been using paper cups big enough to hold an entire cow.

Back in the 1800s, while agriculture was still a direct part of most people's lives, it had not been scientifically perfected. Nobody really knew how animals' bodies worked, so when it came to feeding livestock most farmers just fed whatever they happened to have for them and hope for the best. Henry Armsby sought to use the power of science to analyze animals' nutrition and figure out how best to feed them so that they would be as healthy as possible, and therefore give as much high-quality meat as possible. This is why he came to Penn State and built a giant calorimeter large enough to hold a cow, so that the cow could be put inside and the heat it gave off through metabolism measured, since, after all, any energy going into producing heat was energy not being used to grow.

(compliments of Penn State University)

That's the basic principle behind the Armsby calorimeter, and when written that way the process sounds sort of ridiculous. Ultimately, Armsby's colleagues and successors concluded that judging the nutritive value of different animal feeds as originally intended was not very useful because of a large number of confounding factors. However, the calorimeter was still very useful in making discoveries about the metabolism of animals and how they derived energy from food. And not only was it a great scientific advance, it also helped to draw new students and experts in agricultural science, revitalizing Penn State's dying AgSci department. The surprise success of the calorimeter was such that it was modified multiple times over the following decades in order to perform experiments on more types of animals, including humans in the 1950s. The calorimeter still exists at Penn State today, and while it is not used for actual experiments so much any more, it is preserved for its educational and historic value.

And where would you go to see this calorimeter? Why, to the Calorimeter Museum, of course!

This is a real sign on a real building just off of Curtin Road, near the Forum building. I have not had the opportunity to go inside and check it out, but it is definitely possible for you to pay a visit and find out more about the science behind the Armsby calorimeter than I could ever tell you.

Alternatively, maybe you really don't care much about this device. (I know that I would rather avoid any chemistry-related subject if at all reasonable.) However, even if you don't want to have anything to do with the calorimeter, the calorimeter probably has plenty to do with you. For this calorimeter was one early and influential attempt at using scientific principles to experiment on living organisms to improve their resource yields. This is important because the use of science to improve agriculture is still going on today, and is in fact the cause of one of the world's current great controversies: the use of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Today, could such a use of the calorimeter be seen as cruel or dangerous? Even if not, the impact of experiments such as the Armsby calorimeter was a step towards the use of science that is so hotly debated now. 

Old Botany? More like Old BOOtany, am I right? No?

"OLD BOTANY: Built in 1887, the oldest campus building whose exterior has not been significantly altered. Designed in a "Richardsonian Romanesque" style, it had greenhouses attached and a formal garden in front and was long a center for botanical studies."

Most of the buildings I've talked about on this blog have some sort of hidden past which isn't at all obvious just by looking at them, which gives me plenty of material to write about. With Old Botany, though, there's really not a whole lot to say that isn't already expressed in just its name. It's a botany building. It's very old. It might be haunted.

Wait, what was that last bit?

That's right. Stories say that the Old Botany building is inhabited by a ghost, and that the spirit in question is that of none other than Frances Atherton, wife of George Atherton. She already lives on after her death in the name of Atherton Hall, but apparently that just wasn't enough for her. According to some versions of this story, Frances makes sure that the building's plants are properly taken care of, by which I mean that if the plants aren't properly taken care of, she'll start throwing things around, flickering lights, making odd creepy sounds, and generally causing trouble until the situation is rectified. (How and why plants would be neglected in a building specifically devoted to caring for them is not a question that is answered in these stories.) Others say that Frances spends her afterlife watching from a high window over her husband's grave across the street, presumably a) to make sure that nobody disturbs him, and b) to make sure that he doesn't disturb anyone else by suddenly rising up out of the ground and outlining new plans for the university.

And what about the former university president himself? Well, since I don't have anything else interesting to say about Old Botany, and because it's almost Halloween, I can talk about his ghost too. He's said to be hanging around the Schwab Auditorium, Unlike his wife, he's a fairly easygoing sort of ghost, not really doing anything spooky besides watching student performances and occasionally rustling the stage curtains. It is rather intriguing that Atherton's school would be seen in the Schwabatorium; depending on which sources you consult, that building is also believed to be inhabited by the ghosts of Charles Schwab himself, a janitor, a little girl, a Revolutionary War soldier, several alumni, many thousands of dollars, Andrew Carnegie's dignity, and the hopes and dreams of countless students.

And that's just two buildings. There's been a lot of reported sightings of creepy crawlies throughout the university, giving an entirely new meaning to the phrase "school spirit". Betsy Aardsma, the victim of a real and as-of-yet-unsolved murder when she was a student in 1969, supposedly haunts the basement of Pattee Library where she was stabbed to death. On a much lighter note, every building that has ever housed the mule Old Coaly's skeleton has been the site of reports of ghostly braying noises and hoofprints, perhaps indicating that my theory wasn't so far off after all. Or that a bunch of pranksters thought it would be funny to make people believe that Coaly was still alive and stubborn as ever. In any case, nothing was ever proven.

Really, if you pick any part of Penn State, chances are that there's ghost stories surrounding that place. Why this obsession with the supernatural? It is entirely possible that many of these stories were the result of pranks by bored and mischievous college students. However, there might be an even simpler answer: because people like them. These sorts of stories, like any myths and legends, serve to help build a sense of community in the group, and Penn State certainly seems to have some sense of community, for better or worse. Just like the ghosts themselves, the stories survive because people enjoy remembering them and telling them to other people.

Alternatively, maybe ghosts are real, and we should be very afraid.

Mushroom For Improvement

"MUSHROOM SCIENCE: In the 1920s, Penn State became the first land-grant college to initiate a comprehensive mushroom research program. Led by internationally recognized scientists and supported by the mushroom industry, the program developed improved composts and production practices that were adopted by growers worldwide. It also helped Pennsylvania retain its leadership in U.S. mushroom production."

Ever since I first spotted this sign on a high school trip to Penn State several years ago, it's become something of an inside joke. "What are you going to major in at college?" "Mushroom science. Definitely mushroom science." The joke is threefold: a) I could never figure out what I wanted to major in, and giving such an obviously fake answer helped to distract from my total hopelessness in this regard; b) I cannot do biology to save my life; and c) the word "mushroom" is inherently funny to me, and the idea of people willingly, even joyfully, devoting their careers to this singular subject is even more so. Who, I thought to myself, would actually want to spend their entire life working with mushrooms, of all things? As it turns out, the answer is "a good number of people".

(compliments of Wikimedia)

In case I haven't mentioned it enough on this blog, Penn State originally started out as a primarily agricultural school. However, this did not originally include fungi. In the school's early days, mushrooms were not a very popular source of food, since it was common knowledge that eating mushrooms was very likely to make you sick or even kill you. It was not until the early 1900s that America really started to appreciate the food value of edible mushrooms. Of course, by this time, America was losing interest in agriculture as a whole due to the industrial revolution, and Penn State's change in courses towards skills required in the industrial age reflected this shift in American values. So, why did such an unlikely program get so much focus in the first place? My research led me (figuratively) to the small town of Kennett Square.

Kennett Square is in the vicinity of Philadelphia, about three hours southeast of State College. Founded sometime in the country's colonial period, the town was totally unnotable for years other than being a fairly important stop along the Underground Railroad in the mid-1850s. Then, around 1885, some fun guy (whose name has been lost to time) who enjoyed growing carnations was looking for a way to efficiently use wasted space in the flowerbeds, and imported mushrooms from Europe to experiment with them. The business, well, mushroomed out from there. By 1920, the town had made Pennsylvania one of America's major sources of mushrooms, and since they were becoming so popular at the time, scientists and farmers flocked to the mushroom industry. Today, Kennett Square alone produces almost half of America's mushroom supply. The town calls itself the "Mushroom Capital of the World", and every September is capped by a massive Mushroom Festival.

(compliments of Wikimedia)

And, of course, the mushroom farms of Kennett Square could not have reached their current magnitude without the scientific advancements of Penn State's mushroom science department. World-renowned scientists spent years of their lives researching and developing technologies for mass composting and proper mushroom growing that put the town up to its gills in mushrooms and the money that comes from selling them. Who knew that this fungus would become so humongous?

The Only Important Post On This Blog

"THE CREAMERY in 1892 offered America's first collegiate instruction in ice cream manufacture, a program that has helped to make Penn State an international center for research in frozen confections. The original Creamery Bldg (1889) housed the nation's earliest extension courses in dairy science. The Creamery moved to Patterson Bldg (1904), Borland Lab (1932, expanded 1960), and the Food Science Bldg (2006), where it was renamed the Berkey Creamery in recognition of philanthropic support."

Yes, that's right. Berkey Creamery, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, has made Penn State an international center of ice cream. This is the kind of Penn State history that we're all really looking for.

The Creamery was first founded in 1865, which is the same year the Civil War ended, which is a really weird timing to think about. When first created, the Creamery was housed in the College Barns, which were a set of actual barns behind Old Main. At the time, Penn State was still primarily an agricultural college, which was the reason for the Creamery's creation in the first place, so the milk that was used and processed at the Creamery came from Penn State's own herds of cows. When the Creamery got its own building in 1889, it started offering "short courses" in dairy, where prospective students could spend about a week learning the basics of dairy work. The short courses soon became wildly popular, to the point that dairy farmers from all around the area began offering milk from their cows when Penn State's cows couldn't keep up with demand.

It must be realized that at this point in the Creamery's history, ice cream wasn't even being produced. The Creamery's primary function was to separate milk from cream and process both of these, hence being called a creamery. Ice cream wasn't sold until 1896, and the Creamery offered its first short courses in ice cream production in 1925. Of course, both became popular very quickly when introduced, because even back then, everybody loved ice cream.

(compliments of Penn State University Archives)

Even as Penn State began to refocus away from agricultural studies and towards new fields of study that were becoming more prominent in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Creamery remained a strong and important part of Penn State. The location did take a while to settle down, though. From its first building, the Creamery moved to the Patterson Building in 1904, then to Borland Laboratory in 1932 (shown in the above picture), and finally to its current location in 2006. This is when it got the name of Berkey Creamery, after Earl and Jeanne Berkey, two former dairy workers who donated $3 million for the new building. The story goes that Jeanne was a dairy science student at Penn State who interned at the dairy plant owned by Earl's family. They got married, ran the plant for years, and decided to give back to the university which played this part in their success.

While shifting around the Penn State campus for all those years, the Creamery never stopped growing. The official website for the Creamery offers plenty of numbers which are interesting if you like numbers. For example, the website says that during the 1980s the Creamery was using 3 million pounds of milk every year. Even considering that nobody normally tries to measure milk in pounds, that is a simply enormous amount of milk, and the amount only increases as more and more people come to Penn State in search of the Creamery's delicious dairy products. And they do come to Penn State, as no other college has a creamery the size of Penn State's.

(compliments of Ben & Jerry's)

The Creamery's impact on the production of dairy outside Penn State must also be acknowledged. Perhaps the greatest thing to come out of the Creamery was the training of Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, who would go on to create the popular ice cream company Ben & Jerry's. Both of these entrepreneurs, unable to find success in normal schooling, took part in the Creamery's correspondence courses on the basics of making ice cream in 1977, This led directly to their foundation of Ben & Jerry's, which is now one of the biggest ice cream companies in the world.

Research done in the Food Science Department has led to advances in the production of ice cream and introduction of new flavors that have affected the world market for ice cream and other dairy products. And Penn State alumni and short course students hold positions in ice cream makers throughout America and beyond. So, next time you take a lick of your favorite ice cream flavor, even if it's not one that came right from the Creamery on campus, you can be pretty sure that our Creamery was responsible for getting that delicious creamy goodness into your face.

Schwab Auditorium, or "Schwabatorium"

"SCHWAB AUDITORIUM: The first campus building to be financed by a private gift. Bethlehem Steel Corp. founder Charles M. Schwab, a member of the university's board of trustees, gave $150,000 to build the Beaux-Arts structure, which was completed in 1903."

Charles M. Schwab is not quite the household name that Andrew Carnegie is, for better or worse. A modern-day Charles Schwab Corporation exists, but it was founded by a totally unrelated Charles R. Schwab, which does not help things. The Schwab who funded the creation of the Schwab Auditorium, the one with the M in his name, was important in his own right, as well as the auditorium that bears his name.

Born in 1862. Charles M. Schwab was raised in Pennsylvania for his whole life. He was growing up during the time when the industrial revolution was really ramping up, which meant that Pennsylvania was quickly gaining its reputation in steel production thanks to Carnegie's efforts. Schwab had not even finished college before he left for Pittsburgh to work in the steel industry under the employ of Carnegie's company. The two shared certain common traits. Neither had totally finished their formal education; both started out very low in the chain of command in business; both would eventually work their way up, be promoted through the ranks, and eventually make millions of dollars and achieve a high status.

As Schwab was promoted, a number of differences began to emerge as well. Schwab seemed to be more suited for management work; when the disastrous Homestead Strike occurred and Carnegie failed to handle the backlash against him effectively, he turned to Schwab to restore relations with the workers, and he succeeded dramatically. Overall, Schwab was a much kinder and better boss than Carnegie. When Carnegie decided to leave his Carnegie Steel Company, he made Schwab its president, and Schwab became well known for his skills in management. 

He also became well known for spending his money in a much less judicious way than Carnegie had. Funding the Schwab Auditorium was one of his more generous moves, closely paralleling Carnegie's own efforts to fund libraries and public buildings throughout America, including at Penn State; less generous was his gambling, partying, and extramarital affairs which quickly made him poor despite his high position in the steel industry. When the stock market crashed in 1929, Schwab was left with nothing, and he died penniless in 1939. 

There's not a whole lot to say about the present state of the Schwab Auditorium. When it was being constructed, Schwab and Carnegie competed to build a bigger building than the other, a competition which Schwab won by a slight margin; I've already written about this story in my post on Andrew Carnegie. The auditorium, completed in 1903, was originally intended as a chapel, but now it's used as an auditorium by the College of Arts and Architecture.

Speaking of architecture, the building's architecture deserves mention. As stated on the sign, the auditorium was designed in the "Beaux-Arts" style. This style, developed in a Parisian school of the same name, was essentially a combination of various European styles popular at the time, and it was a preferred type of architecture in America during the early 1900s. Aspects of the Schwab Auditorium such as its flat roof, arches and pillars in doorways and windows, and details in carvings on the outside are a testament to the Beaux-Arts style, which Schwab donated massive amounts of time and money to replicating. As you pass by the Schwab Auditorium on your way to classes, take a moment to appreciate the architectural effort and attention to detail that went into it.

The Daily Collegian: New Views on Old News

"THE DAILY COLLEGIAN: is one of the nation's oldest college daily newspapers. A precursor, the Free Lance, published monthly beginning in 1887, was succeeded in 1904 by the State Collegian, a weekly, and the semi-weekly Penn State Collegian in 1920. The Daily Collegian appeared in 1940. An independent student voice, the newspaper had its offices in various locations, including many years in Carnegie Building."

Since I couldn't get together any blueprints like I promised last week (I am not an architecture major), instead this post will be devoted to a much better piece of paper: the Daily Collegian, that student-run daily newspaper you all know and love. Or at least I think you do...Come to think of it, I've never actually seen anyone take one of those newspapers. But that's not important. What is important is how the newspaper has changed through the years. As this sign states, it all began with the Free Lance in 1887.

The Free Lance got off to a pretty rocky start. Its first issue lamented the fact that few Penn State students were much interested in the idea of a student-run newspaper before its creation. Unfortunately for the fledgling newspaper, few Penn State students were much interested in the idea of a student-run newspaper after its creation either. During its seventeen-year run, the Free Lance ran on a mix of news articles, literary articles from the literary societies that had formed it (these articles were originally to be kept at a minimum so that ordinary readers wouldn't get bored), and short contributions of poems, jokes, and short stories from around campus by readers. By 1904 its creators were begging their readers to send in money instead of articles to keep the newspaper running. They could not raise enough money, so the paper shut down. 

The staff of the Free Lance weren't quite ready to give up yet, though. That very same year, some of the people who had previously worked on the Free Lance created a new newspaper, the State Collegian. The Free Lance attributed its failure to its schedule of releasing monthly and thus being unable to keep up with new information, as well as its focus on literature which became overbearing in its later years; the State Collegian released weekly and made reporting on more practical issues its goal, since Penn State was after all more of a technical school at the time. 

This plan worked splendidly. A better sense of focus along with increasing interest in journalism led the press to success. By 1920 the State Collegian (with a slight name change to Penn State Collegian in 1911) was able to double its publication to twice a week; in 1940 it became the Daily Collegian, which as its name implies was to release once a day.

Naturally, World War II came along in 1941 and came close to ruining yet another hopeful Penn State project. Publication of the "Daily" Collegian was reduced to one or two issues per week at best, just as it had been before. Yet student interest kept the paper alive through the war, and despite the lack of resources resulting from the war effort the paper did not totally die. After the war, the Daily Collegian was able to return to its daily update schedule, and went on to win awards for its news, advertising, and editorial content in 1948 and 1949.

As technology progressed, so did the Collegian. The first online version of the paper, the Digital Collegian, went up in 1996, containing all new editions as well as some previous ones. This still runs alongside the print edition, which might explain why I don't see many people picking up the physical copies. The online Collegian has proven to be a wise move, since technological advances have led people toward the Internet as a news source rather than newspapers. In a time when the newspaper format is often struggling, the Daily Collegian seems to be alive and well despite setbacks, and hopefully it will continue to provide lots of quality news articles about important college issues, as well as sports, for a long time.

Since you've read all the way to the bottom of this post, it's fairly evident that you have at least some interest in the history of the Penn State newspapers. And, if you've been reading this blog for a while, you're probably also interested in the history of Penn State in general. Good news! You can learn more about both! The University Libraries have kindly archived hundreds of past issues of every single one of these newspapers and digitized them so they can be viewed online right over here! This has been an invaluable resource in writing this blog, and I hope that it is of use to its readers as well.

Andrew Carnegie Strikes Back

"CARNEGIE BUILDING: Completed in 1904 with a gift from Penn State trustee and industrialist Andrew Carnegie, it was the university's first library building. It typifies more than 2,000 college and community libraries built with donations from Carnegie."

If you know a lot about American history and industrialization, you've probably heard the name of Andrew Carnegie before. If you grew up in the Pittsburgh area, the original center of Andrew Carnegie's operations, you've probably hoped that you would never hear the name of Andrew Carnegie again. Unfortunately, it is impossible to escape Andrew Carnegie. He was just too rich and powerful.

For those who don't know, Andrew Carnegie was a businessman who immigrated to America from Scotland in 1848, as America's period of economic growth and industrial revolution was just beginning. From a relatively humble start he worked his way through various industries to eventually become the head of a massive steel-producing company, which made him one of the wealthiest and most influential people in the country, and indeed the world. Next to his massive amounts of money, Carnegie was also notorious for gaining said money through some morally dubious practices. His attempts to monopolize the steel industry and exercise total control over the supply chain of his steel production would probably be banned now. One incident that particularly marred Carnegie's reputation was the Homestead Strike. Carnegie publicly claimed to be for labor unions and against strikebreaking, but when unrest began to occur among his own workers, he left them in the hands of a subordinate, Henry Clay Frick, who responded to the strike with armed force rather than negotiation. The incident resulted in multiple deaths of both police and workers, and while the strike ultimately failed, Carnegie faced massive backlash for his irresponsibility.

Possibly due to wanting to atone for this infamy (or at least pretend that it didn't happen), near the end of his life Andrew Carnegie adopted the philosophy that "the man who dies rich dies disgraced"; he believed that it would be wrong to keep his wealth to himself, and that he should instead use this money to improve the lives and chances of other people. To this end, he sold his steel company (which went on to form U.S. Steel), announced his retirement from business, and devoted the remainder of his life to philanthropy. It's important to note that Carnegie did not just donate his money to any and every cause; his theory was that the best way to improve people's lives was to give them the tools they needed to build themselves up, just as he believed he had done with his own life. For this reason, Carnegie gave vast sums of money toward building over 2,500 libraries around America, with the logic that improving people's knowledge and education would inspire them to better themselves and enable them to succeed. As you can probably guess, the Carnegie Building at Penn State is one of those libraries. Despite no longer being a library, it still bears Carnegie's name; presumably he wanted the world to know exactly who its generous donor was.

Penn State's Carnegie Building bears one distinction of note. It seems that Carnegie decided to begin construction of the building at around the same time another wealthy businessman, one Charles M. Schwab, also sought to show off his wealth and generosity by building his own structure at Penn State. This would of course become the Schwab Auditorium, which I may cover in its own post in the future. Naturally, both being showoffs with something to prove and lots to lose, as well as being close friends and business associates, Carnegie and Schwab competed to make a bigger and better building than the other man, and thus assert their dominance. Or so the story goes. OnwardState.com has written a wonderful article about this story and the friendship between Schwab and Carnegie which is definitely worth a read, as long as you're not the sort who is annoyed by the term "bromance". (If you didn't click the link and are still wondering: Schwab's building was the bigger one by about 116 square feet. Better luck next time, Carnegie.)

As for the Carnegie Building itself, it's seen its fair share of change since construction was completed in 1904. Starting out as Penn State's first devoted library (Old Main having served as a library in the meantime), the building was eventually renovated and used by the music programs for office and storage space, as well as for rehearsals. It received a name change from Carnegie Library to Carnegie Hall, which meant that if you were in Penn State's music programs from the '40s to the '60s, you could tell people that you had performed in Carnegie Hall and not be wrong. After this period, the School of Journalism set up in the building, and the Daily Collegian had its headquarters here. It was probably around this time that the building became known as Carnegie Building so that nobody would ever have to change the name again. By the early 1990s, the School of Journalism had moved out and the School of Communications had moved in. That college is the one which occupies the building to this day.

Andrew Carnegie would likely be pleased to see where his namesake building at Penn State has gone over the years. It has always remained a bastion of learning of various kinds while keeping his name to remind generations beyond him of his philanthropy. The subject that now holds the floor is one whose rapid recent growth in importance and technology has drawn comparison to the same industrial revolution that made Carnegie himself so rich and famous. Perhaps another Andrew Carnegie will rise to prominence from Penn State's educational programs? Stay tuned for next week, when I'll unveil my blueprints for the "Swanson Building"...

President Atherton Saves the School and the Football Team

"PRESIDENT ATHERTON: Buried here. Headed Penn State from 1882 to 1906 and brought it back from the brink of ruin. He drafted and championed the Hatch Act of 1887 and Morrill Act of 1890, establishing federal aid to higher education, and served as first president of the Land-Grant College Association."

No, he wasn't President of the United States. But I'm willing to bet that he would have done a pretty good job of it.

George Washington Atherton was born in 1837 in the town of Boxford, Massachusetts, and before he even became an adult he was already proving himself to be a pretty cool dude. His father died when he was twelve, so he and his mother had to support themselves through difficult physical work. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Atherton signed himself up for the Union Army and evidently served with distinction, as he advanced to the rank of captain before being honorably discharged. Of course, after spending much of your early life doing labor and joining the army, the obvious next step is to go to college. Not just any college, either: Atherton graduated from Yale, which even back then was known to be one of the greatest colleges in America. (How he paid for tuition is anyone's guess.) After graduating, Atherton apparently loved the college life so much that he became a university teacher, and after much moving around and working up the ranks he went to Penn State and was unanimously elected its eighth president in 1882.

The Penn State of 1882, you must understand, bore very little resemblance to its present-day incarnation. The university had started out in 1855 as a school of the agricultural sciences, with classes that specialized in that area. It was also rather unpopular and not well-known; its graduating class in 1882 was made up of seven students, and the Pennsylvania state government looked down on the university and withheld funding. Changing the image of the school with such few resources was a difficult task, but Atherton did it anyway, because he was just that good.

Under Atherton's direction, Penn State took a different turn. Atherton refocused the entire college, reducing the emphasis on agricultural education in favor of engineering, mechanics, electonics, and more classes that were better suited to Pennsylvania's industrialization in the late 1800s. He also greatly expanded the overall reach of the college and its classes, adding correspondence courses and summer classes, resulting in a great increase in the number of students attending the university.

Changes to student life were also massive. Atherton relaxed some of the awfully strict regulations on female students that existed at the time, including (gasp!) allowing women to attend dances. While double standards were still far beyond fair, or even at today's level, this was at least a small step in the right direction. Atherton also oversaw the expansion of extracurricular activities. This included setting up athletic programs and beginning the construction of Beaver Field so that teams would have somewhere to play that wasn't the lawn in front of Old Main. The dedication of a field especially for sports shows the importance that sports were beginning to take on college campuses, especially football, which despite being a relatively new game was sweeping the nation's colleges. These athletic programs led directly to the teams we have now. So, when you watch Penn State sports on TV or play on a team, you have Atherton to thank...or to blame.

Finally, and perhaps most strangely, Atherton instituted strict military discipline, with drills, room inspections, mandatory attendance, and all the things that would probably get him in lots of trouble today. Yet everyone still loved him. After all, such discipline was considered totally fair, even normal, for the time, and even if he was harsh, few people were capable or willing to argue with the results he got. It also helped that Atherton convinced the school board to cut two weeks from the academic year, which obviously was a widely celebrated move all around.

Atherton's programs were intended to improve the university's image, and it worked. The class size ballooned, the university began to receive more funding from the government, and Penn State made a name for itself among engineering schools. By the time Atherton left office and subsequently died in 1906, he was being revered as the "second founder" of the college. One of the main streets in State College is named "Atherton Street" in his honor to this day. (Incidentally, Atherton Hall is not named for President Atherton. That honor went to his wife, Frances Atherton, who is perhaps most notable today for supposedly haunting the Old Botany building to watch over her husband's grave.)

You may have heard George W. Atherton's name many times before without really knowing what it meant, but hopefully now you recognize the impact that he has had on Penn State University. Penn State would simply not be here today if not for President Atherton's achievements.

How old is Old Main? Also: a skeletal mule, and a shining example of Poor artwork

"OLD MAIN: Built in 1930, using limestone blocks from the first Old Main, completed on this site in 1863. The original building housed classrooms, offices, laboratories, and student and faculty living quarters. It also served, as does its successor, as Penn State's administrative center. Inside are the famous land-grant frescoes by Henry Varnum Poor."

Everybody who has been on the University Park campus long enough is at least vaguely aware of Old Main, whether passing by it on the way to class or hearing its bell chime every quarter-hour. It's a standard fixture of the campus, and its architectural design evokes the grandeur that comes with the university's history. One might think that this building has been around since the founding of the college itself.

This isn't quite right. Although Penn State was once centered around Old Main, it wasn't the same Old Main we know today.

This is the building that everybody associates with the name "Old Main". With its prominent location on campus, it's surely a sight you've seen before. However, this spot was once taken by a different building. Built in 1863 after six years of work (Penn State University itself having been founded just a few years earlier in 1855), the original Old Main was simply called the Main Building, since obviously it hadn't had the time to become old yet. The "Main" part of the name is definitely fitting, though; as the building where virtually every campus facility was located, from residence halls to classrooms and offices, it was essentially synonymous with the University Park campus itself. Even the construction of the building was largely local, the structure being built using limestone gathered from the area immediately around it and hauled to the site by mules, including Old Coaly, who you may know as "that spooky scary skeleton in the HUB". 

If you've read the sign located conveniently next to the spooky scary skeleton in the HUB, you may know that Old Coaly was a hard worker, beloved by the students in those days and held as an unofficial mascot for the university. While the community's love wasn't enough to earn our sports teams the name of "Penn State Mules", there was enough support for him that after Old Coaly's death in 1893 his skeleton was preserved for future generations, being housed in Old Main itself at first (this was around the time that the building acquired that name). The Wikipedia page on Old Main informs us that "since his death, his skeleton has taken residence in many Penn State buildings", and since I've been unable to find a reason why the skeleton has been housed in multiple buildings, based on this sentence I can only conclude that Old Coaly's skeleton, just as hard a worker in death as in life, continued to walk around campus by itself, finally trapped and sealed inside the glass case in the HUB for fear of what would happen should he become hostile and turn on the university that once loved him. (That's probably not the real reason, but I like my story better.)

Old Coaly's tremendous effort toward our school certainly paid off in the short term. The finished Main Building held classrooms, offices, residence halls, and all the assorted rooms that Penn State needed to be a full university. Even sports teams used its lawn for a field. Sadly, the heavy use that the building went through during the late 1800s and early 1900s, as well as a fire that damaged the roof in 1892, resulted in the original building being declared structurally unsound and unfit for renovation in the 1920s. The old Old Main was demolished in 1929 to make way for a new Old Main in 1930, which is the Old Main that we know today. (This makes the current building about 85 years old now, if you were still wondering.) The new building continued to be a major center of student activity, but as time passed and the campus expanded, its roles were largely supplanted by newer structures.

By now, Old Main's livelihood has declined sharply since its glory days. While it was once full of students living, learning, and working throughout its rooms and halls, nowadays few if any student organizations and classes meet inside the building. The wide lawn is still a fairly popular spot for gatherings and tourist photos, but it is not the same as it was back when Old Main was the true center of the campus. Its former roles are taken up by the HUB as well as other buildings devoted to residence, classrooms, and college life. Most of the people who still use the building are administrators who run the university from their offices.

Naturally, there's some pretty sweet paintings inside there that few people will see.

This is part of the "land-grant fresco" mentioned on the sign, painted by famed fresco artist Henry Varnum Poor with assistance from his daughter Anne and loads of cash from grateful students. The entire painting took ten years to make, although it was not a continuous process; the first portion was begun in 1939 and finished in 1940. Poor's work was far from poor work, so Penn State students took it upon themselves to raise funds to get Poor to return and paint more frescoes on more walls inside the building. Unfortunately, like most cool projects started in 1940, these efforts were totally derailed by the coming of World War II, and it would not be until 1949 that the paintings could be completed.

The paintings, celebrating Penn State's history from its founding on land granted by the state of Pennsylania to the vibrant campus life and student activities toward the end of the 1940s, were universally judged to be awesome, which is why it's a shame that so few activities take place in the Old Main building now. There is good news, though: this part of Old Main is open for viewing during business hours, from 8 AM to 5 PM on Monday through Friday, so that curious students can see Poor's rich artwork for themselves. You can also see some pictures of the frescoes on the Penn State website, but if you happen to have the time in your busy college schedule, please take a moment to check out this beautiful part of Penn State history for yourself.