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.