The Akron, Canton & Youngstown (AC&Y) Railroad Historical Society recently donated its significant collection of historic records to The University of Akron Archival Services, a division of University Libraries. For details, view the article.
Author: mabloom
The University of Akron Archival Services, a division of University Libraries, recently completed the processing and preservation of the Archives of the Ninth Air Force Association (9AFA) and digitized selections from the collection. For details, view the article.
“At the time of the Normandy Invasion I was a navigator in the 439th Troop Carrier Group, 94th Sqdn. Our group put up an 81 ship formation for the mission. We were the 79th plane. I had a pretty good view of the show up ahead. When we crossed the French coast we encountered a cloud deck. Some planes went above the clouds. We stayed below so I could see the check points to hit the drop zone. Suddenly there were paratroopers in the air all around us. A plane above the clouds had dropped his troopers. Thank God we didn’t hit any…
… A machine gun position directly ahead on our course began firing at the flight ahead of us. He hit the lead plane; it nosed up, its landing lights flashing, and fell off on the left wing, crashing in a ball of fire on the ground. All I could see protruding from the fireball were wing tips and empennage [tail].
Then our time came to come under fire from the machine gun position. He was firing green tracers and was walking them back toward our plane. They were coming up the right side of the plane. I thought we were going to get it. The co-pilot threw up his arms to protect himself. I had a flak helmet and flak suit on. I ducked my head down, waiting for the impact. The tracers were so close they lit up the cockpit with a green flow, then stopped. We didn’t get a scratch. Another second and the shells would have penetrated the gas tanks. I wouldn’t be here to tell this story.” – “439th Troop Carrier Group Navigator Bob Dains, Tells D-Day Story,” The Ninth Flyer Volume 6, Number 3, 1996
June 6, 2014 is the 70th anniversary of D-Day. In memoriam to the largest sea invasion that has ever taken place, Archival Services is promoting their numerous D-Day related materials including the newly processed Archives of the Ninth Air Force Association, digitized copies of the Ninth Air Force Association’s newsletter, The Ninth Flyer, and dozens of books concerning D-Day and the Normandy invasion. Over 150,000 troops from Allied countries participated in the landing, providing a northern foothold on the continent and ultimately helping to break the back of Nazi Germany; over 150,000 memories to be honored and remembered.
Archives of the Ninth Air Force finding aid
Selected Civil War era letters from Special Collections in Archival Services are now available online. In commemoration of the Civil War Sesquicentennial and through the work of our talented Kent State University School of Library and Information Science practicum student Adam Wanter, 163 multipage letters are available in full color. Select letters from four of our collections were chosen for the project. Currently available are: Alvin Coe Voris pre-war letters home [Akron, Ohio] from the Ohio Legislature 1860-1861. Joseph Sailor’s letters home [DeGraff, Ohio] from the 45th Ohio Infantry Regiment on campaign in Kentucky. William McCollam’s [Uhrichsville, Ohio] correspondence to and from his wife Callie during his 100 day call up and service with the 161st Ohio Infantry Regiment near Martinsburg, Virginia. John J. Polsley’s letters from his service with the 8th Virginia Volunteer Regiment which would later be designated the 7th West Virginia Cavalry Regiment.
To view more images from University Libraries Archival Services visit our Digital Collections page.
University of Akron alumnus Mickey Wittman
is heralded as “The Father of Sports Aerial Broadcasting.”
Hear him talk about:
“Sports Broadcasting from Every Angle”
Thursday, Feb. 13, at 3:30 p.m.
The University of Akron’s Daum Theatre in Kolbe Hall.
Lecture followed by
reception, refreshments, historic Goodyear displays
and tours of the UA School of Communication’s
WZIP-FM, Z-TV, and Social Media Learning Lab.
FREE.
Reservations not required but strongly suggested:
330-972-7600 or scom@uakron.edu
Park for free beginning at 3 p.m. in UA’s East Parking Deck off Route 8.
Directions to Daum Theatre and Kolbe Hall are here.
Sponsors:
Goodyear and The University of Akron’s
School of Communication and Archival Services of the University Libraries.
The University of Akron Archival Services, a division of University Libraries, is pleased to announce the opening of an exhibition on the photography of Opie Evans at the Dr. Shirla R. McClain Gallery of Akron’s Black History and Culture with an opening reception on February 10th from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Evans was a local reporter, broadcaster, publisher, and businessman and one of the earliest African-American photographers in Akron. His photography documents the local African-American community in addition to other segments of the city’s population from the mid-1940s through the early 1970s.
The exhibit, which is titled “This is Akron with Opie Evans: The Rubber City as Seen through the Lens of One of Its Earliest African-American Photographers,” will feature 58 photographs from Mr. Evans’ catalogue that capture the work and leisure of Akronites—particularly African-Americans—from every walk of life from the end of the Second World War through the civil rights era. This includes leaders, politicians, and professionals in addition to the indigent and working class. The images are from Evans’ collection that is part of the extensive holdings of Archival Services.
The exhibit, which was guest curated by S. Victor Fleischer, University Archivist, Head of Archival Services, and Associate Professor of Bibliography, is a collaboration between the McClain Gallery, the Pan-African Center for Community Studies, and Archival Services of University Libraries. According to Fleischer, “the photographs are incredibly significant as they visually document an important and transitional time in the city’s and the nation’s history and capture a segment of the local population that is seldom documented elsewhere.”
The Dr. Shirla R. McClain Gallery of Akron’s Black History and Culture is located in the Buckingham Building at The University of Akron. Hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. and admission is free to the public. Further information about the Gallery can be obtained at http://www.uakron.edu/ie/offices/.
The Opie Evans Papers and other historical resources on local African-American history and the history of the region are available by visiting Archival Services located in Room LL10 of the Polsky Building. Business hours are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Additional information about Archival Services and its collections can be accessed on the department’s website at http://www.uakron.edu/libraries/archives.
Archival Services, a division of University Libraries, is pleased to announce the successful completion of a
grant to digitize, preserve and to make available online 153 historic technical reports from the Daniel Guggenheim Airship Institute, which was a part of the University’s College of Engineering from 1929 to 1949. The digitized reports, which are available online as fully searchable PDF documents, can be accessed at http://cdm15960.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15960coll3.
The institute was operated by The University of Akron from 1929 to 1949 and was a partnership with the California Institute of Technology, the Daniel Guggenheim Fund, and the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation in Akron, Ohio. Experiments conducted at the institute focused on the effects of turbulence and drag on airship hulls as well as meteorological observations. The technical reports are a valuable source of information that primarily document research in lighter-than-air flight, heavier-than-air flight, meteorology, aerodynamics, and G-force measurements that was conducted at the institute. The reports are frequently used by students, historians, scholars, lighter-than-air enthusiasts, and researchers for a variety of research projects.
This project was supported in part by a nine-month $1,980 National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) Grant that was awarded last April through the Ohio Historical Records Advisory Board (OHRAB). Additional funding was provided by the University. UA gratefully acknowledges the support of these bodies.
The Daniel Guggenheim Airship Institute Records and other historical resources on the history of lighter-than-air flight and local history are available by visiting Archival Services located in Room LL10 of the Polsky Building. Business hours are Monday through Friday from 8am to 5pm. Additional information about Archival Services and its collections can be accessed on the department’s website at http://www.uakron.edu/libraries/archives.
With enrollment down and support from the Universalist Church drying up Buchtel College needed to find additional ways to stay solvent. President A. B. Church planned to raise $500,000 for an endowment for the college; $200,000 had been pledged but the 1913 flood and Rubber strike drastically slowed the fund raising efforts.
After A. B. Church’s untimely death Parke R. Kolbe became President of Buchtel College. Kolbe had taken over as a language professor after his father, who taught here for 35 years, had passed away in 1905. In 1913 as the College President he needed to find new ways to keep the college operating. In the April 14, 1913 Board Meeting, President Kolbe laid out his plans to turn the college over to the City of Akron. You can read about it in the Buchtelite May 1913.
To read more about this interesting time here are several Buchtelite articles:
Buchtel may become the University of Akron Buchtelite May 1913, Volume XXIV, Number 8
City Accepts Buchtel College; To Become University of Akron Buchtelite September 1913, Volume XXV, Number 1
New Directors of University of Akron decide on important changes to be made Buchtelite January 1914, Volume XXV, Number 5
Other sources for University of Akron history include:
Kolbe, Parke, The Municipal University of Akron: A History of its Establishment, Akron: The Municipal University of Akron, 1914 LD51.A62 H57 1914
Spanton, A. I., Fifty Years of Buchtel 1870-1920 Akron: Buchtel College 1922 LD661 .B52 1922
Knepper, George, New Lamps for Old: One Hundred Years of Urban Higher Education at The University of Akron Akron: The University of Akron 1970 LD51.A62 K6
From May 17th through June 5th our main office space and reading room will be getting a new coat of paint and new carpet. Due to the construction the normal entrance into Archival Services will be closed. Please use the LL10a entrance, the next door to the left.
Our hours are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday-Friday. Our main office number will remain the same 330-972-7670, though individual staff extensions will not be available.
Tree Day was established in 1902 by Buchtel College President Augustus B. Church. On May 12th 1902 classes were cancelled and everyone met at Crouse Gymnasium at 11:00 a.m. for an address delivered by Professor R.G. Moulton of the University of Chicago. At 1:25 p.m. the student body assembled at Buchtel Hall and paraded to Buchtel Academy where each class planted a tree and took turns presenting stunts, skits, songs and poems. To read about that event here are the April 24 1902 and the May 22 1902 Buchtelite articles that describes the event. Tree Day became an annual event with the crowning of the May Queen replacing the tree planting. Eventually Tree Day became May Day which in turn evolved into the current Springfest.
University History Books available that may be of interest :
Summit’s Glory: Sketches of Buchtel College and the University of Akron by George W. Knepper
New Lamps for Old: One Hundred Years of Urban Higher Education at The University of Akron. A centennial publication by George W. Knepper LD51.A62 K6
Fifty Years of Buchtel (1870-1920) Alumni Association Akron, Ohio: Buchtel College Alumni Association, LD661 .B52 1922
The First Hundred Years are the Hardest: the Story of the University of Akron by Norman P. Auburn LD51.A62 A93
Archival Services also has:
University of Akron photograph collection on-line finding aid available at
http://ead.ohiolink.edu/xtf-ead/view?docId=ead/OhAkUAS0001.xml;query=;brand=default
The Tel-buch yearbooks 1908-2008
The Buchtelite 1889-present
To learn more about Archival Services visit http://www.uakron.edu/libraries/archives/