KSU Archives and Special Collections

The Kennesaw State University Archives and Special Collections is a destination for campus and community members to research the history of the university and people and organizations in northwest Georgia. Kennesaw Campus: Horace W. Sturgis Library, Rooms 209-227 Marietta...

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Support Love t-shirt (undated) from our Kennesaw Pride Alliance collection. Check out more from this collection in our Looking Fly Archive on SOAR: http://ow.ly/rlg450zYSnR

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Gift shop at Kennestone Hospital, established by the Cobb Medical Society Auxiliary. Clipping from the Cobb County Medical Society Records scrapbook (circa 1950s), KSU Archives. 

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On this day in 1970, this image of the Kennesaw Junior College Spring Festival appeared in the Atlanta Journal and was immediately picked up by the Associated Press. What made it so popular? Check out our blog for the full story.

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May is Asian and Pacific Islander American Heritage Month! Last year, during our Looking Fly Archive t-shirt documentation project, KSU student Ryan Bacarra contributed these images on behalf of our Filipino Student Association. The front of the shirt features the word "pamilya," which in Filipino means "family."

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The 1966 yearbook for Lemon Street High School in Marietta, which the senior class dedicated to their parents. From the Marietta City Schools records, KSU Archives.

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Kennesaw Junior College Student Nurses Association in the 1975 Montage yearbook. Courtesy of the KSU Archives.

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Integration of the Marietta City Schools

The KSU Archives and Marietta City Schools are currently collaborating on the curation of a multi-site exhibition that will tell the story of the Marietta City School System. As part of our collaboration on this exhibit, Marietta City Schools recently donated a portion of its records to the KSU Archives. The collection includes records dating from 1894 to 1998, with most of the records dating from approximately 1950 to 1970, and is currently being processed by KSU Archives staff.

Left: Marietta Head Start program scrapbook pages, 1965. Right: Marietta High School football programs, 1971 and 1949. 

One of the exhibition sites will be located in the former Lemon Street Elementary School building. It will focus on the history of the Lemon Street schools, which served the African American children of Cobb County prior to integration. In commemoration of Black History Month, here are a few of the documents from the Marietta City Schools collection that demonstrate the history of the Lemon Street schools and public school integration in Marietta, Georgia.  

Above: Excerpts from the 1964 and 1966 Lemon Street High School yearbooks.

Above: Excerpts from The Proposed Junior High School brochure, 1968. This consolidated junior high school would have been among the first public schools in the area to be integrated at its establishment. 

Above: Map showing tentative locations and demographics for integrated Marietta City Schools for the 1970-1971 school year, June 1970. 

The Marietta City Schools history exhibition is currently in development by the KSU Museums, Archives and Rare Books curatorial team in collaboration with Marietta City Schools. The first phase, focusing on the Lemon Street Schools, is scheduled for completion this fall (2020). The second phase will focus on the overall history of the Marietta City Schools system and is slated to open in the fall of 2021.    

Do you have photographs, documents, or stories that might contribute to this exhibition? If so, please reach out to the KSU Archives by emailing [email protected] or calling [phone].  

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“Food will win the war, they say.”

This blog post was written by our wonderful student intern, Morgan Haddock! Morgan is a junior at KSU who completed a Public History internship at the KSU Archives this semester.

The Kennesaw State University Archives contains some interesting things, that is certain. Eighteenth-century newsprint covering the revolutionary war, personal computers from before this writer was born, and KSU commencement ceremony DVDs to name just a few. This post will focus on a very small piece of the history the archives can tell, contained in just two collections. The Blair and North Georgia Tribune collections can help tell us about food during World War II, including how rationing affected recipes and the way people cooked.

L. M. Blair (circa. 1940s). Image from the Blair Family Papers, KSU Archives.

The Blair Family Papers contain ten scrapbooks which cover the time when L.M. Blair was the mayor of Marietta, Georgia. They include newspaper clippings as well as clippings from the local rotary club newsletter. During Blair’s time as mayor, there also happened to be a war going on -- World War II, to be specific. The Bell Aircraft Company built a large facility for making B-29s, which caused the small town of Marietta to suddenly be a pretty big deal. One clipping included in the scrapbooks even showcases the worry of some Northerners over the building of this plant in the South.

“Cherokee Raises Food For War” (1941). Image from the North Georgia Tribune collection, KSU Archives.

Also relevant is the North Georgia Tribune collection, featuring a newspaper out of Canton, Georgia. This collection contains 14 large tomes that seem to hold all of the newspapers from a given year. This collection is part of a larger collection of Neighbor and Community Newspapers at KSU which is organized by title and location with newspapers ranging from 1916 to 2012. Unfortunately, the North Georgia Tribune collection at KSU does not contain all of the years of World War II (1939 to 1945), but the volumes covering 1939 to 1941 proved to be relevant and useful. 

While all this is entirely fascinating, the main storyline covered by these clippings and newspapers -- that of the homefront and war efforts in two cities of North Georgia -- is not what this writer is after. Included in the clippings and papers, incidentally, are a number of very lovely recipes. As an aspiring food historian, this writer just could not help picking out a few recipes and trying them. Hopefully, you will find the results interesting!

Photo by author.

The first recipe is for a rather charming cherry pie. This one was included on the back of one of the full pages pasted into the Blair scrapbooks (so its inclusion was entirely accidental). The two pies -- the other is a peach pie -- boast of being ration-proof, since the sweetness comes from the fruit itself and doesn’t require too much added sugar. The pie is delicious without being too sweet, with a filling that sets up beautifully. It would probably be even better with some whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Even though some pies can be intimidating, this one is simple and near-foolproof. Just remember to add the juice to the cornstarch and not the other way around! (Notes in italics have been added by the writer.)

“Pies Need No Rationing If You Use These Recipes”, Judith Wilson (circa 1943). Image from the Blair Collection, KSU Archives.

Cherry Pie

2 cups drained, sweeted, canned cherries (not pie filling)

1 cup juice reserved from the cherries

2 tablespoons cornstarch

3 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon butter

Pastry for 1 double-crust pie (recipe to follow -- or use store-bought in a pinch)

Measure cherries and juice. Mix cornstarch and sugar. Add juice gradually until smooth. Cook, stirring until thickened. Add butter. Then stir in cherries, and cool. Pour into unbaked pie shell, cover with top crust (don’t forget to vent your top crust by cutting some slits to let the steam escape), and crimp edge (pinch outside edges together). Bake in hot oven (400 to 425 degrees F.) 15 minutes, then at 350 degrees F. for additional 15 to 20 minutes (or until crust is golden brown and cooked through). (Let cool to room temperature before slicing.)

Pastry for One Double Crust Pie

2 cups flour

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

⅔ cup shortening

3 tablespoons lemon juice

3 tablespoons ice water

Sift flour, salt and baking powder together. Cut shortening into dry ingredients (using two butter knives or a pastry blender) until pieces of fat are about the size of large peas. With fork, blend in lemon juice and just enough water to make dough stay together. Place dough on floured board, pat together and mound up. Cut off about ⅓ of the pastry roll and set aside for top crust. Roll out the large piece to fit a 9-inch pie plate. Line the pie plate (let the dough “slouch” into the corners of the pan, do not force it - this can cause tears). Press out any air pockets and trim off edge. Add peach (or in this case, cherry) filling… Moisten edge of the bottom crust with water. Roll out the top crust. Vent slits to let out steam, and place it over the filling. Press the edges together to prevent juices from oozing out (this may happen anyway -- it won’t affect the taste, I promise)... (Follow additional baking instructions above.)

Photo by author.

The other recipe chosen is a bit more unconventional and is from the North Georgia Tribune. This recipe is advertised as a meat substitute, something akin to meatloaf without the meat. It works up in a jiffy, is very filling, and the peanutty and cheesy taste can even please most picky eaters. We served it with baked potato salad and collard greens. The original recipe calls for homemade breadcrumbs made from buttered bread, but we used panko breadcrumbs that were toasted in a pan with butter and it added a very crispy crunch to the slightly gummy texture of the loaf itself. Highly recommended for a weeknight dinner -- you may have all the ingredients already! If not, they’re easily found at any grocery store. 

“A Cheese and Rice Roll”, Betsy Newman (1941). Image from the Neighbor and Community Newspapers collection, KSU Archives. 

A Cheese and Rice Roll

2 cups cooked (cooled, white) rice

1 cup grated cheese (cheddar works well)

½ cup chopped peanuts

1 teaspoon salt

Pepper

Milk

½ cup buttered breadcrumbs

1 egg

Mix rice, cheese, egg, peanuts, salt, and pepper with enough milk to moisten (about 1 tablespoon). Shape, roll in buttered breadcrumbs and bake in a moderate oven (350 degrees F.) for 25 minutes (line your pan with parchment paper for easy plating). Remove to hot platter and garnish with slices of stuffed olives and parsley and serve with hot tomato sauce.  

I hope these recipes have piqued your interest, if not in food history then at least in the many stories included in your local archives. These and many other collections are available to view at Kennesaw State University’s Department of Museums, Archives, and Rare Books. 

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AV-ailable soon: Digitized AV materials from the KSU Archives

This summer the KSU Archives is embarking on a project to preserve and make available more of our unique audiovisual materials. Several of our collections include fragile AV media that are currently unavailable to the public due to fragility and/or file format obsolescence. Since AV materials degrade faster than other formats, archivists consider these materials to be “at-risk” for potential loss, and recognize that converting them to a digital format is often best for long term preservation. In the archives world, we refer to this process as format migration.

Over the last year, KSU archivists have identified several groups of at-risk AV materials in our collections to preserve through digitization. From the Bobbie Bailey Collection, we pulled VHS tapes produced by Bailey's company, Our Way, about the Atlanta company's history, videos about the Greenland Expedition, and audio recordings of performing groups (such as the Platters) produced by Bailey's music production company. We will migrate videos of each play produced by the Marietta Theatre in the Square between 1983 and 2004, including the controversial 1993 production of "Lips Together, Teeth Apart." Finally, we will convert film reels from the Georgia Marble Company that complement the digitized film holdings in the Brown Media Archives at the University of Georgia. 

To have the materials digitized, each of these items was carefully packaged by our staff and sent to PreserveSouth, a company that specializes in media migration. The Archives expects to make the digitized files available on SOAR in the spring of 2020. 

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International Archives Week 2019

This week archives and archivists around the world are observing International Archives Week! It’s an opportunity for archives to see how we are collectively working to promote the use of archival materials and advocate for the importance of archives and records management. This year’s theme, “Designing Archives in the 21st Century,” asks us to reflect on how we are working to meet the needs of the 2019 researcher.

The KSU Archives constantly strives to put our users at the center of our work by considering how they find and use our materials, as well as how we can facilitate their research. We make every effort to maintain an active and engaging web presence, where users can find information about our department, start their research, and view digital resources. Our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts show off resources you might not know we have, as well as keep our followers up to date on our projects, activities, and personnel (including occasional KSU spirit sweater days). We also consider the use of laptops and other personal devices when designing the layout of our reading room, and take full advantage of technologies such as our document camera to display fragile items during instruction sessions. 

The Archives is currently in the process of redesigning both its physical and digital environments to better meet the needs of our users. We hope you will visit our updated website and reading rooms this fall! 

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Presenting the Looking Fly Archive

The KSU Archives is thrilled to launch a new project to preserve campus history and culture through t-shirts! T-shirts contain information about academic departments, student groups, campus events, and more that might not be captured anywhere else. In addition, they often showcase the creativity of our students and staff. To that end, the KSU Archives is now collecting digital photographs of t-shirts associated with KSU and SPSU for preservation in our Scholarly Online Access Repository.  

Why “Looking Fly?”

The KSU Archives collecting scope encompasses the rich history of two universities, Kennesaw State University and Southern Polytechnic State University. When the two schools were consolidated in 2015, the KSU Archives assumed the responsibility of preserving and making available the records of both universities. In addition to referencing the fashion and style exhibited by the materials in this collection, this moniker pays homage to our dual mascot history. Since the KSU Owl and the SPSU Hornet are both creatures of flight, this name allows us to meet our mission of inclusivity, preserving the history and culture of both schools in our charge.  

Where can I see this collection?

The Looking Fly Archive is available to the public online through our Scholarly Online Access Repository.  

Can I contribute shirts?

Please! Contact our Outreach Archivist, Helen Thomas at [email protected] for more information. We are accepting loans of shirts to be photographed by our staff or high-quality digital photographs of shirts taken by donors like you.  

Acknowledgements

This project was inspired by the UNC-T-Shirt Archive and the Wearing Gay History Project. 

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Women in Technology Day

Women were admitted to the Southern Technical Institute from its beginning in the 1940s, though the student body was overwhelmingly male. However, in the 1970s the school began to see an increase in female enrollment. By 1974, women made up 17% of the student body, and a portion of Howell Hall was renovated to serve as Southern Tech’s first women’s dormitory. By 1980, approximately 200 women were enrolled in classes at the Southern Technical Institute.

On April 30, 1980, Southern Tech held its first Women in Technology Day. The event featured programs “designed to acquaint female students, high school counselors, and teachers with opportunities for women in engineering technology” (The Sting, March 31, 1980). 

According to the 1980 Technician’s Log yearbook, over 500 high school students attended the event, which featured “a panel discussion by [Southern Tech] students and women in technology positions in industry” and “an opportunity to talk with [Southern Tech] department representatives about fields of technology” (The Sting). A browsing session with companies including Southern Bell, Lockheed-Martin, IBM, and Bell Labs allowed participants the opportunity to speak to industrial representatives about career opportunities.

After the success of this inaugural event, Women in Technology Day was repeated in subsequent years on the Southern Technical Institute campus. The tradition of providing support and direction to women pursuing careers in technology, science, and math is continued today by groups such as WIT (Women in Technology) at KSU.  

For more on the history of Southern Tech, KSU’s Scholarly Online Access Repository provides access to the full text of Southern Polytechnic State University: The History, along with the Technician’s Log yearbook and the SPSU Student Newspaper collection.

Images of Women in Technology Day (above) from the Technician’s Log yearbook, 1980. Courtesy of the KSU Archives.  

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Image from the 1952 Technician’s Log yearbook, Southern Technical Institute, KSU Archives. 

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Moses Wright speaks up for Black History at KJC

The United States first celebrated Black History Month in 1976, but the first national observance of African American history originated much earlier. According to the Library of Congress, Negro History Week was conceived in 1925 by the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) to raise awareness of African Americans’ contributions to civilization. It was first observed in February 1926 during the week encompassing both Frederick Douglass’ and Abraham Lincoln’s birthdays, and grew to be observed across the country in the following years (African American History Month, Library of Congress).

In 1971, Lathonia “Moses” Wright was a sophomore at Kennesaw Junior College and a staff writer for The Sentinel. Reflecting on what was then Negro History Week, Wright wrote an editorial in The Sentinel calling for a Black History class at KJC.

In a subsequent Sentinel editorial published on March 15, 1971, Wright again asserted support for “the establishing of black study courses“ at KJC. He contended that local African American students gravitated to the Atlanta University System and Georgia State University, whose curricula he stated “meet the needs of ‘Blackness,’ “ over KJC. Wright argued that the inclusion of African American studies courses, along with increased efforts towards faculty and staff integration, could lead to an increase in African American enrollment at KJC.

Kennesaw’s first African American studies course, “Black American History” (HIST 254), was offered for the 1972-1973 school year.

For more historical information on KJC’s efforts to build a racially diverse student body, faculty, and staff in the 1970s, check out The History of Kennesaw State University: The First Fifty Years, 1963–2013 by campus historian Dr. Tom Scott. 

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Best wishes to our retirees!

The Archives is wishing a fond farewell to a few KSU staff members who are retiring this month after many years of service.

First up is Lynda Johnson, who is retiring from the Office of the President. Lynda started her career at Kennesaw State College in 1983, working initially under President Betty Siegel as Secretary to the President. She has worked in the administration of four Kennesaw State presidents and retires this month as Executive Administrator to the President and Chief of Protocol for the University.

Bennie Houck is retiring after over four decades of service with SPSU and KSU. Bennie started at the Southern Technical Institute in 1976 as a Key-Punch Operator during the early days of computerization. She later transferred to the Registrar’s Office, where she spent the rest of her career. She worked through the KSU/SPSU consolidation and continued to serve students in the Marietta Campus Office of Enrollment Services.

One testament to Bennie’s excellent service to students is the 1997 Freshman Guide issue of the SPSU student newspaper The Sting, which specifically called out Ms. Houck as “a good person to get to know.” For more about her long career with SPSU and KSU, check out the oral history Bennie recorded with our campus historian in 2017 (available in the Archives reading room).

Finally, the Archives would like to extend a special thank you to Jodie Sweat, who retired recently as Senior Director of Facilities Services. Jodie was instrumental in facilitating access for Archives staff to perform important records management functions during the KSU/SPSU consolidation. She was also responsible for transferring records from Facilities and Operations to the Archives, helping to preserve records such as original plans for the iconic walkways surrounding our campus quadrangle.

Thank you for your service and dedication!

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The Story of the KSU Alma Mater

While it's a familiar sound at commencement and other university events, the KSU Alma Mater has not always been part of campus life. In fact, the school went nearly 20 years without one at all. However, in 1982, incoming President Betty Siegel thought that a school song would be a way to show pride in the achievements of KSC and its students.

“Becoming a four year college was a significant step in Kennesaw's development. Not every two year college can or should become a four year college. Kennesaw chose to do so, and I feel that it was an excellent decision. Accordingly, the College's Alma Mater should reflect that four year status as well as our deep caring for Kennesaw College."

Betty Siegel, excerpt from “Alma Mater Makes Music,” The Sentinel, February 1982.

A committee chaired by Dr. Wayne Gibson (KSU Music Department) chose “Gaudeamus Igitur” as the melody for the Alma Mater, a classical European tune dating back to at least the 18th century which is often used at commencement ceremonies. A contest was then held to choose the lyrics, with Betty Siegel offering a $100 prize to the winning composer. This being a pre-internet era, the committee ensured that everyone had access to the tune by distributing copies on cassette tape, as well as playing it twice a day in the student center to familiarize students with the song. The contest winner was senior Cynthia Parks, and our new Alma Mater debuted at the inauguration of President Betty Siegel in April 1982.

As for Cynthia, she graduated with honors in June of 1982 at the first of many commencement ceremonies to feature her composition.

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Join the Revolution!

 Enjoy this blog post by our awesome student assistant, Mirna Zaher. Mirna is a senior at Kennesaw State University studying International Affairs and Anthropology. Mirna loves working with our collection of historic newspapers. Today, she is discussing her experience working with newspapers from the Revolutionary War era. . .

There are many cool and interesting things here in our collections at KSU. The best collections are always the ones that surprise you and give you a connection to the past that you did not previously have. One such collection for me is our collection of Revolutionary War-era newspapers. The Revolutionary War shaped our nation in the largest of ways and birthed the American principles that we still abide by today. Through our historic newspaper collection, we have the ability to look at events as they unfolded in the same way people living at the time would have done.

From this collection, several newspapers and articles are worth noting. For example, there is a copy of the Connecticut Gazette from the morning of September 28, 1781. For those of you that do not know the significance of this date, it is the first day of the Battle of Yorktown, the battle in which America won the war. Going through this paper, it was clear to see that the battle was about to spark. It references the British Fleet heading to Yorktown, the French fleet located off the coast, and that American troops were in Chesapeake Bay. It is like a scene straight out of Hamilton. Reading about this particular battle allows you to lay out the battle and see the mistakes made by the British that only someone who lives after the fact could do. An interesting thing I spotted in another paper was the famous “Join or Die” propaganda piece we all learn about in high school. This highly influential illustration helped push the colonies to rise up against England. Seeing this illustration first hand rather than in a textbook is almost surreal. Above all, some of the most amazing finds in these newspapers are the many references to our Revolutionary War heroes: George Washington, Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, John Laurens, John Hancock and so on. Reading contemporaneous articles about these individuals is an enlightening experience. Modern-day textbooks tend to focus on their role and importance from a historical sense, but these eighteenth-century newspapers also give us a glimpse into their humanity, which is something that I think, is easy to lose in any discussion about history.

Handling these newspapers and looking through their contents really made me appreciate the large amount of effort that our founders put forth to ensure our freedom. These newspapers are definitely worth exploring if you are interested in America and our amazing history.