We recently received a gift from retired professor Frank Egan of six (6) boxes of old issues of the Tripod (going back to 1968), as well as random issues of some hitherto unknown (at least to us) Trinity student newspapers such as The Trinity Observer (1983-87), The Trident (1983), The Trinity Questioner (1984-85), The Forum (1986-87), and The Other Voice (1994).

We also had about 10 boxes of old Tripods in the basement–and both collections were combined, and are shown here–each pile is a separate year of issues, from 1968-2009. We will be looking for ways to utilize these duplicate copies of the Tripod in the year ahead. We already have TWO archival copies of all of these issues–it is our ongoing mission to make sure we have two complete sets of these publications, as well as digitizing them for our online repository.

It is fascinating to look at these publications and realize that over the decades–over and over–we are dealing with the same issues.

From the Archivist’s Perspective: Feature Columns and Articles by Peter Knapp in the Trinity Reporter, 1976-2012

The Watkinson Library and Trinity College plan to publish a volume honoring the retirement of College Archivist Peter Knapp, which will occur on August 29, 2014.  Mr. Knapp is himself a Trinity institution. Graduating with the Class of 1965, he received his M.A. in History from the University of Rochester and a Master’s in Library Science from Columbia University. He was hired by the Trinity College Library in 1968 as Head of Reference.

In 1972 Mr. Knapp also took on the development of the College Archives, and soon began writing articles on Trinity’s history for the Reporter.  He would ultimately collaborate with his wife, Anne H. Knapp, to produce Trinity College in the Twentieth Century: A History (2000), intended as a second volume to Glen Weaver’s 1967 History of Trinity College.

The prospective publication of 40 short essays concerning Trinity history that Mr. Knapp wrote for the Trinity Reporter, including a few excerpts from Peter’s book-length study, also includes one original contribution never before published, on Trinity men who served in the Civil War (on both sides!).

More information about this publication is forthcoming!

Theodore Roosevelt speaks at Commencement

Building the Chapel

Dated September 1892, this stunning little piece of Trinity history was in a recent auction of sports memorabilia in Chicago.  Lee Smith (Trinity MA ’72, Economics), brought to our attention and helped us acquire this “carte-de-visite”–surely one of the earliest “football cards” produced.  According to the auction description, “One of the top teams of the day was Trinity College, they played such teams as Harvard, Yale and even crushed Columbia 54-0. The uniformed players are identified as George Hartley and Richard Henry Macauley with a great inscription on the verso: ‘Presented to Miss Edith Ward by her latest conquest. The Freshman Richard Henry Macauley.'”

According to his student file in the Trinity Archives, while Richard Henry Macauley ’95 may have been Miss Edith Ward’s “latest conquest,” he married a Miss Sarah Tainter Bulkeley–the youngest daughter of Lt. Governor William H. Bulkeley (CT)–the year he graduated.  He was from Detroit, and worked in his father’s wholesale millinery company for 5 years after graduation, and then four years on his own; his company went bankrupt, after which he entered the insurance business and eventually became manager of the Eastern Michigan branch of Aetna Life Insurance.  He died on September 13, 1928 at age 55.  In the 1906 College Bulletin he is listed as a graduate member of the “Medusa Society” and an honorary member of “The Royal Egyptian String Octette.”

We have less information so far on the senior, George Derwent Hartley ’93, a native New Yorker and son of an Episcopal clergyman.  He was captain of both the football and baseball teams at Trinity during his senior year, was a banker & broker in New York by 1917, and apparently died in San Francisco in 1931, at the age of 62.  Hartley was also a donor to the library, giving us an impressive rarity, which is described at great length in the College Bulletin of 1904 (pp. 7-12)–an English translation of John Calvin’s Institutio Christianae Religionis (The Institution of Christian Religion), published in London in 1587.

Yesterday we formally opened the exhibition on “Hyam Plutzik ’32, American Poet,” featuring a reading of selected poems by Plutzik by Ciaran Berry (Assistant Professor of English), Clare Rossini (Artist-in-Residence), Dick Allen (Connecticut’s Poet Laureate), and Trinity students Diana Lestz ’13 and Cassie Spittel ’13.  All of the readers also read one of their own poems in Plutzik’s honor.

The exhibition was curated by Ed Moran, literary adviser to the Plutzik family, and most of the material was generously lent by the University of Rochester, although some artifacts (like Plutzik’s fishing gear) were lent by the family.

Associate Curator Sally Dickinson and staffer Henry Arneth were instrumental in the installation of the exhibit, which will be on display through the end of May, so that those who come to campus for Commencement will be able to view a slice of the life and work of this accomplished Trinity alum who died well before his time