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Gregg Jones Papers

One of the strengths of AU Special Collections is the history of journalism. In 2014, we acquired the papers of Gregg Jones. Jones earned his BA in Journalism at Northeast Louisiana University. He began his reporting career in 1981 at the Roanoke Times and World-News. In 1984, Jones moved to the Philippines and began freelancing for major British and United States newspapers, covering the 1986 presidential election, the People Power Revolution, and Corazon Aquino’s presidency. In 1988 and 1989, he interviewed New People’s Army guerillas for his book, Red Revolution. In the 1990s, Jones reported for the Washington Post in Mexico, the Arkansas Gazette and the Dallas Morning News. He moved to Bangkok in 1997 to head the Dallas Morning News’ Asia Bureau. Jones returned to the United States to work for the Los Angeles Times in 2002. He rejoined the Dallas Morning News as an investigative reporter and projects writer in 2004 and left in 2010 to become a full-time author. Jones has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and selected as a Fellow of the Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada.

The Gregg Jones Papers consists of articles, book proposals, correspondence, interviews, manuscripts, notes, and radio broadcasts documenting his work as a journalist and author in the Philippines, the Asia-Pacific region, and the United States. Featured topics in the collection include: the California recall campaign, the New People’s Army of the Communist Party of Philippines, the Philippine-American War, Philippine politics, rural health conditions in Arkansas, and the abuse of steroids. For more information about the collection please consult the finding aid.

Holiday Traditions

Starting in the mid-1930s, female students living on campus participated in an annual candlelight ceremony featuring yule logs and a Christmas tree. The event began with a parade of students holding candles walking down the steps in Mary Graydon Hall. Starting in 1959, the women marched into the Clendenen gymnasium singing Christmas carols while holding candles.

Each December, the Women’s House Council held a secret ballot for “Best Loved Girl” and “Most Representative Girl” from each class. The winners were announced at the candlelight ceremony. Controversy over mandatory attendance and other issues led to moving the awards ceremony to the spring. The last “Best Loved Girl” was elected in 1966.

Female students heading to the 1958 Best Loved Girl Ceremony

Sadie Hawkins Dances

Sadie Hawkins Day was first introduced in Al Capp’s Li’l Abner Comic Strip in 1937. Subsequently, students in the United States and Canada organized Sadie Hawkins Dances where the females invited the males. AU students held their first Sadie Hawkins Dance in November 1939. It was an annual event in the 1940s and 1950s though it was held in the spring starting in 1955. By 1963, AU students began celebrating Sadie Hawkins Weekend which included a variety of activities in addition to the dance. In 1966 and 1967, the students held a Li’l Abner election.

Students were encouraged to dress “Dogpatch style.” Appropriate attire included no shoes or sneakers, patched jeans or “ragged” shorts and wild hats. The girls presented their dates with vegetable corsages. The dances included mock weddings where the students exchanged pipe cleaner rings and received wedding certificates.

Sddie Hawkins Dance Photos, The Eagle, October 25, 1951

Sadie Hawkins Dance Photos, The Eagle, November 21, 1952

The Bill Gentile Photojournalism Collection

American University Library is pleased to announce the acquisition of the Bill Gentile Photojournalism Collection.

Bill Gentile’s career began in 1977. He worked as a reporter for the Mexico City News and for United Press International (UPI). He later became Newsweek Magazine’s Contract Photographer for Latin America and the Caribbean. He covered the 1979 Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua; the United States-backed Contra War in Nicaragua; the Salvadoran Civil War in the 1980s; the United States invasion of Panama; the 1994 invasion of Haiti, the ongoing conflict with Cuba, the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His book of photographs, “Nicaragua,” won the Overseas Press Club Award for Excellence.

The Bill Gentile Photojournalism Collection (1983-2002) covers 16 Caribbean and Latin American countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Peru. The photos document agriculture, daily life, demonstrations, earthquakes, elections, religion, politics and women’s health. The countries with the most images are Cuba, El Salvador, Haiti, and Nicaragua. Featured individuals include political leaders Violeta Chamorro, Manuel Noriega, and Daniel Ortega. Of note are images of the Miskito Indians and the Yanomamis. Also included in the collection are images of the Persian Gulf War and U.S. related topics such as border patrols, elections, prisons, and Puerto Rico.

Harvesting Sugarcane 1986

Miskito Indian Rebel, Yulu, 1986

The History of Homecoming at American University

Homecoming was organized by the student body. The Social Activities Board and its successor, the Campus Center Board, coordinated the event for many years. When Homecoming was brought back in the 1980s, the Residence Hall Association and the Student Government provided funding.

The featured game at Homecoming changed over the years. From 1931 until 1941, the main event was a football game. Except for brief periods where club football (1970-1976) and soccer games (1966-1968, 1986-1987, 2001-2003) were showcased, a basketball game was the signature event.

The student body crowned its first Homecoming Queen in 1939. AU didn’t elect a Homecoming King until the late 1970s.

In addition to the parade, game, dinner and dance, Homecoming at AU typically featured a pep rally and fraternity and sorority open houses. Starting in 1955, AU students got permission to build a bonfire on campus five times.

In the early years, the dance was held in Clendenen gymnasium. As Homecoming got bigger, the dance was moved off campus to locations such as the Indian Spring Country Club, the Willard Hotel, and the Columbus Room at Union Station. By the 1990s when Homecoming was regularly held in February, it combined with Founders Day and organizers began calling the dance, the Founders Day Ball, a tradition that continues today.

Here are some of the significant milestones in the history of AU’s homecoming parades:

AU’s first homecoming parade was held in 1947. The floats were hand pulled.

Kappa Delta’s “Sittin’ on Top of the World” (1954)

The first parade on the quad with floats pulled by cars was in 1955.

Phi Mu’s Don Quixote and Alice (1955)

Star Jones was the Grand Marshal at Homecoming in 1994.

Star Jones riding in antique car with color guard walking behind her (1994)

The parade extended to Tenley Campus in 1996.

Bagpipers leading parade down Nebraska Avenue from the Tenley Campus (1996)

For more information on and images of Homecoming, visit the exhibit on the first floor of Bender Library.

Biography and History in the William F. Causey Collection

The next time you visit Bender Library stop by the second floor to see the most recent selection of works from the William F. Causey Collection. This collection contains first editions many of which were signed by the author or inscribed to Bill Causey.

Though Causey was an avid collector of literature especially crime and suspense novels, he also amassed a broad array of nonfiction titles covering early modern history to the present. He collected around his personal interests such as the Civil War and the Kennedy assassination as well as biographies and memoirs.

Featured in the display are scholarly works on American and European history and biographies of Winston Churchill, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy and his brothers.

Bill Causey’s copy of this seminal work on the Civil War was signed by James M. McPherson.

19th Century Papal Bulls

In honor of Pope Francis’ visit to Washington, DC, AU Library Special Collections is pleased to showcase two items from the Hurst Autograph Collection:

Papal Bulls of Gregory XVI (1831-1846) and Pius IX (1846-1878)

Papal bulls were originally issued by the Pope for many kinds of public communication, but by the 13th century papal bulls were only used for the most formal occasions.

It is named after the lead seal (bulla) that was attached in order to authenticate it. The bulla has the heads of the apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul on one side and the Pope’s name on the other.

Close up of Lead Seal for Pius IX

Newly acquired social protest materials

American University Library Special Collections is pleased to announce the acquisition of materials relating to early national protests in Washington, D.C.

The Army of the Commonwealth in Christ/Coxey’s Army

Ohio businessman Jacob Coxey led the first significant popular protest march on Washington, D.C. The purpose of the march was to protest the unemployment caused by the Panic of 1893 and to lobby for the government to create jobs and pay the workers in paper currency. The march originated with 100 men in Massillon, Ohio. Various groups of unemployed workers from the around the country joined en route eventually establishing a camp site in Colmar Manor, Maryland. Items acquired include Volume 1 Number 1 of The Industrial Army News (April 20, 1894) and a copy of the song Coxey’s Commonweal.

Coxey’s Commonweal

The Bonus Expeditionary Force/Bonus Army

17,000 World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups gathered in Washington, DC, in June of 1932 to demand cash-payment redemption of their service certificates. The World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 awarded veterans bonuses in the form of certificates that they could not redeem until 1945. Each service certificate’s face value was equal to the soldier’s promised payment plus compound interest.

The first veterans to arrive were accommodated in abandoned buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue that were owned by the government. As the numbers of veterans grew, they established integrated camps on the Anacostia Flats. Veterans were required to register and prove they had been honorably discharged before they could move into the camps. The camps were built from scavenged materials and had streets and sanitation facilities. The veterans held daily parades. The camps were extremely popular with tourists.

In addition to a scrapbook featuring photos and postcards of the camp, we recently acquired a lantern slide show which contains a combination of photos and newspaper articles including several images of the Toledo, Ohio contingent and the main protest at the United States Capitol on June 17.

Bonus Army Lantern Slide Show Introductory Slide

If you would like to see more, several of these items are currently on display on the third floor of Bender Library.

Currently on Display: A Sneak Peak into Social Justice Collections in Special Collections

American University students are recognized as being amongst the most politically active in the United States. To encourage further dialog about social justice both past and present, Special Collections is exhibiting a selection of flyers, brochures, and photographs from four of its social protest collections. The exhibit looks at protests in Washington, DC from the 1890s, 1930s and 1970s as well as protest movements led by international women’s organizations from the 1980s. The exhibit will be on display on the third floor of Bender Library through the end of the fall semester.

Here are few sample items from the exhibit:

Bonus Army 1932

Women Strike for Peace 1982

Currently on Display: Homecoming through the Years 1931-2003

AU held its first Homecoming in 1931. This annual event occurred at different times of the year and was scaled back in the 1970s before being updated and improved in 1986. AU’s last Homecoming was in 2003. A new exhibit on the first floor of Bender Library uses photographs and programs to illustrate the history of Homecoming at American University. The exhibit will be on display through the end of the fall semester.

1956 Homecoming Program