Tour of the Utah State University's Special Collections and University Archives, Part I

Introduction
When I initiated this project of visiting libraries, archives, and museums to spotlight their gems (hidden and otherwise) on this blog, I had no idea my world would expand as much as it has. Experiencing (and sometimes holding) important historical objects, books, and manuscripts is life-altering for sure. However, my favorite part of this project is visiting with some of the best storytellers I've ever met. These historians, archivists, and curators enthusiastically share the history of their collections in such a way that I always leave wanting to see more.

My hosts at Utah State University Merrill-Cazier Library's Special Collections and Archives were no exception. Despite spending a day in Logan, UT (about an hour and a half north of Salt Lake City), seeing a wide range of collecting areas, I could easily return many times and still only experience a fraction of their treasures. The fact that the school is located in the gorgeous Cache Valley doesn't hurt either!

Copyright 2009 David Densley.

Background on the School
Since we're at the beginning of the Civil War Sesquicentennial, it is fitting that the history of Utah State University (USU) begins with an act signed into law in 1862 -- the Morrill Act. According to the Department of State,

The act gave to every state that had remained in the Union a grant of 30,000 acres of public land for every member of its congressional delegation. Since under the Constitution every state had at least two senators and one representative, even the smallest state received 90,000 acres. The states were to sell this land and use the proceeds to establish colleges in engineering, agriculture and military science. Over seventy "land grant" colleges, as they came to be known, were established under the original Morrill Act; a second act in 1890 extended the land grant provisions to the sixteen southern states.

Like Rutgers, USU counts itself as one of those public land-grant schools. When it was founded in 1888, it was known as the Agricultural College of Utah, but eventually became Utah State University in 1957. (The school still uses a typographic "A" as its symbol, though, because the students are "Aggies.") In the early 20th century, USU's educational offerings were greatly limited because state lawmakers feared that it would overshadow the University of Utah. They tried to combine the two schools, but failed. Instead, "the legislature passed a bill limiting [the school's] curriculum to agriculture, domestic science, and mechanic arts. Many once-thriving programs in the arts, humanities, education, and others are closed, despite the college's initial mandate that it offer such instruction. By 1927, all curricular restrictions except law and medicine are lifted," says USU.

During World War I, USU turned into a military installation, with enlisted students housed in barracks that would later become lab space and classrooms. USU also is known as "The West Point of the West" because it has graduated more officers than any other school outside the Army academy.

In the 1950s, the Space Dynamics Laboratory and the Utah Water Research Laboratory were established. (For those who may not know, a great deal of the US space program's testing happens in Utah.)

At about the same time, the University Archives and some of the historical collections were brought together by History Professor S. George Ellsworth. The Special Collections and University Archives department was formally established around 1967. For more USU history, visit the History and Traditions page.

About the Collections
The USU Special Collections and University Archives currently houses approximately 80,000 volumes (including theses and dissertations), 18,000 linear feet of manuscripts and university archives, and 500,000 photographic images. In other words, the department is gigantic.

From Utah State University

The size of the western collections I have visited never fails to impress me. The general scale of pretty much everything seems about 10 times larger than here in New Jersey.

USU's Special Collections and University Archives employs 10 full time (five faculty, three professional, and two classified) staffers and one part-time worker. They include four archivists and one processing assistant, although some of the archivists hold the title "Curator." The staff serves about 30 patrons per week, including USU faculty and students, community users, and outside researchers. Their long-term researchers include one person working on a local history project and another researching historian Leonard Arrington. This summer, they are expecting another professor from Alabama who is researching Brigham Young.

The school's collecting areas are regional history, the Mormon experience, and the history of the West. They also have strong collections in Western literature and the Western environment. "Our university archive is extremely strong and complete back to the founding of the university," says Brad Cole, my gracious primary tour host and the Associate Library Dean.

Brad has been at USU for 18 years. "I graduated with a Master’s degree in history and was not sure what I was going to do for employment. A position opened up in the Special Collections and Archives department of the library and that was how I started," he says. Primarily he works on donor relations and larger projects. In fact, he and his Folklore staff are finishing a ranch documentation oral history project.

His favorite collections are those related to environmental issues -- the Sierra Club papers, Utah Wilderness Association, and diaries about the environment, among others. Brad explains, "I guess I like these collections because they really relate to Utah State and also to very current issues in the American West."

I asked Brad to tell me about some of the items in the collections that don't receive as much attention as they probably should. He names a few,

Some of our collections include diaries from forest rangers, others are related to Utah State University’s role in developing Western agriculture. Other collections are about USU's involvement in Iraq and Iran during the 1950s. We worked a lot in that area of the world to help rebuild after WWII. In addition to these would be a large collection about Czech patriot, Thomas Masaryk, and one of the largest Beat Poetry collections in the US.

Books and Manuscripts
USU's Beat Poetry collection comprises 10,000 volumes. I was especially impressed with the Wallace Berman Semina collection. Below, Brad tells me a bit more about the seminas and why they are important to the university's special collections.



Below are close-ups of the materials Brad showed in the video.

From Utah State University

From Utah State University

From Utah State University

Moving backward in time from the mid- to the early 20th century, USU holds one of the largest collections of first-edition Jack London books. But, they're not classified as books in the Special Collections -- they're manuscripts. Why? Well, I'll let Brad tell you.



Below are some close-up photos I took of these remarkable manuscripts.

From Utah State University

From Utah State University

From Utah State University

From Utah State University

From Utah State University

To see the collection of books inscribed to Charmian online, visit USU's Jack London exhibit. Additionally, Jack London researchers might also be interested in USU's 42 boxes of his papers.

On the topic of manuscripts, I had an opportunity to meet briefly with recent Conference of Intermountain Archivists Service Award recipient and outgoing Manuscript Curator Stephen Sturgeon about USU's 400 collections of unpublished papers. He spoke with me about several of the key collections. One of the school's largest manuscript collections is the Leonard J. Arrington Historical Archives. According to the archives' site, Arrington is known as the "Dean of Mormon History," having published many books and papers on the subject as an economics professor at USU and afterward. He served as "Church Historian" at the LDS Church Archives in Salt Lake City from 1972-1982, and later transferred to head the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History at BYU in 1982.

Arrington kept voluminous diaries (kept sealed in the collection until 2010) as well as correspondence and other papers. This collection, measuring 319 linear feet, has become a premier research resource on Mormon, Utah, and Western history.

In addition to collecting in the area of the Mormon experience, USU actively collects regional history. For example, a new collection the archivists are processing is Utah Representative Jim Hansen's papers. So far, they have processed 400 of those Hollinger boxes (below).

From Utah State University

Design Workshop Landscape Architecture Archive and Exhibit
A few days prior to my visit, USU had announced the creation of the Design Workshop Landscape Architecture Archive and Digital Collection. It was well coordinated with their hosting of the American Society of Landscape Architects Annual Meeting. The new archive is a three-way partnership between the USU Special Collections, USU Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, and Design Workshop, a legendary landscape architecture firm founded by two class of 1963 USU graduates.

Below, Brad shows me early examples of digital landscape architecture drawings in the collection.

From Utah State University

From Utah State University

One of the challenges USU is addressing is the lack of map cabinets to store all the drawings flat (it's a very common issue as map cabinets are expensive). Their solution is to use acid-free tubes to store the drawings rolled. Below is an image of some drawings that have been processed and stored in the tubes.

From Utah State University

There are approximately 5,000 more tubes in storage. So far, the materials are being processed by landscape architecture professors and graduate students who can assess the drawings and describe them accurately. Upstairs, in the Merrill-Cazier Library was a sizable exhibit showcasing Design Workshop's long history as a trailblazer in urban planning. A few photos of the exhibit are shown below.

From Utah State University

From Utah State University

From Utah State University

From Utah State University

Preservation
Brad helped produce the exhibit with Rose Milovich, Preservation Manager and Exhibition Program Director. She's been with USU Special Collections and Archives for 15 years and USU for 21 years. Rose has managed the Preservation Lab since 2008, and previously, she was Curator of Art and Book Arts. She comes from a museum studies background, and you can see that influence in the exhibits and her conservation projects.

Below is a short video of Rose showing me one of 80 custom boxes she and her students made for the Larry E. Elsner sketch book collection.



In some cases, they would find ephemera in the sketchbooks. In others, the students would make cushions to help protect the spiral-bound notebooks. Below are two close ups -- one of the enclosure and one of the sketchbooks open to a page of drawings.

From Utah State University

From Utah State University

Because this feature on USU's Special Collections and Archives is quite long, I have broken it into two parts. The remainder of the tour begins with University Archives on this page.