According to the Nebraska State Historical Society, the history of modern greetings cards began in 1843 with the design of the first Christmas cards produced in England. Easter card exchanges began somewhat later in the 1880s.
Category: Found in the Archives
Illini Union
The Student Life & Culture Archives was recently asked to create a small exhibit on the history of the Illini Union for the celebration of Founder’s Day on Wednesday, March 13th.
Dedication of the original building in 1941 completed a long planning process started early in the Twentieth Century. Interest in a specially built Union building began with the inauguration of President Arthur C. Willard, who appointed a committee to investigate building plans and construction. The decision to raze University Hall, built in 1871, to make room for the new building was unanimous. Continue reading “Illini Union”
History of the Engineering Open House
“Engineers, as all citizens, have a stake in the future,” Dean Daniel Drucker wrote in his welcome letter for the 1975 Engineering Open House.[1] Echoing this sentiment a year later, he noted the global and societal importance of the work of the University of Illinois Engineering faculty, students, and alumni:
Wallace Hembrough
Record Series 41/20/229
Wallace Trabue Hembrough, Jr., native of Jacksonville, Illinois, attended the University of Illinois as a student in the College of Agriculture from 1940 through 1943. As a freshman, he joined Alpha Gamma Rho, a social-professional agriculture fraternity. He was also a member of Pershing Rifles, a military fraternal organization for college-level students, during his first two years at the University. Continue reading “Wallace Hembrough”
Joseph Tykociner and the “Talking Film”
When Joseph Tykosinki-Tykociner arrived at the University of Illinois in 1921, little did the itinerant electrical engineer know that his dream of inventing sound motion pictures would reach fruition less than a year later. Tykociner, like many enterprising inventors of the early 20th century, developed his ideas during an era in which the academic discipline of engineering became firmly established—the creation of which bridged the gap between the roles of the “inventor” and the “scientist.” Indeed, as a discipline, electrical engineering was only a few decades old. Founded in 1891, the Department of Electrical Engineering (now the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering) at the University of Illinois was initially a unit within the Department of Physics. President Andrew S. Draper separated the two departments in 1895, wishing to develop electrical engineering into a formidable department that could respond to increasing demands for individuals trained in the “principles of electricity, as it applied in the design, production, and operation of such electrical equipment as telephone and telegraph apparatus, power plants, and city and industrial systems.”[1] Continue reading “Joseph Tykociner and the “Talking Film””