University Archives 50th Anniversary Celebration, Marshall Gallery, Main Library, University of Illinois, October 12, 2013. THOMPSON ● McCLELLAN Commercial Photographers.
An exhibit concerning student life during the Great Depression (1928-1938) was recently erected outside of the University Archives in the main hallway.
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”→
Sousa hits the beach as part of our new exhibit “America and Sousa’s Band Through the Photographic Lens of Charles Strothkamp”
John Philip Sousa and Helen Sousa at Atlantic Beach, NJ, August 1, 1927
Charles Strothkamp (1896-1983) was born and raised in Manhattan, New York. At the age of fifteen he began studying clarinet, and nearly fifteen years later joined the Sousa Band as fourth clarinet for its 1926 tour which included extended performances at Atlantic City’s Steele Pier, Philadelphia’s Willow Grove Park, and concerts throughout the New England, Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states. After Sousa’s death in March 1932, Charles went on to study stenography and typewriting at New York’s Drake School of Business and eventually took a position as railway postal clerk with the United States Postal Service. He remained with the postal service for thirty years and retired in 1965.
Throughout his music and postal careers, Charles was an avid amateur photographer who chronicled his travels with the Sousa Band, his parents on summer trips, and everyday life in New York City. As he travelled with the Sousa ensemble his camera meticulously documented the candid off-stage life of his colleagues between 1926 and 1930. This exhibit explores the humorous exploits of the Sousa Band as it travelled across America at the close of the roaring twenties and the beginning of the Great Depression.
As the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) and the Visual Resources Association (VRA) begin their third-ever joint conference, we look back at the 12th Summer Educational Institute for Visual Resources and Image Management (SEI), co-sponsored by ARLIS/NA and the VRA Foundation, which took place June 9-12, 2015, on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus. It provided the opportunity to highlight some of the holdings of the ARLIS/NA Archives, which are held by the University of Illinois Archives.
