Category: Uncategorized Page 3 of 7

After researching the Student Rebellion of 1870 through primary source documents from Dickinson College and modern secondary source publications, it came time to hear the voice of Carlisle and Pennsylvania as a whole; newspapers.  I began with online databases, specifically The Library of Congress’s Chronicling America.  Once there, I was able to search for articles by limiting the entries to only those from Pennsylvania in 1870, and even further using keywords and phrases such as “Dickinson College”, “Dickinson”, “Carlisle” and “Rebellion”.  It is important to note that I entered the individual terms into the “ANY of these” bar, as I was hoping to broaden my search sufficiently enough to get useful hits.

Although the two main Carlisle newspapers from the period seem to not be available in the Library of Congress’s database, the student rebellion turned out to be noteworthy enough to make it into many other publications throughout Pennsylvania.  The first was an article from The Bloomfield Times, a local paper from New Bloomfield, PA.    Aside from the date of the absentees return to Dickinson, it provided no new information; however, the fact that a local paper from a small town 20 miles north of Carlisle was covering the rebellion meant I was likely to find articles in larger, more significant publications.

My hypothesis soon proved correct with the discovery of a rather long, front page article in Philadelphia’s Evening Telegraph published on May 5th, 1870.  Surprisingly, this article proved to be one of the most detailed summaries of the rebellion I had come across thus far, although it only covered up to the suspension of the sophomore and junior classes.  The article includes details on the debate between student and faculty over the penalty students received, which was based on the school’s own policies (the students wanted to take 8 minus marks, the combined penalty for a misdemeanor  and missing class, instead of the upwards of 500 placed upon them).  The article also provided a transcription of the notice students were sent by the President’s office regarding the rebellion:

“Resolved, That the President announce to the members of the Sophomore and Junior Classes that any members of those classes who shall absent himself from recitations on Monday, May 2 without sufficient excuse, presented during the same day to the President, shall be and is hereby suspended from college until the first Thursday of September next, to be restored at the end of that time only on making satisfactory acknowledgment to the faculty, and that any student so suspended is required to leave town for home on Tuesday, May 3, before 5:20 P.M., under penalty of expulsion.”

Having been fairly successful in my search for articles about the rebellion, I decided to try and tackle one of my other research questions: the reception in the 15th Amendment in Carlisle.  Unfortunately, I got very few hits on Chronicling America and this is also when I discovered that the database didn’t have any of the Carlisle newspapers from the time.  Luckily, however, the Cumberland County Historical Society, which is located just a block or two off campus, has a copy of every issue of The American Volunteer and The Carlisle Herald (the town’s two major publications during the period) on microfilm; a method of viewing documents that allows years worth of papers to be stored on a single role of film.

I began by taking a look at the Volunteer and was almost immediately successful.  On the second page of the April 14th edition, a weekly column titled “Our Washington Letter” toted some rather strong opinions on the passage of the 15th Amendment.  I immediately knew I had found exactly what I was looking for when the second sentence of the article read: “Sambo (a racial slur for African Americans) is no longer merely ‘a man and a brother,’ but is now a full pledged fellow citizen of African ‘scent”.[1]  The article eventually came to the conclusion that the African American race did not deserve the right to vote because “nineteen twentieths [of them] could neither read nor write…”, meaning that the 15th Amendment was pushed through by Radical Republicans in Congress who simply wanted to use the African American vote to stay in power (an article from another paper stated that the Radicals were “enslaving the negroes” to their cause)[2]  I found further articles in other issues of the Volunteer that claimed the amendment had been passed “not in the mode prescribed by the Constitution itself, but by the arms of the military consulate, acting in the name of the President and Congress”.[3]  There were also several articles about a Senator Revels, who was an African American, that contained such blatant and over the top slander as to put the 2016 election to shame; the articles referred to him as “a full blooded, curly haired, ebony shinned, big-footed negro” and stated that “The attempt, therefore, to make it appear that this negro [Revels] is a man of talent – ‘a statesman and scholar’ – is a fraud”.[4]

Ultimately, I was somewhat amazed as to what just a few hours of newspaper research was able to tell me about not just the student rebellion, but also Carlislian sentiment regarding the 15th Amendment.  Admittedly, I have yet to examine any articles from the Herald, and the existence of the amendment’s celebratory parade leaves plenty of room for  a mixed response; yet, so far everything I have come across has been both highly revealing and condemning.  I greatly look forward to continuing my examination of the local papers in regards to the 15th Amendment.

 

 

[1]  “Our Washington Letter,” (Carlisle) American Volunteer, April 14, 1870, p. 2: 5, Microfilm Collection, Cumberland County Historical Society, Carlisle, PA.

[2]  “Our Washington Letter,” (Carlisle) American Volunteer, April 14, 1870, p. 2: 5, Microfilm Collection, Cumberland County Historical Society, Carlisle, PA.

[3]  “The Fifteenth Amendment,” (Carlisle) American Volunteer, February 3, 1870, p. 2: 2, Microfilm Collection, Cumberland County Historical Society, Carlisle, PA.

[4]  “Negro U.S. Senator,” (Carlisle) American Volunteer, February 3, 1870, p. 2: 2, Microfilm Collection, Cumberland County Historical Society, Carlisle, PA; “Senator Revels,” (Carlisle) American Volunteer, April 21, 1870, p. 2: 2, Microfilm Collection, Cumberland County Historical Society, Carlisle, PA.

 

After a few weeks of archival research, I considered myself to be a proper history detective, though admittedly only in training. My experience remained limited, however, and it became clear that before I could fully understand the scope of historical research I would have to decipher the mystery of microfilm. As is often best practice when learning a new skill, I started by doing something I know well: asking my friendly neighborhood archivist for help. He provided me with a finding guide for both physical newspapers kept in the archives and the reels of microfilm, and with guidebook in hand I got to work.

Step One:  Basic Training

The first thing one sees when entering the microfilm section of the Dickinson College Library is the expanse of cabinets in which reels are kept. Luckily for me, these reels are organized in the finding guide alphabetically by newspaper title and chronologically by publication date. I wrote down three newspapers which had the year 1840 within their range and got to work.

The downside of venturing into the microfilm section is that my beloved archivists, Jim Gerencser and Malinda Triller-Doran, don’t have jurisdiction there. As such, I had to make new connections, and thus began with the receptionist at the basement circulation desk. She sent me upstairs to the main desk, where a supervisor and student worker were excited to try their hand at the machine. With their guidance, I was able to learn some of the basics, and once we had the first reel in the rest was more or less intuitive.

The reels of film resemble VHS tapes removed from their box, and the process of playing and rewinding them was very tactile and satisfying. Being able to physically see the little pictures moving on the tape was far more engaging than scrolling through digitized archives online, even if it did take a little more skill and finesse.

 

Step Two: Finding the Reels

The three newspapers I identified in the finding guide were The Carlisle Herald and Expositor, The American Volunteer, and The Republican. Unfortunately, the run of The Republican, though listed as ranging from 1835-1891, actually had a gap during the time I was interested in studying, but with the information in the guide the first two newspapers were easy to find in the cabinets. Microfilm takes some patience, especially when trying to move through a lot of data at once. For example, the tape for The American Volunteer began with the 1833 editions, but I didn’t intend on using any issues published before 1838. As such, I was overjoyed to find a button on the reader’s interface which fast-forwards the film without the user having to keep their finger on the button, allowing me to do further research while the tape wound.

During one of these breaks I decided to finally uncover more about the mysterious Locofoco party, which I had never encountered in my earlier education but whose name had appeared multiple times in my reading. After a quick search in the Dickinson Online Databases, I found an article by Carl N. Degler, a history professor at Vassar, entitled “The Locofocos: Urban ‘Agrarians.’”[1] From this piece I learned that the Locofocos were a faction of the Democratic party which aimed to curry favor with the poor and pulled from the same voting groups as Democratic president Andrew Jackson.

 

Step Three: The Expositor

With this information in mind and the microfilm finally wound to the correct year, I looked first at the May 1, 1838 edition of The Carlisle Herald and Expositor. This newspaper was far more clearly organized than some others of its time, and I was thrilled to find that it had in fact a whole column dedicated to political issues[2]. On this date, some time before the presidential election, the paper instead covered the upcoming 1838 gubernatorial election in Pennsylvania. It was a point-by-point takedown of Democratic candidate David R. Porter and, while it said little about the nature of the presidential election to come, it did establish the Expositor as a solidly Whig-leaning paper and laid out the views of Whig Carlilians of the time.

Far more telling than the first headline which caught my eye was in fact an advertisement[3] on the second page which clearly endorsed the Whig William Henry Harrison for president fully two years before the election. The seemingly interminable election cycle which repeats itself every four years in the United States has been oft-bemoaned as tiring and unnecessary, so it was interesting to see its roots as far back as 1838.

 

Intrigued by what I had found in the Expositor, I attempted to do more outside research on these small tickets, which my professor informed me could actually be used as ballots. Starting with a broad google search, I combined many term clusters such as “william henry harrison,” “newspaper,” “ballots,” and “1840 voting system.” I didn’t find very much about the ballots, but I did discover that the campaigns actually each had their own newspapers in addition to the already partisan local weeklies, so I would be eager as a I continue my research to explore these documents further and investigate how they influenced the election.

Moving forward, I skipped to the next year’s issues and found an article entitled “The Next President”[4] on page two of the May 8, 1839 edition. At this point, the gubernatorial election had still not taken place: the paper continued to endorse incumbent Anti-Masonic Joseph Ritner. Their man would go on to lose to Democrat David R. Porter whom the paper had so lambasted the previous May, but at the time of printing the paper was eagerly awaiting Ritner’s re-election, predicting that the Democratic party would “sink forever, with its misdeeds.”⁴

By the time of this publication, with the presidential election about a year and a half away, the Expositor wished to focus on the task at hand: “We go first for the re-election of Joseph Ritner–Then we go for General Harrison…because we belive [sic] him to be the most available candidate for Pennsylvania.”⁴ These mentions of the presidential race so long before it actually occurred show how this was to be a different game altogether, but only with further research will I uncover how the newspapers handled the campaign itself.

Step Four: The Volunteer

Though I will be sure to return to the later issues of the Expositor, during this first visit to the microfilm machine I was eager to see another political point of view. To that end I next fed in the reel for The American Volunteer, a Democratic paper which covered a “Great Democratic Meeting”[5] on October 8, 1837. This issue was also discussing the gubernatorial election, an event which seems to have sown the seeds of inter-party animosity in Pennsylvania leading up to the polarizing 1840 presidential election. The Volunteer saw the gravity of the situation and described the battle to come: “We are on the eve of an election of the most important character; an election in which the question whether the people or a local aristocracy will rule.”⁵

Having seen how the local writers of both parties viewed one another before the presidential election, I am anxious to visit the Cumberland County archives to see later articles and determine how they dealt with the unique campaign and eventual result.

 

 

Footnotes:

[1] Carl N. Degler, “The Locofocos: Urban ‘Agrarians,’” The Journal of Economic History, 16, no. 3 (1956): 322-333

[2] The Carlisle Herald and Expositor (Carlisle, PA),  May 1, 1838, pg 1 col. 7

[3] The Carlisle Herald and Expositor (Carlisle, PA), May 1, 1838, pg 2 col. 6

[4] The Carlisle Herald and Expositor (Carlisle, PA), May 8, 1839, pg 2 col. 7

[5] The American Volunteer (Carlisle, PA), October 8, 1837, pg 1 col. 4

When scanning through the 1905 Dickinson Alumni Record, nearly all of the members in the Class of 1858 had, “U. P. Society” or, “B. L. Society” in their short blurbs.  While doing research about these abbreviations in the archives, the research assistant told me about the Belles Lettres and the Union Philosophical Society. These two literary societies had existed since the 18th century, which were the earliest days of the college. Both societies sought to enhance the intellectual development of students at the college, as well as create bonds between members.  I then sought to find out how the students acted within these societies, and how they affected the college.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With thirty-two out of a possible thirty-five students in the class belonging to either society, they clearly were influential within the student body. And naturally, as groups of college-aged students do, they developed a rivalry. Luckily, the Dickinson Archives has an excellent collection of the papers of Horatio Collins King. 

He is prominent graduate of the class, and many of his papers were donated to the Archives. As a member of the U. P. Society, he writes on the rivalry between the two societies, “We went together to the B.L.’s Anniversary, and were much pleased therewith. I was especially relieved, also, for I had little fear after hearing their speakers, but what we Union’s would give them a “fair shake”. 

King is writing about the commencement ceremonies in 1858 here, as he included pamphlets from the celebrations in his diary, which show that the Belles Lettres and Union Philosophical Society would present orations, and they would compete on who could have the best speech, King presented a speech titled, “Aristocracy.” (King, Diary, 574) Additionally, King writes about how the Belles Lettres and U. P. Society would compete throughout the year in oration contests, and fondly remembers one time the U. P. Society came out on top. 

The audience at our Exhib. Was much larger and more chaste than at the B.L.’s… I performed my part to the satisfaction of all, and retired from the stage mid rapturous applause and showers of boquets…We all went to our rooms with the glorious satisfaction that we had gained a victory over the B.L.’s by whom we were almost certain of being beaten. ( King, Diary, 559)

These societies were not just limited to graduation ceremonies and competitions. After looking through more of his diary, I found a connection to a President. King was the Secretary of the U. P. Society in 1856, and wrote about a meeting on December, 11, when they discussed sending a delegation of members to the house of James Buchanan, in Lancaster, PA, to “offer the congratulations of society.” (King, Diary, 332) This was in regard to his recent victory in the 1856 Presidential Election, when he defeated Republican candidate, John C. Frémont. Buchanan graduated from Dickinson in 1809, and a member of the U. P. Society during his time at Dickinson.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Days later, King wrote Buchanan on behalf of the Union Philosophical Society, and Buchanan quickly wrote back, below are transcriptions of the original letters, which were kept in King’s diary.

Dickinson College

Carlisle, Dec 13, 56

Honored Sir:

A committee has been appointed by the Union Philosophical Society of Dickinson College to wait upon you at Wheatland, to extend the salutations of society, and congratulate you upon the result of the recent Presidential Election. It is the object of this note to inquire if it would suit your convenience to receive the committee at as early a day as Tuesday or Wednesday. An immediate answer is requested. 

I have the honor to be

Sir, your ob’h (obliging) serv’t

Horatio C. King

Secretary

And here is Buchanan’s response.

Wheatland 14 December 1856

My dear sir/

My answer to your note of yesterday I regret to say that I shall be obliged to leave home for Philadelphia on tomorrow evening or at latest Tuesday morning, I am truly sorry that by reason of engagement I shall be deprived of the pleasure of meeting the committee of the Union Philosophical Society during the present week.

Yours very respectfully,

James Buchanan

Clearly, the role of these two societies was large over the campus then. Whether it was friendly competition between groups, or trying to honor a President-elect, Dickinson students were involved in the community, and country as a whole.

This all began with wondering about an abbreviation in a class record, which led to me reading a letter written by a U. S. President. The records preserved by individuals and groups in the Archives were crucial to this research. The tools which were most useful were the records of the the student groups themselves and personal letters, which had details about members and traditions which led to learning more about the Belles Lettres and the Union Philosophical Society.

Works Cited

King, Horatio Collins. Diary, 1854-1858. MC 1999.9, Horatio Collins King Family Papers, Archives and Special Collections, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA.

Reed, George Leffingwell.  Alumni Record: Dickinson College. (Carlisle, Dickinson College, 1905), 174-183.

Union Philosophical Society. Catalogue of the Members of the Union Philosophical Society of Dickinson College: From it’s Establishment August 31st , A. D. 1789, to November 12th, 1831. Record Group 8/23, B3, F4. Archives and Special Collections, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA.

 

As a PBS kid, I often watched the TV show History Detectives, which showed a team of historians tracking the stories of objects and families. It was one of my first introductions to history as a real career, and the history detectives were one of my inspirations when choosing to become a student of history. Because of this experience in childhood, I was delighted when assigned as a part of my historical methodology class to become a history detective myself. The journey began in my History 204’s class’ first visit to the Dickinson College archives, where the wood paneled walls and cases of rare books and artifacts made me feel like a real historian. That moment of discovery drew me into archival research, and my independent research visits only strengthened my resolve.

First Visit: Newspapers

On our first trip as a class we mostly worked with facsimiles and transcriptions, but when I returned to the archives on my own I was treated as a truly independent researcher, responsible enough to handle originals. I had as my general topic of research the election of 1840, and decided to turn to newspapers as my first source. Unfortunately, few newspapers from 1840 are available in the College archives, but I did read two telling articles from 1844, one on the Cumberland County Whig Convention in Carlisle and one on President Tyler’s withdrawal from the 1844 election.

The one newspaper source which was available from 1840 was actually a transcription of a speech by Dickinsonian Democrat James Buchanan on the folly and hypocrisy of Whig presidential candidate William Henry Harrison. This speech provided interesting insight into the Democrats’ view of their opponents, itemizing the many specific policy differences between the two parties.

These three sources all demonstrated the idiosyncrasies of newspapers at the time, namely the lack of organization and bylines as well as the small size of print. Luckily for me, the Dickinson archives provide finding guides for all of their resources, which in the case of newspapers often index the article in that edition which relates to Carlisle. Without the page and column numbers for the coveted articles I would never have found the piece on the Whig convention, for it was hidden in the fifth column of the third page. In the 19^th century, articles were not organized into specific topic. With this work being in fact a printed letter, it was listed simply under “personal correspondence,” a non-descriptive title that does little to guide the reader. As such, without the help of the finding guide it would be necessary to browse every newspaper from the time period in the Dickinson archive, a tedious and most likely fruitless task.

Second Visit: Letters

On my second visit to the archives I decided to turn my focus from newspapers to personal writings, thinking (correctly) that the College might have more letters than newspapers from the given year. In preparation for my trip I searched the archive website for many terms, including “class of 1840,” “election of 1840,” “William Henry Harrison,” and “John Tyler.”  Through this search I came across the collection of Isaac Wayne’s papers, and though I had never heard that name before I decided to dig deeper.

Wayne was in fact a member of Dickinson’s class of 1792, and by the time of the 1840 election he was a retired farmer in rural Pennsylvania. Despite this, he was still considered to be an important member of the Whig party, and the Dickinson archives many of his documents related to political goings-on. One of these, which excited me greatly when I came across its entry online, was the letter from Wayne written in 1840 to a General Harrison, presumably the presidential candidate himself.

This letter[1], dated April 27, looks at first glance like the archetype of the dream archival find. Hidden in a folder with many other papers, it appeared like a beam of light in the form of distressed parchment–or at least that’s how it seemed to be at first. Upon further inspection, I made the disappointing discovery that the letter was completely illegible. After a frustrating and eye-straining twenty minutes, I finally gave up the ghost on this particular document as incomprehensible to one untrained in the art of deciphering terrible handwriting.

Disappointed but determined, I continued going through Wayne’s other papers, and was happy to find one in a hand other than his own. In the same box as the letter to General Harrison was correspondence from Henry Evans[2], a man with beautiful, pristine handwriting. I began the letter eagerly, quickly drafting my transcription, but unfortunately the missive revealed little of the political climate at the time. It was simply an invitation to speak at the Whig convention, something that might be useful to one studying Isaac Wayne specifically but which did little to illuminate how Carlislians or residents of Cumberland County felt about either candidate.

My last attempt for this particular archive visit was a document in which I had little hope: another piece written with the puzzling penmanship of Isaac Wayne. It was described as a “Draft of a resolution in favor of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler.”[3] I requested the file ready to work even harder to decipher it, but to my elation Wayne did in fact try to make this resolution, a much more official document than the previously studied letter, presentable.

Written on one remarkably well-preserved page is a record of both Wayne’s and his fellow Whigs’ feelings towards their presidential candidate which, though not specific, do give the impression of passionate support and enthusiasm. What the document lacks in policy details it makes up for in flowery and powerful language, which matches the tone of a campaign which used slogans and songs to reach the hearts as well as the minds of the people.

 

Resolved

            That the people of the United States were happy and prosperous until the sources of their prosperity and happiness were assailed [line illegible] thus was a gloom over [one word illegible] afraid the nation which nothing short of the substitution of both men and measures can dispel.

Resolved

            That we will use our best exertions to [one word illegible] the election of William H. Harrison and John Tyler to the Presidency and Vice Presidency of the United States, firmly believing as we do, that under their auspices our national affairs would be placed in such a [one word illegible] ultimately to ensure great and memorable blessings to our beloved country.

Resolved

            That whatever may be the result of the general or special election between this period and the election of the Electors for the President and Vice President of the United States in November next we will not relax our endeavors to afford a successful [one word illegible] to the Whig electoral ticket

Resolved

That we approve of the call for a general county convention to be held at Westchester on the 9th of June for the purpose of forming a more efficient organization of the friends of Harrison and Tyler; and to bring into consideration arrangements for the approaching general election. We therefore have appointed the following named persons as Delegated to represent the Township of Easton in said Convention–

 

Though my research question has not yet been fully formulated, let alone answered, these visits to the archives provided invaluable experience in both how to successfully locate documents when beginning research and how to move on when a source isn’t all you had hoped it would be. I look forward to diving deeper into the archives and finding out more about this topic, in addition to possibly exploring other aspects of the class of 1840.

 

Footnotes:

[1] Isaac Wayne to General Harrison, April 27, 1840. Collection of Isaac Wayne MC 2001.11, Box 1 Folder 2, Archives and Special Collections, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA.

[2] Henry Evans to Issac Wayne, April 21, 1840. Collection of Isaac Wayne MC 2001.11, Box 1 Folder 6, Archives and Special Collections, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA.

[3] Draft of resolution in favor of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler [in Isaac Wayne’s hand] – 1840. Collection of Isaac Wayne MC 2001.11, Box 1 Folder 7, Archives and Special Collections, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA.

When I was initially assigned the class of 1870 I must admit I was a little disappointed.  As someone with a keen interest in military history, I was hoping to get one of the Civil War-era classes, as the events of the war would have been pertinent to its members at the time, but sadly this was not the case.  Nevertheless, I looked through the 1870 class roster, did some quick searches of a couple individuals on the college archive’s online database and went in to take a look at some documents a day or so later.

Having done some archival research on Dickinsonians my previous year, my first instinct was to check for a class of 1870 yearbook.  Fortunately, I was extremely lucky; although the college didn’t start printing the Microcosom (the name of Dickinson’s yearbook) until 1890, the class of 1870 had created one after the fact in 1903.

I began by investigating the senior information pages.  Initially, I had the idea that I would focus my project around the railroad boom during this period, as I knew that  the intercontinental railway had been completed in 1869.  I found several individuals who went on to work for railroad companies or in other railroad-related financial ventures, as well as a few others who caught my eye; namely Edward R. Johnstone, a reporter on the Indian Wars, and Philip Rawlings, an ex-Confederate who served under General Jackson.

After scanning through the senior profiles, I next made my way to the class history section, which was written by several members of the 1870 class.  While reading and taking notes, I came across one short paragraph in particular that grabbed my attention.  In it, the author briefly mentioned the “‘Great Rebellion’ of the Sophomore and Junior classes” in 1870.[1]  Incredibly intrigued by the idea of a student rebellion on campus, I immediately decided to take a look into it.

Frustratingly, the class history provided no more information than the classes that participated in the rebellion and the year it took place, the latter of which had to be discovered through the document indirectly.  I then approached the archivists in order to figure out where I could find more information.  I was directed to the published history of the college, as well as the president’s papers  and minutes from both trustee and faculty meetings.  It was here that I discovered a much more comprehensive overview of the event.

The student rebellion of 1870 (there have actually been several over the course of the school’s history) was in response to faculty not allowing Sophomore and Junior students to attend the celebrations in Carlisle on April 26th, 1870 over the ratification of the 15th Amendment.  In defiance of their professors, the students went anyway and received “500 minus marks” as punishment.  This appears to have been rather harsh, because it caused an uproar among the two classes of effected students.  The faculty attempted to rectify this by adjusting the number of “minus marks” given on a case-by-case basis, but to the students it appeared to be done at random and simply made the situation worse.  The sophomores and juniors then decided to boycott their duties (classes, etc.) and, as punishment, the entirety of both classes were suspended indefinitely and made to return home.  After much back and forth, the suspension was lifted on May 16th after an appeal from the student committee.[2]  Below is my transcription of the appeal, which was found handwritten in the faculty minute book dated 1869-1879:

 

To the faculty of Dickinson College                                                                                          May 16, 1870

Gentlemen,

Whereas it is evident for that there have been misunderstandings of communications made by the faculty to the students, and whereas we have shown as we think a proper spirit since our suspension; and whereas we are satisfied that in the matter of minus marks the faculty will, on a proper and [illegible] consideration of our complaint, do us justice.

We respectfully request that you will repeal the penalty of suspension now in force  against us in order that we may resume our relations with the College, and attend our duties as usual.

J. L. Shelley

J. H. Shopp

D. K. Watson

D. J. Mayors Jr.

Members of Council

Fortunately, a transcription from the minute book, as well as a printed copy of this message, can both be found in the archives.  The correct transcription is below:

May 16, 1870

To the Faculty of Dickinson College, Gentlemen:

Whereas it is evident to us that there have been misunderstandings of communications made by the Faculty to the Students; and whereas, we have shown as we think a proper spirit since our suspension; and whereas, we are satisfied that in the matter of minus marks the Faculty will, on a proper and full considerations of out complaint, do us justice.

We respectfully request that you will repeal the penalty of suspension now in force against us, in order that we may resume our relations with the College and attend to our duties as usual

(Signed)

J.L. Shelly

J.H. Shopp

D.K. Watson

D.J. Myers, Jr.

Members of Committee

 

As one can see by the several errors in my transcription, interpreting handwriting from the 19th century is often no easy task.  That short section alone took me around half an hour, and further transcription of more notes from the same meeting proved to take even longer.  Minutes are especially difficult, as the writer is generally trying to keep pace with the discussion, leading to ample use of abbreviations and poor penmanship overall.  The photo on the right shows one particularly bad example from the minutes, and is supposedly meant to say “commencement”.

Getting back to my research, there was some other information in the Dickinson history book that also caught my attention.  Firstly, it mentioned a mixed reception of the 15th Amendment within Carlisle.  Although there was celebration, the book stated that several newspapers referred to it as the “darky amendment”.  Also, there was mention of signs being waved about the persecution of Dr. McClintock, whose name is on one of the college’s dorms.  A quick search on the House Divide Project website led me to a PDF that explained the story of Dr. McClintock and a riot that occurred in Carlisle in 1849 partially on his behalf. I also found mention in the 1870 yearbook history that two students, the Mercier brothers, joined the KKK in Virginia.

Although I had made progress, I was left with several major questions:  Were the statements about the Mercier brothers true and, if so, how did they interact with both other students and faculty on campus?  How was Dr. McClintock “persecuted” and why did it cause rioting?  How was the 15th Amendment received in Carlisle?  Were there any serious debates on campus regarding the 15th Amendment, especially considering the Confederate/Southern background of several of the students in the class?

Ultimately, after my first round of research I’ve been left with more questions than answers; however, I am confident that many of these riddles will be solved in upcoming trips to the archives and other locations, such as the Cumberland Valley Historical Society.  Most importantly for this early round of research, however, I have nailed down a topic:  the 1870 Student Rebellion and the mixed reception of the 15th Amendment in Carlisle, PA.

 

[1]  Class of 1870, The Dickinson Class of 1870, 1903, Archives and Special Collections, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA, pp. 113.

[2]  Dickinson College Faculty, Sophomore & Junior Suspension Appeal Petition and Remission of Suspension, 1870, RG 2/7, President’s Papers 1.1.2, Archives and Special Collections, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doodle appended to the end of an 1852 class oration by William Snively, courtesy of Dickinson College Archives & Special Collections (digitized by Ian Ridgway)

 

John Lewis Gaddis is a professor of history at Yale University, the recipient of multiple writing awards and a distinguished author. Motivated to display the importance of historical consciousness, Gaddis wrote the book The Landscape of History. In this book, Gaddis argues against multiple fields of social sciences while providing insight to historians about stronger research and analysis methods. This book is a combination of writings and lectures performed by Gaddis. By using relevant modern examples, Gaddis is able to argue against forms of social science while promoting different forms of historical thinking.

One of Gaddis’ main points in this book is focused on the importance of causation. Gaddis argues that it is important when writing or thinking about history to consider the context that led to an event. When doing so, an important distinction to make is “the distinction between the immediate, the intermediate, and the distant”. ¹ Thereby, this distinction groups events contextually and explains the events’ relevance. For example, the first group, immediate, is simply whatever occurred at the time of the event. These distinctions are important because historians must be careful when providing context. Gaddis contextualizes this by explaining the historical context of the Pearl Harbor attack. “It would make no sense, for example, to begin an account of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor with the launching of the planes from their carriers; you’d want to know how the carriers came to be within range of Hawaii”.² When providing context, it is important to not use one of the three groups distinguished above. An example of too much immediate context is exemplified with the Pearl Harbor attack. Providing too much intermediate and distant context is also a mistake. When searching for causation of an event, Gaddis describes a “principal of diminishing relevance”.³ He describes this principal as “is it that the greater the time that separates a cause from a consequence, the less relevant we presume that cause to be”.⁴ In theory, it is possible to tie the true causation of every event back to the Big Bang. However, this principal states that the farther back in time one goes to look for causation the less relevant it is. This principal is helpful when looking for the causation of an event, which Gaddis thinks is extremely important.

Based on causation, Gaddis presents another idea in The Landscape of History which is “the point of no return.” Gaddis describes the point of no return as, “the moment at which an equilibrium that once existed ceased to do so as a result of whatever it is we’re trying to explain”.⁵ In other words, the point of no return represents a change in events that disrupts the peace that was once had. This process, Gaddis explains, is much like the paleontological principal “punctuated equilibrium” “rather, long periods of stability are “punctuated” by abrupt and destabilizing changes”.⁶ The idea of no return is one that relies a lot on context. For one event different people could argue that there are multiple points of no return. For these scenarios, Gaddis advises to return to the principal of diminishing relevance, “that gives us license to emphasize some of these over others”.⁹ Basically, the principal of diminishing relevance states that possible causation events that occur father away, or more distant, are not as relevant as events that are closer to the actual event.

Footnotes:

¹ John Lewis Gaddis, The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 95.

² Gaddis, 95.

³ Gaddis, 96.

⁴ Gaddis, 96.

⁵ Gaddis, 99.

⁶ Gaddis, 96.

⁷ Gaddis, 99.

Link to the timeline of commencement speeches: Timeline

Information about the timeline:

The goal of this timeline is to explore the changes of commencement orations throughout the history of Dickinson College. With information the Dickinson College Archives website, I was able to find dates from almost all of the commencement’s at Dickinson College. The website also listed as to whether or not student orations were given at the ceremonies or not. After looking at all of the entries from 1787 into the 1800’s a pattern grew.  Out of the first seven entries in the archives, about commencement ceremonies, only one showed a commencement ceremony that did not have every student give an oration. However, from 1850 until 1919 there was only one ceremony in which every student  gave a speech. The trend showed that student orations happened at all commencements, just not every student gave one. There were five dates that stood out as particular examples of what commencement speeches looked like at Dickinson College.

Wednesday, September 26, 1787

This was the first commencement at Dickinson College. Student orations were a large part of this graduation process as eight of the nine graduates performed orations.

Thursday, July 8, 1852

The Commencement of 1852 shows an example as to what these ceremonies looked like. Of the 21 graduates, 10 students gave orations. The topic of said speeches covered a wide range of  topics but mostly focused on examining social issues of the time  period such as the economic class divide and political justice.

Thursday, June 25, 1863

The Commencement of 1863 was the first ceremony, in the Dickinson College Archives, that does not have record of a student oration. There was a heighten concern about the Confederate involvement in the area so the ceremony was shortened.

Friday, Jun. 20, 1919

Celebrating the end of World War One, this commencement ceremony was coined the “Victory Commencement”. This was also the first time since the Civil War that a graduating student did not give a speech at the ceremony. The tradition of student orations ended here as from this point onward the outside people have the speeches at Dickinson College Commencements.

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

The most recent graduation showed that student orations did not make a comeback. The speaker was Governor Thomas Wolf.

Works Cited:

Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections. Timeline. Dickinson College. http://archives.dickinson.edu/college_history/browse_timeline

Overview:

Over the years Dickinson College Commencement Ceremonies have been celebrated with the presence of student speeches. This practice is one that was heavily practiced during the 18th and 19th century. In fact, all students at one point were required to give a speech at commencement. By examining the Dickinson Class of 1852 it became clear that these speeches focused on topics of social injustices. They provide information about what the students were learning and issues to of what they were concerned with.

Student orations from the class of 1852 are examined in more detail here.

There is a timeline of commencement ceremonies at Dickinson here.

If you are interested, there are more historical thinking ideas found here.

About me:

The purpose of this post is to examine the commencement process throughout the history of Dickinson College. The target audience is anyone who is interested in learning about Dickinson’s history or commencement ceremony’s of the past. I am currently a sophomore at Dickinson College, with a history minor.