Daily Archives: July 9, 2007

Adventures in the Archives: Hunting for History

Students Map of Campus1.jpg

Upward Bound Students: Welcome to the OSU Archives!

Congratulations! You have found your first clue!

The map shown above is one that was drawn by a student for the 1934 Beaver yearbook. We don’t know much about the artist, Wayne Bagley, but we do know that he included all the clues on his map that you will need to finish this scavenger hunt.

In your hunt for Oregon State University history, you will use Wayne’s map to find buildings in the main quad of campus, going from building to building in search of clues. On the second day of the hunt, you will spend some time investigating the Archives, looking for more information about Wayne and his roaring 1920s college life!

Wayne was a student at Oregon State College, as OSU was known in the 1920s, from 1926-1930. He was an active artist while at OSC, though he was an Engineering major! He was a member of Kappa Kappa Alpha, the Hammer and Coffin (the Oregon State chapter of the national honor humor fraternity), the National Honorary Fraternity in Art, as well as a member of Theta Delta Nu and an editor for the Beaver yearbook. In 1928, he was on the staff for the Orange Owl, which was a comic magazine on campus and a publication of the Hammer and Coffin.

The Orange Owl, Oregon State’s humor magazine for 8 years, was full of literary articles, verses, jokes, skits, cartoons, and pictures. In 1928, the same year Wayne was involved, the Hammer and Coffin decided to stop publishing the magazine because there were so many complaints by people who were offended by the articles; later that year, the magazine was shut completely down by a student interest committee.

To begin, click on the map, and then write down the “Item Number” on a paging slip and give it to the person at the Archives reference desk.

Good luck and have fun!