Those who watch our events calendar or follow us on Facebook know that there’s been a lot going on for us this spring. Play readings, campus tours, public talks, sunshine, lots of classes. It’s been fun and busy!

Pride Week 2017 saw an April 25 panel discussion at the Native American Longhouse Eena Haws called “Consent is A-sexy and Required: Healthy Relationships with Asexual and Aromantic People.”

• Read about it on the OMA blog.

The OMA was also featured in the OLA Quarterly in an article called “Las Historias de Latinos en Oregón: Canby, Oregón An Oral History Project Collaboration Between A Librarian and an Archivist.”

• Read about the article and issue on the OMA blog. 

There are two blog posts on The Pauling Blog about Pauling’s relationship working with Daisaku Ikeda, a resident of Tokyo and the son of a seaweed farmer, witnessed first-hand the devastation that two nuclear bombs wrought upon his homeland.

• Read Part One: Pauling and Ikeda and Part Two: A Lifelong Quest for Peace.

Great news! All of the color slides and transparencies that were scanned and described from the Beaver Yearbook photos are now live. There are about 225 total, all from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s.

• See the assortment of color slides. 
• See the assortment of transparencies. 

Here are some of my favorites!

This front loader was clearing snow on Monroe Street in 1969. P003:1711

Dick Fosbury attended OSU from 1965-1969 and is remembered today as the inventor of the “Fosbury Flop” high jump technique. He won two national championships and an Olympic gold medal while revolutionizing the sport with his innovative approach to jumping higher. P003:2707

The Hall of Flags on the main concourse of the Memorial Union. P003:2474

These dryers were likely part of the Seavey hops yards in the south part of Corvallis. P003:1757

Student making a lithograph in a printmaking course. Art and several other social sciences and humanities subjects were approved as majors in 1966. P003:2952

There’s been a flurry of activity on the Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives’ blog.

OHBA student worker Gillian wrote a thoughtful piece on doing research on women in the brewing industries, specifically in how tough it was for her to find meaningful statistics when I asked her to find some.

• Read Women in the Brewing Industry

I spent most of this week in Washington, doing oral history interviews with Sybil Perkins and Robyn Schumacher in Seattle, and Ralph Woodall and Tom Carpenter in Yakima. I had a bit of time to kill between a meeting with Ralph Olson and Ann George, so I went in search of America’s First Brewpub.

• Read Yakima beer history ~ looking for Bert Grant’s brewpub

Ivy Lin’s “Bitter Harvest” short documentary film is debuting May 3rd at 7:00PM at the Kennedy School in Portland. It is part of Oregon Humanities “This Land / Your Land, My Land” exhibit exploring land ownership issues in minority communities in Oregon, and her piece focuses on Chinese immigrants growing hops in the Willamette Valley from 1890-1930. There will be a panel discussion after the film and I’ll be talking about historical research and saving these stories.

• Read Bitter Harvest : an essay with three short video pieces

Finally, Deschutes Brewery is hiring a summer intern to process and organize their company records. It’s a pretty awesome opportunity.

• Read Deschutes Brewery is hiring a temporary summer intern!

Edel Brau “It’s the beer” 1907

The topic of fermentation is an interesting one, and there was a surprising amount of information about it here in the Valley Library. After a day or two of struggling of what to look up, it dawned on me to figure out what kinds of food can be fermented. I had always known about pickled eggs, sauerkraut, vinegar, etc., but it just never clicked in my head that “hey, those are fermented!”

Once I had the stroke of genius, it was easier to find information, and boy is there information about fermentation. Unsurprisingly, there’s a bit of information regarding fermentation in Food Microbiology, as well as a lot of overlap in terms of sources for the fermented food items. There’s also a lot of information about wine, beer, and cider. Mead was a difficult one that kept bringing up different people with the name Mead.

To help make searching for these things easier, I also made up a map of the general locations that have information on each of these fermentation topics and gave ideas of their call numbers.

Fabulous new posts on the Oregon Multicultural Archives blog including some fabulous events, celebrations, and scanning projects!

Check them all out on the OMA blog. 

As things get busy I can forget to share all the wonderful works added to the other blogs.

Head over to the Pauling Blog to celebrate the anniversary of the blog and of the day Pauling was born!

Class in beekeeping, 1912

When you think of Oregon, you think of the vast acres of trees and the strong lumber industry. However, there’s a flourishing domestic food economy, and it’s been a fascinating facet of food history to delve into.

Dairy, wool, and orchards are common in Oregon, and it’s not uncommon to find an orchard, sheep, or dairy farm on the beautiful back roads of Oregon. Something that came up that I hadn’t previously thought about was beekeeping in Oregon.

Especially at the turn of the 20th century, there were several clubs, classes, and organizations for beekeeping. When delving a bit further into the beekeeping, it was fascinating to see that the equipment used for beekeeping hasn’t changed much.

Food writing is one of those tricky facets of history. What do you continue as writing? People’s notes? The things they’ve published? Magazines, books, periodicals? Luckily enough, OSU has a wide array of publishing. From books published via the Oregon State University Press to faculty in food oriented departments, we have a lot here on campus.

One of the most fascinating things found during the food publishing searching were countless recipe books down on the first floor, ranging from a wide array of decades. As well, they had food periodicals dating to pre-20th century, and let me tell you, it’s an incredible feeling to hold a book in your hands that dates in the late 1800’s. 

Here’s a gallery of some of the awesome finds from the 1st floor!

The Students Offering is the first known OSU publication, published in 1869 the first year of OSU. It is hand written by multiple students, and is over 30 pages long. Many of the students who wrote in it used pseudonyms.

It has a wide range of material in it, some of it more serious reflections on the time, however with close observation it becomes apparent that much of it is meant to be comedic. Each ‘section’ has a title and is usually 1-2 pages long.

One of the more serious sections is titled  “Finley and the Electric Telegraph.” It documents Hugh McNary Finley, the editor of The Students Offering’s fascination with electricity, and his hopes to better understand it through looking at the telegraph.

On page 13 there is an entertaining three-page story about a ‘young man’ attempting to marry a young lady named Betsy. Unfortunately Betsy’s mom is not as enthusiastic about the arrangement and ends up beating and chasing him, so he hides in a barrel of soap in the laundry room of Betsy and her parent’s house. After being found by Betsy and her mom, he has one last embrace with Betsy and in his words: “was torn from the arms of my Betsy never to see her again.” The writer signs off as “Sur Livingood.”

Throughout the publication, when a piece ends and there is space at the end of the page there are short poems or jokes such as “Why is Bachelor Square like Central Park New York? Because it is well supplied with fountains.”  In one such longer page break, there is a charming rhyming paragraph entitled “The Ten Commandments to the young ladies of Corvallis College” with some advice.

“The Ten Commandments, to the young ladies of Corvallis College.
Though shalt have no thoughts of the boys, cast no sheep eyes to such human boys; Abstain from rough hair; dress unclean, lest to the world uncomely you seem, take not of the pretty boys names in vain, nor dare be absent Wednesday again, be not jealous of thy neighbor, nor spend thine time in useless labor, take heed no heart to break asunder, or the faculty will give you thunder.” ~ Aunt Hannah

Looking at this publication was incredibly entertaining and offered a fun look into some of the thoughts and humor of the time when OSU first began. I’d highly recommend taking the time to look at it, I think it is one of the hidden treasures that this internship helped resurface.