So who would have known that we’d find a delightful little gem in the Atmospheric Sciences  (that’s P 138 for those keeping track).

The Atmospheric Sciences Department Photographs collection consists of images of department staff and graduate students, the remodeling of department offices, classroom scenes, and the Climatic Research Institute building. The building is in Corvallis at 811 Jefferson Avenue — take a field trip and see if you see the resemblance!

These delightful little 1940s gems showed up in our archive this week. Yes, they are our newest dance card additions!

What’s a Dance Card?

In the bygone days of formal courtship, dance cards played a large role in matching young couples. Dance cards were used to record and “reserve” dances between members of the opposite sex. The dance cards noted which songs were to be played and in what order. A man, or a woman, could then request a partner to dance during different songs with them. At the end of the evening, the dance card would be filled with the names of people who the student had danced with – or at least the people that had promised to dance with a student. A peek inside this dance card, from a 1926 junior prom (pictured next page), gives us an idea of what a dance card would have looked like by the end of the evening. If these dance cards are to be believed, there were some exciting people who showed up at OSU’s dances including Marie Antoinette, Marie Curie, Pochantas…

The dance cards themselves ranged from simple scraps of papers to the elaborate pamphlets. Often, they would come attached with little pencils so that students could easily “pencil” themselves into a certain dance slot. String or ribbon would also be attached to the dance card so that it could be worn around one’s wrist whilst dancing. The oldest cards in the University Archives date from the late 1890s – these are mainly from military balls. Dance cards really became popular at OSU in the early 1900s, when Americans experienced a ballroom craze. Young couples flocked to dance halls to learn the foxtrot, waltz, and two step.

Many of these dances were held at the MU – and students went all out to decorate it. For a Hawaiian themed dance in the 1950s, big glass tanks were brought in and filled with hundreds of gold fish. In 1951, the MU transformed was into the merry land of OZ. Students constructed miniature cities and towns for the enjoyment of their classmates. Instead of the Emerald City, students were invited into the Orange City – and were invited to view the world through these Orange Color glasses, which doubled as a dance card. Gradually, though, dance cards lost their edge and weren’t cool. By the 1960s, they were gradually made to commemorate dances given by fraternities and sororities. The last dance card was made in 1967.

Thanks to former student workers Kelsey and Ingrid Ockert for providing all these fabulous dance cards details! If you want to learn more about dance cards see more photos, check out the “Shall We Dance” set.

Christy Turner rode off into the archival sunset this week, ending a great 3+ year tenure at Special Collections (and then in the merged SCARC).

Christy Turner

She served the department in a variety of roles and on several notable projects before and after her graduation last spring, most recently as a temporary full-time staff member helping us navigate the new waters of our merger. Her last few months have been dedicated to mounting the new “Molecules to Monographs” exhibit currently on the 5th floor. Stop by and see it — you’ll be delighted and impressed!

Before she graduated we were lucky to have Christy serve as the Lead Student Worker for two years. She prepared student staffing schedules for both the 3rd floor and 5th floor public service desks, an uneviable and complicated task; prepared monthly statistics reports for both desks, again, not an easy thing; and served as a member of the SCARC Public Service Point Merger Group, the only student employee serving on any of our numerous working groups.

As Lead Student, Christy also served as a positive example to the rest of the student staff, and this she does unfailingly well, but she has also been a great asset to our combined department. Her knowledge of the 5th floor collections combined with her excellent customer service skills have been a tremendous boon to the effectiveness of the 5th floor public service desk and have served to lessen the reference burden that the full-time staff faces on a daily basis. She was also instrumental in guiding our students through the new reference processes and statistics tracking activities that have been implemented within the student workflow since our departmental merger was initiated.

While her organizational skill is formidable, Christy, who was a Fine Arts major, has also been integral to the aesthetics of our public side. She created, largely on her own, the major display “Linus Pauling: World Traveler.” She also did a smaller refresh of the Linus Pauling Office permanent exhibit in the 5th floor reading room and mounted framed photographs and text panels for display in our collections storage area.

Christy’s skill as a photographer has been enlisted on many occasions — which means we have very few pictures of her for this tribute! She photographed nearly all of the hundreds of images on the “Treasures of the McDonald Collection” and “Roger Hayward: Renaissance Man” sites. In addition, she photographed a number of events hosted by the department, including all five of the 2011 Resident Scholar presentations, as well as the Special Collections/University Archives anniversary celebration in November 2011.

Finally, while a fine artist by training, Christy assumed the role of “ad hoc graphic designer” for SCARC and did an astonishing job of teaching herself the skills necessary. Her portfolio includes unique graphics developed for both the web (“Treasures of the McDonald Collection,” Resident Scholar videos, numerous images for the forthcoming SCARC department website) and in print (the graphic identity for the 2012 Pauling Legacy Award event, SCARC rack cards).

She was been an integral component of whatever successes we have garnered in recent years — including the smooth merger of two units with long and unique histories of their own — and she is, without doubt, hugely deserving of our gratitude and highest praise. She is a credit to this library and will be missed.