As early as 1876, Daniel Coit Gilman alluded to engineering being a useful part of a university curriculum. Still engaged in working out the details of creating this University, he did not wish to take on the task of determining how engineering could fit into the curriculum. Up to that time, engineering training had focused on teaching mechanics how to assemble and repair machinery. Engineering was seen as an essentially pragmatic field that would not benefit from the University’s philosophy of “learning by doing” (i.e., the seminar method). Gilman was opposed to adding engineering instruction on a "conventional" basis, which would result, he felt, in having “an excellent polytechnicum but not a university.” But he was not opposed to the idea, if it could be done right.

Keep your distance!

Some engineering instruction was already being carried on, mostly in electrical engineering, under the aegis of Physics.  It was possible to earn, separate from the Bachelor of Arts, a Proficiency in Applied Electricity (PAE) certificate. John B. Whitehead earned a PAE in 1893, and a PhD in 1902 and was serving on the faculty as of 1900.

As the university grew in its original location (in the vicinity of Howard and Monument streets), there was no room for engineering, nor was there money to pay for it. Everyone assumed that engineering, when it began, would have to come with outside financial assistance. And that is how it happened. In 1912, the Maryland legislature appropriated $600,000 for a department of “applied science and advanced technology,” and pledged $50,000 per year in future support.  Probably because the University of Maryland was primarily an agricultural school, the legislature specified that the engineering program should be located at Johns Hopkins. There were no restrictions placed on the money, except a requirement to offer scholarships to Maryland students. Space was no longer an issue because the University planned to move to Homewood by 1916.

Maryland and Latrobe Hall

In 1913, the first engineering faculty members were named:  Charles J. Tilden (Civil Engineering), Carl C. Thomas (Mechanical Engineering), and John B. Whitehead (Electrical Engineering), and instruction began in the new Department of Engineering.  Two new buildings were planned at Homewood for engineering – the Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Building (renamed Maryland Hall in 1931), and the Civil Engineering Building (renamed Latrobe Hall, also in 1931).  Maryland Hall was built at the same time as Gilman Hall and both were dedicated on the same day – May 21, 1915.  Latrobe Hall was completed in 1916. In 1920, Engineering became a separate division alongside Arts and Sciences.

The status quo continued until 1966 when, in a move that initially was welcomed by nearly everyone, the School of Engineering merged with the Faculty of Philosophy to form the School of Arts and Sciences. Immediately after the merger, as reported to me by former dean Robert Roy, Engineering faculty realized the mistake they had made, when it became more difficult to attract the best faculty candidates, and graduate students as well. In 1979, the GWC Whiting School of Engineering was created and Engineering once again became a separate division within the University.

For further information, consult Mary Ruth Yoe’s Hopkins:  Engineering at the University (1989), written for the tenth anniversary of the Whiting School.  The Whiting School is also planning a new history of Hopkins engineering.

It means that the US Green Buildings Council (USGBC) recognizes that we've incorporated a lot of green construction and operations in the building, including:

• Increasing the use of natural lighting to reduce energy consumption
• Using energy efficient lighting with sensors in the teaching and study spaces
• Establishing sustainable cleaning and landscape programs
• Running efficient HVAC systems with CO2 monitoring
• Conducting waste stream audits to benchmark recycling programs and identify opportunities to maximize material conservation
• Reusing marble from Gilman and Shriver for the new beach stairs and south entrance

What's even more exciting is that we're the first building on campus to achieve this distinction!

But we're not ones to rest on our laurels. We'd love to hear your thoughts on how the Brody's working. Click here to tell us your thoughts on the temperature, lights, and other aspects of the building. The survey is open until midnight, May 14. As an incentive to participate, there will be a random drawing at the end for three $25 Daily Grind gift certificates.

The contest is open to all registered Johns Hopkins University students, and entrants must submit a bibliography of up to 50 items and an essay describing the collection.

“This contest is one of the highlights of the year at the libraries,” said Winston Tabb, Sheridan Dean of University Libraries and Museums. “We are given the opportunity to learn about some fabulous collections and to meet the truly fascinating individuals from across the university who created these very personal book collections. I want to thank all who entered and to congratulate this year’s winners.”

First prize for the undergraduate division was awarded to Lily Boettcher, from the Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, for her collection The Publication of American Values and the Formation of “Nation,” 1870-1915. There was a tie for first prize in the graduate category, with Krieger School student Amanda Zecca and Elisabet Pujadas, a student at the School of Medicine and the Whiting School of Engineering, each receiving top honors for their respective collections, From Berkeley to Black Mountain: Avant-Garde Poetry, 1945-1965 and Deconstructing Santiago Ramón y Cajal. Boettcher, Zecca, and Pujadas each received $1000 for their winning entries.

Second prize in the undergraduate category was awarded to Joseph Shaikewitz, from the Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, for How Do You Spell Contemporary?: Defining, Discovering, and Displaying Today’s Art World. Janet Jai, also from the Krieger School, garnered second prize in the graduate division for poemArt and Its Predecessors (Finding Out Where I came From). Both Shaikewitz and Jai were awarded $500. There were no third place winners in either category this year.

“We are delighted that the overall quality of the entries not only has increased every year, but also that the 2013 event certainly has produced a bumper crop of exceptional merit, resulting in a graduate division first place tie for two especially remarkable and unique collections,” said Betty Sweren.

Selections from this year's winning entries will be on display on M-level of the Milton S. Eisenhower Library through July 1.

Mention Baltimore to an out-of-towner and a few things are likely to come up in conversation: The Wire will almost certainly be mentioned; possibly Hairspray. As will crab cakes, Cal Ripken, and Camden Yards.

But odds are that the Inner Harbor, Baltimore's most recognizable feature, will come before all of those other noteworthy topics. For generations of Baltimoreans and visitors alike, the tourist-friendly pavilion of shops, restaurants, and attractions has simply always been part of the landscape. Except it wasn't. And it almost didn't get built at all.

Martin Millspaugh, who served as Chief Executive of Charles Center-Inner Harbor Management Inc., oversaw the development of the Inner Harbor and Charles Center from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s. The project ultimately involved 260 acres of downtown land and almost $7 billion worth of construction. Developers weathered initial skepticism, and the venture’s legacy endures as one of the most influential urban renewal projects ever accomplished.

The Sheridan Libraries recently acquired Millspaugh's papers, more than 50 linear feet(!) of correspondence, writings, subject files, photographs, and books, spanning the mid-1950s to present. After Inner Harbor development reached completion in the mid-1980s, Millspaugh joined famed developer James W. Rouse at Enterprise Development Corporation, a consulting firm that helped cities worldwide plan their own Inner Harbor-like projects. The Martin L. Millspaugh Papers document this transition, including project files related to clients as far-flung as Sydney, Osaka, and Rotterdam.

We are excited to present a panel discussion on the project with Millspaugh and several experts in the areas of real estate, development, and Baltimore history. Join Michael Anikeeff from the Carey School; F. Barton Harvey, former chair of the non-profit Enterprise Foundation; and author and historian Gil Sandler for a fascinating look back at the project and an examination of its legacy --- local and global --- and what the future might hold.

The event takes place at 6 pm  on Thursday, April 18 at the Carey Business School's Harbor East campus.

Space for the event is limited, and we ask that you RSVP to libraryfriends@jhu.edu.

]]> http://blogs.library.jhu.edu/wordpress/2013/04/the-icon-that-almost-wasnt-there/feed/ 1 http://blogs.library.jhu.edu/wordpress/2013/03/whats-in-a-name/ http://blogs.library.jhu.edu/wordpress/2013/03/whats-in-a-name/#comments Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:00:09 +0000 Brian Shields http://blogs.library.jhu.edu/wordpress/?p=68031 The Friends of the Libraries are pleased to host author, artist, and environmental activist James Prosek for the 2013 Paula U. Hamburger Lecture on Thursday, March 28. His talk “The Taxonomist’s Dilemma: Or, What’s in a Name?” will explore the … Continue reading →

The Friends of the Libraries are pleased to host author, artist, and environmental activist James Prosek for the 2013 Paula U. Hamburger Lecture on Thursday, March 28. His talk "The Taxonomist's Dilemma: Or, What's in a Name?" will explore the role that names and naming play in how we perceive nature and the natural world.

The event starts with a reception and book signing at 6 pm in Mason Hall; admission is free. RSVP to libraryfriends@jhu.edu.

Parrotfish, courtesy of James Prosek.

Prosek, called "the Audubon of fish" by the New York Times, is the author of 11 books and numerous articles on nature. His most recently published work, Ocean Fishes (2012), is a collection of his water colors of fish from the world's oceans. His book on eels was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice for 2011 and formed the basis for next month's PBS Nature special "The Mystery of Eels."

In addition to his work as an author and artist, Prosek is a noted environmentalist and the cofounder of the World Trout Initiative. NPR discussed one of his early novels, The Day My Mother Left, as part of its Backseat Book Club in February, and the Nature Conservancy has a feature on Prosek's work and the intersection of art and conservation.

 

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"On the evening of September 17, 1908, the library suffered a loss...on the building [and]...contents by a fire which started in the south end of the so-called 'stack-room,' occupying the northwest corner of the fourth floor of McCoy Hall...The corridor leading to the Main Library and also the loft and tower above this floor were ablaze, but the prompt response of the city's Fire Department and its efficient action on the scene secured a check before any considerable exit thru the roof or an entrance into the Main Library was made..."

"One collection of great interest...suffered badly, viz. that of 305 volumes in logic, scholastic philosophy, etc., collected by Professor C. S. Peirce and purchased by the Library in 1881. The old contemporary bindings - some incunabula - must go, tho the text is in the main still available but shorter lived."

M. L. Raney, "Report of the Librarian"  Report of the President of The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, 1909, pp. 77, 78.

C.S. Peirce

Charles Sanders Santiago Peirce was a logician, mathematician, chemist, astronomer, geologist, and philosopher and had come to Hopkins in 1879 as a lecturer in logic and philosophy. He had been elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1877 in recognition of his contributions to the fields of astronomy, mathematics, and physics while with the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. He is still considered one of the foremost American philosophers and is credited as the founder of pragmatism. While at Hopkins, Peirce established the short-lived Metaphysical Club, an outgrowth of a similar discussion group in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of which he was an active participant.

The Johns Hopkins University purchased Peirce's library of 305 volumes in 1881, including three manuscript books and 31 incunable volumes. The scope of the collection ranged from a 12^th century manuscript book of Peter Lombard’s Sententiae to many 19^th century editions published during Peirce’s lifetime, and included editions of such notable philosophers as Aristotle and Aquinas, as well as Duns Scotus, Leibniz, Hegel, and Kant. The collection in its entirety cost the University $550.

Peirce left Johns Hopkins in 1884 and returned to his scientific work with the Coast and Geodetic Survey. He was reputed to be a difficult colleague and perhaps too complex to be an effective teacher; his parting with the University was not a congenial one.

Peirce continued to correspond with President Daniel Coit Gilman and the Head Librarian at Hopkins, William Hand Browne, in an attempt to repurchase his collection. He wished to have the books back in his possession to facilitate his research on the history of philosophical terminology. The correspondence continued until 1901 and ultimately ended in the Board of Trustees' decision not to resell the collection.

Hot title!: Georges de Bruxelles, Cursus quaestionum super totam Logicam

Peirce’s books were housed with the rest of the library in the original McCoy Hall, located on Hopkins’ first campus at Howard and Monument streets. In September 1908, when the stack room in McCoy Hall was severely damaged by fire, many books were scorched and a few completely destroyed. Despite the discouraging tone of the librarian's report, only five items from Peirce’s collection are recorded as having been lost. Over a hundred years later, evidence of smoke is still visible on many of the books including a 1496 edition of Georges de Bruxelles’ work on logic, Cursus quaestionum super totam Logicam, and Radulphus' Quaestiones de jure. Peirce carefully documented his library in a notebook, showing his valuation of the items as well as bibliographic information and, sometimes, brief editorial notes. It seems like the University got a good deal – his self-appraised incunables were listed for around five dollars! At today's dollar values, they would still be a bargain.

While the bulk of Peirce's papers are held by Harvard's Houghton Library, this notebook is part of the historical manuscript collections in the Sheridan Libraries (MS 179). Accession records in the University Archives provide a definitive list of the items that were actually purchased. The extant collection is now housed in Special Collections and includes all of the original manuscript books and incunables, as well as the majority of the original purchase. One manuscript codex, the Summulae logicales of Pope John XXI, even contains a note indicating that it was returned to Hopkins from Harvard in 1915!

McCoy Hall

Way back in October, 2012, during Open Access Week, the Scholarly Communications Group announced an initiative to help JHU authors publish their articles in Open Access journals.

Now we need your help (yes, you!) to spread the word. Only 9 savvy and knowledgeable JHU authors have received money from the JH Libraries Open Access Promotion Fund. There should be more! Authors supported by NIH grants HAVE to make sure their articles are freely available to all within 12 months of publication.

The awardees (so far) are:

• Dr. Michael Barone, Pediatrics, SoM in BMC Medical Education
• Dr. Stephan Ehrhardt, Epidemiology, SPH in PLoS ONE
• John Kim, Biomedical Engineering, WSE in Medical Devices: Evidence and Research
• Dr. Larisa Tereshchenko, Cardiology, SoM in PLoS ONE
• Dr. Rajat Mittal, Mechanical Engineering, WSE in PLoS ONE
• Jessica Mavadia, Biomedical Engineering, SoM in Biomedical Optics Express
• Dr. Greg Bowman, Biophysics, KSAS in Nucleic Acids Research (twice!)
• Allison Chambliss, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, WSE in Scientific Reports
• Dr. Kay Dickersin, Epidemiology, SPH in PLoS Medicine

If you publish in a fully Open Access journal that requires you, the author, to pay, then we can reimburse you. It's very easy. The form is online here.

So spread the word! And help us truly make JHU a place of Knowledge for the World.

Muller’s family eventually settled in Los Angeles and Muller landed several small movie roles prior to graduating from UCLA in 1948. He studied in Oxford under a Rhodes Scholarship, and then earned his doctorate from Cornell in 1958. He returned to Cornell a few years later as a faculty member in political science then became vice president for public affairs.

In 1971, Muller was chosen Provost at Hopkins, to work under President Lincoln Gordon. While still dividing his time and traveling between Cornell and Hopkins, he heard on his car radio that President Gordon had resigned without prior notice. Reportedly, his first thought upon hearing that was, “OK, now what?” The trustees asked Milton Eisenhower, who had retired from the presidency in 1967, to return. Eisenhower agreed, but only until a successor could be found, and he expected the search to be expedited. Eisenhower must have liked his provost, because Muller’s “provostship” became an apprenticeship to the next level. After only ten months as Provost, the trustees named Dr. Muller to succeed Milton Eisenhower.

Dr. Muller presided over eighteen years of expansion, both of programs and of buildings. Nine major buildings were constructed at Homewood during his presidency. He was instrumental in founding the Nanjing Center, in partnership with Nanjing University, and he was the driving force behind NASA selecting Hopkins as the site for a new Space Telescope Science Institute, headquarters for the Hubble Space Telescope. Students nicknamed him, “The Man with the Tan,” due to his bronzed appearance.

He retired in 1990 after eighteen years as president, the second-longest tenure in University history, behind only Daniel Coit Gilman’s twenty-five years. He founded the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in affiliation with Hopkins in 1983, and remained associated with AICGS in retirement. He was also the second University president to serve as President of The Johns Hopkins Hospital (the first since Gilman).

On a personal note, one of the first projects I worked on after joining the University Archives in 1983 was processing the archival records of the Office of the President, including the office records covering the first ten years of President Muller’s tenure. It was a great opportunity to see behind the scenes how the office worked and how decisions were made.

During the Federal Period (1789 -1830), Christmas was not universally kept. In the book Christmas in America, Penne Restad quotes Elizabeth Drinker who divided Philadelphians into three categories. “There were Quakers, who make no more account of it than another day, those who were religious, and the rest who spend it in riot and dissipation." In many places, especially large cities, Christmas was a rowdy affair complete with wassailers and mummers who would visit and enter the homes of the wealthy to extract drink and money. Other activities included card playing, horse racing, nine-pins, and cock fighting. There was little gift giving, and when it was done it was for the children who were given Christmas boxes that would hold small gifts. If adults did exchange presents, it was often a potted plant or perhaps a gift book.

In the South, from Baltimore to Georgia, Christmas celebrations were more similar than they were in the Northern states. On Christmas Day, stores, and banks were closed. The harvests were in, animals were slaughtered for meat, and the beer and wine was ready to drink. There would be a yule log burning and lots of special foods to eat. Throughout the South, the shooting of guns at dawn announced Christmas Day. Some owners allowed their slaves to fire guns or use explosives to announce the day. At plantations and in Southern cities, there were parties, dinners, and dances to celebrate the season.

In addition, the celebration of Twelfth Night was popular most often in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. The Carrolls observed the day; in 1812 Louisa Carroll wrote in her copy book that the family had attended a Twelfth Night party. For many couples, it was the opportune time to marry, one famous couple being George and Martha Washington.

Slave owners varied in how they allowed their slaves to celebrate Christmas -- from no celebration to the giving of wine, food, and time to prepare and enjoy their own festivities which included music and dancing. Gifts to slaves varied from small items to money. At Hampton Mansion, the Ridgleys gave slave children Christmas gifts which Eliza Ridgley recorded from 1832 -1850. To see the names of slave children and their gifts, scroll to page eleven of this PDF.

As times changed so did Christmas celebrations, but that is material for another blog post.

Introduction to the George Peabody Library, Instructor Heidi Herr
In this course, students will learn about the history of the George Peabody Library and its collections (some already viewable on Flickr), utilizing social media such as Youtube and Flickr to create an online cultural platform for the library. Students will receive an introduction to special collections research and will work extensively with rare materials. All classes will take place at the George Peabody Library.

Introduction to Library Research, Instructors Chella Vaidyanathan & Yuanshan Ye
Want to learn how to use the library like a scholar? If so, this class is for you! This course provides an introduction to research in the humanities and social sciences disciplines. Students will gain a good understanding of the print and electronic resources available through the Sheridan Libraries. They will learn how to search and locate information efficiently using relevant databases, how to conduct effective literature review, how to critically evaluate information and follow scholarly conventions in documenting sources in the humanities and social sciences and develop more effective research skills.

Introduction to Special Collections, Instructor Chella Vaidyanathan
This course offers an introduction to research in Special Collections. Particularly, the class will focus on primary sources available for the First World War. Students will be introduced to a variety of primary source materials such as personal correspondence, posters, caricatures, newspaper clippings, etc. They will learn how to use primary sources effectively and work in a group to create a digital scrapbook on a topic of their choice.

Landscape of Scientific Information, Instructors Susan Payne & Robin Sinn
Through interactive sessions and exercises, students will gain hands-on practice in library research techniques designed for the sciences. Because there is an ever increasing amount of data and scholarly research available, having improved search techniques and evaluation skills will help you as you search for information for projects, course work, and everyday life. We'll give you tools and tips that will let you evaluate resources, identify outliers, and feel confident about the information you use in your coursework and everyday life.

Need help now?
Do you have a paper or project looming and don’t know where to start? Please feel free to contact your librarian or check out the Sheridan Libraries Research Guides where you can find information on a variety of topics including proper citation and evaluating materials found on the Internet.