From the Desk of Felicity Knox ’94, Library Associate to Special Collections and University Archives
Q: What is the oldest item in Special Collections and University Archives?
A: The oldest items are perhaps also some of the most unexpected. In the late 1930s, a State Teachers College at Towson (STC) history professor named Lena C. Van Bibber acquired a collection of cuneiform tablets for STC from the American Consul in Iraq. Cuneiform is an ancient writing system, and the tablets note the payment of taxes, in the form of goats and sheep, to a temple. One tablet even holds the seal of the scribe who made it. The tablets were used as teaching aids, and still are today. Classes discuss the value of the tablets in their past form as receipts for payment and in their present form as pieces of ancient history. We also deliberate the concerns they raise about cultural heritage and repatriation of artifacts. These tablets are about 4,000 years old.
Have a question for Felicity? Email her at fknox AT_TOWSON.
This year, the Special Collections and University Archives department was honored to receive a donation of material from 1965 graduate, Robert Ward. An award-winning author and screenplay writer for movies and television shows including Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice, Ward has donated his manuscripts, reviews, and other related papers.
Included are items like the screenplay for the 1981 movie Cattle Annie and Little Britches, based on the book of the same name that Ward wrote. The movie starred Burt Lancaster, Rod Steiger, Diane Lane and Amanda Plummer.
Until the 1960s, graduation ceremonies were held on the lawn near Glen Esk. This 1935 photograph commemorates the first time students graduated with bachelor’s degrees from the newly named State Teachers College at Towson. They are facing the orchestra, and wearing caps and gowns, while the rest of the graduates are in white.
As the school grew larger and enrollment numbers rose, graduation ceremonies were moved to the field near Burdick Hall, as is seen in this photo from 1969. If it rained, ceremonies were held in the gym.
Just a year later, the 1970 commencement was moved indoors and downtown to the Baltimore Civic Center, now known as Royal Farms Arena. Ceremonies would move back to campus after the construction of the Towson Center in 1977. Now they are held at SECU Arena.