Blount Library Blog - Library at Averett University

At some point in the 1990s, U.S. radio stations and supporters began celebration National Radio Day on August 20th. Although observance of the day isn't common - and tends to wax and wane even among radio enthusiasts (note that this website dedicated to the day gave up the ghost after 2019) - as a trained media historian I'm always happy to use any excuse to call attention to Averett's archival collections related to mass media.

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Act 1: Who and When

Although it can be easy to assume that academia is too staid and intellectually high-brow to be drawn in by the appeal of popular culture and popular trends, nothing could be further from the truth. One Image of students in a WDVA studio from the 1955 Averett View Book need look no further than the occasional news-making appearance of a course on Taylor Swift, to see that topics that are trendy in culture are also regularly fodder for academic study.

By the 1930s, one of the hottest topics was the new and booming field of commercial radio. For a few decades before the rise of television, radio was more than the music, talk shows, and news that we associate it with today. In those early years, radio stations would broadcast theater productions, live performances, game shows, and even early dramatic and comedic series - effectively pioneering the business model and scheduling behaviors that broadcast television would adopt by the 1950s. Indeed, numerous early television series' were actually established on radio before they transitioned to television.

In this new media environment, Averett - like presumably many other colleges nationwide - began integrating the trendy topic of radio into its offerings in a variety of ways:

No later than the 1936-37 school year, the catalogue began promising that students in the senior year of Voice training would take part in several public performances, including an "appearance on radio." This reference to radio appearances would remain in the catalogue for nearly 30 years, finally disappearing in the mid-1960s.
No later than the 1940-41 school year, the catalogue also started promising radio time to the choirs. That year, the catalogue stated: "During the second semester, the choirs broadcast two morning programs weekly over the radio station which has been set up at the college for that purpose."
By the 1943-44 catalogue, students in Speech courses also began interacting with radio on a weekly basis. That year the introductory blurb for the Speech department declared that the facilities of WBTM were "used by Averett students for weekly radio productions."
By the following year, 1944-45, radio made the leap to full-fledged course-work, when "Radio Technique" was added to the curriculum. Although the course was not offered every year, it would remain in the catalogue all the way through the 1977-78 school year. It was popular enough to be a year-long, 6-credit course from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. (Although "Radio Technique" was not described as a full-year course in catalogues until 1948, in preserved Averett schedules it appeared in both semesters as early as fall 1946.)

Act 2: Where and What

As evidenced by the Choir entry from 1940 mentioned above, Averett was not simply interacting with radio. An entire room had been converted for radio usage. Unfortunately information is scant, and it is not clear exactly what level of technology was installed on campus - for example, it is never entirely clear if the room was actually able to broadcast live, or if it simply had practice equipment and local recording capabilities. A Chanticleer article from January 1943 specfically mentions a "Speech Studio" as the location for campus radio try-outs; as the technology for such a studio would have used very similar equipment, it is likely that the Speech Studio was intentionally Image of students preparing for or performing a radio broadcast from a 1951 Averett view book designed to double as a radio room. The 1940-41 catalog quoted above implies that the radio room could be used to broadcast live (probably by connecting directly to WBTM). A photo in the 1962 view book likewise implies broadcast ability, as the image includes an "On Air" sign, though this image may have been taken at a local station rather than on Averett's campus.

Although most of the actual content the students performed over the radio is now lost to history - a real shame, as it would be very interesting to know how they were managing the workload at a weekly pace in certain years - it would appear that a significant amount of the programming Averett students were creating were short versions of well-known plays. We have Chanticleer student newspaper reports for four separate performances in spring of 1943: The Importance of Being Earnest (Speech Department, mid Feb.), The Singer of Eternal Melodies (Averett Players, Feb. 20), The Spectacles (Averett Players, Feb. 27th), The Violin Maker of Cremona (Averett Players, Mar. 6), and A Norse Folk Tale (Averett Players, May 1). These reports indicate that there were at least nine radio performances that semester alone.

There were at least a few occasions, however, where the students performed little known or even original material. An article from the Danville Bee indicates that, on 16 Oct. 1950 (broadcast at 10pm and, thus, almost certainly recorded rather than live), nine Averett students performed "The Listener's Digest" - a "parody on radio programs" written by students Sam Patterson, T.G. Harper, and Gurdine Link (the first two were male veterans attending on the G.I. Bill; Patterson in particular would continue to be an amateur playwright for the rest of his life). It seems likely, therefore, that a number of the weekly programs - dubbed "Averett College on the Air" in this 1950 news report, and "The Averett College Hour" in an internal memo from 1960 - were not only performed but also scripted by Averett students.

Picture of Elizabeth Otwell from the 1939 Pendulum Yearbook Act 3: Why

While there is no preserved evidence explaining exactly why Averett began its foray into radio, it is likely that the big push for radio education occurred at the behest of Speech and Dramatic Arts instructor Elizabeth Otwell. Otwell joined Averett in the fall of 1935, teaching here until spring 1941, and then returned for a second stint from 1945 to 1952. Otwell was on the faculty when the Voice classes started performing on radio (1936-7), when the choirs started performing on radio (1940-1), and would have been the teacher of "Radio Technique" in all of its known 1940s appearances on the schedule. All told, she was the primary teacher of Speech and Drama for twelve of the first fifteen years that radio was a part of Averett's clubs or curriculum.

Sadly, we have no archived syllabi for the "Radio Technique" course, and thus cannot state for sure what students were being taught. However, Blount Library's circulating collection still contains a copy of Hilliard's Writing for Television and Radio, if you would like to read up on some of the basics of radio production (such as microphone usage, sound effects, etc).

Exeunt

For a campus that never experimented with the full-scale 'college radio' that has kept the medium alive on other campuses, the end of radio instruction at Averett came in a predictable way. By the 1978-79 school year, decades after television had effectively supplanted radio, it had become impossible for the school to continue to justify a course focused exclusively on radio. "Radio Technique" was thus dropped in favor of a course on "Broadcasting" (which allowed for some educational continuity by combining radio education with television education). By the 1970s, it was increasingly common for Averett to use radio for faculty and staff programming (the "Averett College Scholarship Quiz" and "Current Issues Forum" most notably) rather than as a student educational tool. By this point, the era of student-radio at Averett was over, likely many years after most students had ceased to be particularly interested as the zeitgeist had long since abandoned radio for newer technologies.

Recent Posts

Treasures from the Averett Archives: Faculty Housing During the Depression

As alien as the situation would seem to us today, for most of the first 100 years of Averett's existence, the bulk of the faculty and staff lived on campus in the dorms alongside students. U.S. Census information dating back to the late 1800s lists Averett's old Patton Street building as the residence of numerous faculty. More recently, Averett contracts preserved by Dean and History teacher Mary Fugate indicate that she was receiving “room and board” as part of her compensation into the early 1950s.While this may seem strange to us, there was a very simple reason for faculty to live on campus. In these years the faculty were, by and large, not Danville residents. They would come to campus for nine months of work and then return to their homes for the summer. On-campus housing was, thus, a path of least resistance to encourage desirable faculty to sign contracts.For numerous years between the late 1920s and the early 1940s (coincidentally, these years overlap almost exactly with the Great Depression), Dean Fugate's student enrollment folders contain housing information. Though often incomplete, these files allow us a glimpse into the lived experience of faculty room and board.In this analysis, I will focus on Main Hall, as information for Danville Hall room assignments is largely nonexistent, and the “Annex” - now called Davenport Hall - is no longer recognizable after numerous renovations.Main Hall's dorm rooms have always been restricted to the 2nd and 3rd floor. In the years between 1911 (when it was first opened) and the end of faculty room and board, the 1st floor and basement were predominantly reserved for group usage space (dining hall, auditorium, library, classrooms, etc).During the 1928-29 school year, faculty housing on the two upper floors was organized like this:It should be clear from this image that faculty spaces were quite well defined at this point. Aside from the Nurse, who roomed in the vicinity of the Infirmary, faculty housing in Main Hall was restricted to the 2nd floor. Faculty also tended to receive corner locations (Willeford, Bryan, and Alderson), and/or be housed on the side of the building facing the street. Voice teacher Laura Fuessel - who clearly received outsized consideration - was even given an entire converted classroom for her living space. The only anomaly here is room 29. Rationally, Virginia Harper would make more sense in a corner room. However, in later years room 29 was used as a storage closet, so there may have been something especially undesirable about that particular location even in these early years.The following year, little changed. Three of the faculty rooms on the 2nd floor were given over to students, while the faculty move over to the Annex, but otherwise the clear organizational pattern remained: 2nd floor restriction, and corner placement in most cases.By 1932-33, with the Depression in full swing, the system began to show some strain:Note that faculty at this point were being encouraged to double-up on room occupancy wherever possible. Faculty with daughters in attendance (i.e. Mrs. H.D. Callison) were sharing rooms with their children. Meanwhile, sisters Mary and Elizabeth Fugate also voluntarily shared a room. Additionally, faculty placement in rooms on the right side of the 2nd floor had lost coherence by this point, and appear to have been assigned almost at random. The 3rd floor had also been penetrated by two faculty. Although the preference for corners and the street-facing side of the building remains, Langston was also placed seemingly at random in the middle of the hall.By 1936-37, the pattern was clearly becoming difficult for the school to maintain in the face of other pressures:Fuessel and Mary Fugate remained in the same locations, as did the Nurse (more or less), and Elizabeth Fugate was given a room of her own next door to her sister (though not the corner room). The preference for the southwest corner grew to occupy four rooms. But the other positions were unpredictable and seemingly chosen from leftovers. Indeed, the notation for Miss Hart's room (53) indicates that she wasn't even guaranteed the space, and that it would only be her room "if left open" after student rooms were assigned.By the 1940-41 school year, very little had changed - predominantly the same faculty and staff were in the same rooms where they had lived in 1936. Notable in this year is that the archives has preserved a complete list of faculty indicating that nearly half (12 of 27) were by that point living in their own houses rather than in dormitory space. The ever increasing size of the faculty - clearly visible in the growing number of occupied rooms - had already pushed many off campus entirely.Although we do not have a faculty residence document for later years, it is clear from student rosters that, by the early 1940s, faculty had been pulled out of Main Hall entirely and were rooming elsewhere. A student roster from 1943-44 produces this result (hats indicate known student rooms):Although we have an oddity (there are students listed for room 45, which does not appear to exist), students were placed in almost every single room aside from the classrooms and the rooms traditionally reserved for the Infirmary (46, 47, 48, 50) or storage (29). Room 57 is the only other unknown.While I have not produced occupancy maps for the Annex, similar patterns are visible in that location in the same time frame. In late 1920s charts, faculty were predominantly clustered into four rooms in a corner on the second floor. By 1932-33, half of them were gone and the layout was unpredictable, with faculty rooms seemingly placed at random, and double occupancy in at least one instance (Dorothy Shipman rooming with Ruth Rice). By 1936-37, only one room in the annex remained a staff room, and that one was occupied by Madie Lee Walker, the school's Dean of Women (an administrative position very closely tied to student life and thus easier to defend as an inclusion in dorm space). She remained the only staffer in the Annex as late as 1940-41.While it isn't clear exactly where the faculty went, presumably they slowly transitioned to being full-time Danville residents and began taking up permanent residence in nearby houses and apartments. While that process was clearly well underway by 1940, it is unclear when it became standard practice for most employees.For a brief period of time, then, the lived experience of campus would have included an obvious and large presence of faculty. For many years, between 25% and 33% of the 2nd floor would have been faculty housing. In the mid-1930s, and lingering in most locations into the mid-1940s, every floor of every building would have had between one and seven faculty in residence. This would obviously have been very different from the modern sense of dorms as a space geared towards and dominated by students. In the first half of the 20th century, both the students and the faculty would have led lives that were intertwined - as both surrounded each other and dealt with similar issues in not only their school schedules but also their day-to-day lives....

Stories from the Averett Archives: Mary Fugate's Story Hour During the Great Depression

In the 1930s, the Great Depression was a global crisis. Its effects were felt everywhere, including at Averett.In an interview for a student research paper from the early 1970s, long-time Dean Mary Fugate remarked that student accounts at this time were sometimes settled via barter, resulting in stretches of time where meals regularly included beets, peaches, or some other produce the school had acquired in lieu of cash. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that cook Bea Nelson was often praised in other reminiscences for her baked goods - rolls and pies - items that would have stood out in a relentless flood of stockpiled goods acquired from student families.In the same essay, Fugate is also quoted as saying that faculty salaries were cut at least twice during the Depression. Evidence for salary issues exists in at least two places in the archives. First, according to contracts she preserved, Mary Fugate's salary, which had risen almost every year prior to the Depression, dropped by nearly 1/3rd - from $1900 per year to $1312 per year - between 1933 and 1938, and had still not fully recovered by 1943. Second, in the faculty file of music teacher Laura Janos Fuessel - who appears to have been accustomed to living at the limit of her means - relentless letters to the administration are preserved that bemoan her low rate of pay and ask for cash advances to help cover her debts. (It would certainly have come as a surprise to Ms. Fuessel to learn that she was actually one of the school's highest paid employees at that time.)In this environment, where students had few luxuries and many couldn't even afford to make a short trip home during holidays, small acts of kindness coupled with free food could create lasting memories. Such is the case with Mary Fugate's "Story Hour."On Sunday evenings, Ms. Fugate - who, like most faculty in the 1930s, lived on campus in the same building as the students - invited any interested student to join her for an hour of stories and snacks. The invitation was accepted gratefully by countless young women over the years.It is unclear where the event was held specifically during the Depression years. Dr. Hayes' A History of Averett College mentions that it took place in the 'radio room,' though it's unclear if that applies to all years, or was simply one of a revolving door of locations. (Hayes' citation for the paragraph includes personal correspondence with three alumni - two from the class of 1930 and one from 1937 - but it is not clear which of the three mentioned the radio room.)Wherever they met, the gathering was delightfully low-key. Unlike official campus events, the evening's casual atmosphere was assured by the lack of a dress code, with the result of this particular freedom being that "[m]ore often than not it looks like a pajama party." Over the course of the evening, Ms. Fugate herself would read the students one or more short stories - a particular favorite being the Henry Van Dyke Christmas piece "The Story of the Other Wise Man." (A copy of this story was donated to the library in the mid-1980s by alum Nina Pruett [1928-30], with an inscription on the inside front cover reading "Remembering kind considerations of a busy person" and identifying this story as her favorite of the many that had been read.) But the evening's best feature, as far as the students were concerned, were the treats. Always a surprise, they were prepared by Ms. Fugate herself (with assistants, which included librarian Dorothy Shipman and assistant physical education instructor Katharine Carter in 1934-35), and were considered a wonderful addition to the bagged meals provided for the students on Sundays.Mary Fugate's Story Hour - though, like most campus culture, it left minimal archival traces - is a sweet example of the sort of event that was only possible back when Averett was a small women's college. Fond memories of almost familial experiences became much less common as the student body expanded and the faculty took housing off-campus (and often out of Danville entirely)....

Treasures from the Averett Archives: Competition Over the Constitution in the Congressional Papers of "Dan" Daniel

The largest non-Averett collection held by the Averett University Archives is the congressional papers of conservative Democrat "Dan" Daniel. Consisting of more than 300 boxes of material, the "Dan" Daniel Collection contains countless letters, memos, speeches, and other files from Mr. Daniel's 19 years in the U.S. House of Representatives. For "Constitution Day" this year, we are sharing a little of Mr. Daniel's behind-the-scenes materials referencing Constitutional amendments. "Dan" Daniel was the Representative for Virginia's 5th District from 1969 to 1988. In the wake of the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam, Watergate, and other mid-century political flashpoints, numerous potential Constitutional amendments were discussed in the House of Representatives. These included: a mandatory balanced federal budget, illegalizing the busing of students solely to integrate schools, elimination of the electoral college, term limits for elected officials, prayer in schools, etc. (This list comes from Congressman Daniel's own newsletter and materials and thus reflects, to a degree, his own leanings.) The Daniel Papers reveal the meandering path of such discussions in the American political system. Pressure for a change to the Constitution comes from at least four different directions in Mr. Daniel's materials. Personal letters from private citizens Formal declarations from political pressure groups Formal declarations from state officials The proposals of Congressmen themselves The cluster of images to the right includes examples of each type, most of which reference subjects still being debated by the American public 50 years later. In the upper left we have a 1973 letter from a private citizen (name and address redacted) very simply and formally requesting action to redefine the term of the Presidency - from a maximum of two four-year terms to a single six-year term. In an attached letter (not pictured), Mr. Daniel privately voices his support. This letter is particularly mundane; a few more passionate letters also exist, ranging from data-driven arguments to irritated rambling. At the upper right we have a formal 1974 letter from the Young Democrats of Virginia (private contact information redacted) announcing the passage of a resolution at their recent convention calling for the elimination of the Electoral College, replacing it with direct election for President and Vice President, and requesting Mr. Daniel's support to that end. The Congressman thanks them for the notification but is otherwise noncommittal. In the lower left is Virginia Senate Joint Resolution 109, also from 1973, requesting that the federal government call a convention to amend the Constitution in order to illegalize the busing of students for the explicit purpose of integrating public schools. Mr. Daniel - whose public opposition to integration dates back to his years in the Virginia House of Delegates - received this Resolution gratefully, and kept it in a file with multiple public comments (both solicited and unsolicited) on the issue. On the lower right is Mr. Daniel's own newsletter - "Capitol Comments By Dan Daniel" - from Sept. 11, 1985, in which he lists numerous Constitutional amendments then under discussion in the House during that session, and tacitly supports the call for a Second Constitutional Convention - albeit with limitations on topics to be debated over his fears of a "runaway convention." (In the newsletter he explicitly condemns the ACLU for opposing topic restrictions at any such convention.) The "Dan" Daniel Collection offers Averett students a unique glimpse into the inner workings of the federal government, of which these small examples of the eternal tug-of-war over the Constitution are but a part. Staff and students are always welcome to contact the archivist if they would like to do research in the "Dan" Daniel Collection, or any other materials held by the Averett University Archives & Special Collections. ...

Stories from the Averett Archives: When College Presidents Were College Students

As difficult as it may be to believe, Averett faculty, staff, and yes, even Presidents, were once - long, long ago - college students themselves. Take, for example, the four picture on the left side of this post, each of which depicts a future President of Averett when they were youthful and energetic 20-somethings. As the Averett archives was recently gifted a small collection of materials related to the college education of former president James P. Craft, for the next month the archives will put on display an array of items from the college lives of some of our former presidents. James P. Craft (President from 1921-1927): When I teach classes, it is generally true that the most common advice I have to give to my students is "you should be taking more notes." Note-taking is an important activity, as the brain has to process information in order for that information to travel from the eyeballs to the hands. I obviously would not have had to give that advice to a young Jim Craft. While studying at Harvard from 1907-1909, he took so many notes in his philosophy courses that the result was a stack of paper more than four inches thick! Again, these are lecture notes; this is just what good ol' Jim decided to write down from what his professors were saying. He ultimately chose to have them professionally bound into a ponderous and immense hardcover tome so that he could keep them forever, show them to his friends, and I imagine, in the event of an unforeseen crisis, use them as a rudimentary sledge-hammer. Well done, Jim. Well done. J.W. Cammack (President from 1927-1936): If there's anything that I typically don't imagine a college President doing, it's playing varsity athletics. Such a thing simply never occurs to me. And even for those who did have a budding athletic career tragically cut short by a highly paid college presidency, one would expect any mementoes of such an athletic experience to wind up in the archives of the school at which they occurred...not at a random school for which that former athlete later worked. Nonetheless, by a strange coincidence, the Averett archives holds a flier for an 1899 college football game between the Richmond College (now the University of Richmond) Spiders and the Hampden-Sydney Tigers. In this game, future Averett President J.W. Cammack started for Richmond at Center. Cammack's Spiders got beaten handily by Hampden-Sydney (17 to 5). So it goes. Every football contest has to have a loser. J.W. Cammack. What a loser! Mary Fugate (Acting President for Spring/Summer 1966): In the era of the computer and word-processing software, the ability to adjust the wording, margins, and any other little thing in a document, at any moment, has become so simple that most of us can't even imagine writing happening any other way. It is thus very jarring to look at Mary Fugate's master's thesis - "The Attitude of the American People Toward the Theatre, 1783-1800" (Columbia University, 1927) - and realize that she not only had to live without a word processor, she didn't even use a typewriter! The full 55-page manuscript was written entirely by hand. And yes, she even used properly formatted footnotes. As if the prospect of that revision process wasn't terrifying enough, imagine being required to write the whole thing out two or three times! The copy that we have in the archive of her family papers is not the copy that she submitted to the school itself. She wrote it out at least twice! I humbly suggest that you honor Ms. Fugate's memory by spending a weekend hand-copying the longest paper you ever wrote multiple times. Come to Blount Library and tell me how it goes. I want to be the first one to sign the wrist braces you'll wind up wearing for the rest of the week. Some additional group photos and long-shots for your enjoyment: ...

Stories from the Averett Archives: When Averett Taught Radio

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Stories from the Averett Archives: When Averett Taught Radio

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