RU Archives

Summer Fun

 Hope you're having as much fun as these Roosevelt students did at summer camp in 1947.

CARLI Grant Project Completed

Archives volunteer Scott Koscik has completed work on a CARLI funded grant project to document Louis Sullivan ornaments in the Auditorium Building/Theatre.  Scott surveyed the uncataloged photos in the collection and identified relevant images, numbered the images, cataloged them into the archives database, and scanned them.  In all, 325 images were numbered, cataloged, and scanned.  Cataloging information about these images is now available in the archives' online database and images in the public domain have been linked to the descriptions.

1930s Day at Highland Park Public Library

On Sunday, May 17, I was invited to give a talk on the Great Depression and the WPA at1930s Day at the Highland Park Public Library. I called my talk "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"

Dr. Harry Ross of National-Louis University also spoke, discussing the Federal Writer's Project and previewing the documentary "Soul of a People: Writing America's Story."

-Michael Gabriel

Cruel and Unusual

Anne-Marie Cusac, an Assistant Professor of Communication at Roosevelt University, is author of a new book Cruel and Unusual: The Culture of Punishment in America, published by Yale University Press.

I read her book, and On Thursday, March 19, I interviewed her about it.

The book chronicles punishment in American society, and shows how the government and the American people and the culture all condone the return of retribution to our nation's prisons. The book shows that the U.S. has had a history of painful corporal punishment dating from colonial times, inherited from its religious heritage.  This religious heritage can be seen in its early laws, which treated such things as blasphemy or missing church as civil crimes that deserved bodily mutilation or execution. Prof. Cusac says there was a shift away from physical punitive pain after the American Revolution, but political writings of the time often continued to be religiously tinged. In chapter 2, she credited founding father Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) with pushing the idea of rehabilitation. (The word "penitentiary" has religious roots, from "penitent".)

PUNISHMENT AND THE PRISON POPULATION

Prof. Cusac says that the retributive cultural shift that accompanied an abandonment of rehabilitation began in the 1970s.  Since 1973, the prison population in the U.S. has increased five-fold, creating the world's largest prison population. I asked why this occurred and she said that the 1970s had ushered in an anti-sixties backlash. The idea took hold that the country needed to be tough on crime and prison overcrowding was the result. Drug policy was also a major contributor to this situation, because 31% of the prisoners are currently drug criminals.

Knowing that other countries often took a different attitude toward the drug problem than the U.S. has taken; I asked if a shift in U.S. government drug policy would change the situation. She did not believe it would be that easy, because it is hard to shift culture, and also because we now have a large web of punitive laws, supported by that culture. It would take an enormous concerted effort to change American punishment, at least in the near future.

    I asked if she saw a viable alternative to the long prison sentences often handed down in this country. She said that studies suggest that when surveillance programs are combined with jobs, education, and drug and alcohol treatment, there is a 10-20 percent drop in recidivism. That is not a huge amount, but it is something; it suggests that rehabilitation, when done correctly, has more of an effect than we thought previously. (This is all according to the work of Joan Petersilia.) She said that more studies are needed are needed because we don't know what we're dealing with as far as what will work, or will not work, in terms of rehabilitation. She feels that American society no longer has much sympathy for prisoners, and cruelty in prison is common as a consequence. Examples are the use of stun belts, restraint chairs, and prolonged solitary confinement which can cause insanity. She feels that much of this situation is caused by a cultural shift which created the idea that prisoners were evil and deserving of punishment.  This created a lack of sympathy for those hurt in prison.

I asked what suggestions could be offered to create a more humane prison system. She believes there are good corrections officers in need of public support. The public needs to know what's going on. Officers need more training and support. Electronic devices are only a short-hand way of dealing with the problems. Careful policies need to be put in place instead. She feels that we are in a very difficult place because we have a punitive culture, which is an entrenched thing at this point. The cultural shift, and the legal changes would have to be vast.

PUNISHMENT AND CHILDREN

In colonial times, the short life expectancy of the population and the idea that children were inherently wicked, led parents to promote spanking as a means of saving children's souls, so spanking was often advocated early and often.

In Chapter 7, she describes how this thinking saw a resurgence in the 1970s among some Christian writers and groups in order to save children from juvenile delinquency.

PUNISHMENT AND THE MEDIA

Chapter 9 is "Pop Culture and the Criminal Element".  In colonial times, executions were a spectator sport, and the chapter opens with a description of how Cotton Mather used a hanging as a forum for his sermons and on punishment. The bulk of the chapter puts this attitude in a modern setting, with non-fiction television in place of the pulpit.  Early police radio and television programs, such as "Dragnet", often drew on actual police files. When the 1970s saw a rising crime rate , numerous crime- action shows appeared. Two non-fiction police shows, "America's Most Wanted" and "COPS" are most heavily  profiled and critiqued: "America's Most Wanted" "emphasizes extreme and violent crimes and murders. Although such crimes are statistically rare, Walsh makes them seem pervasive, probable, personal." "Much of what "Cops" depicts is not reality. As several studies have shown, reality crime programs exaggerate arrest rates, the number of white police, and the rate of violent crimes in comparison with nonviolent offences."

CONCLUSION

After discussing her book, I concluded the interview with a discussion of the background of the book. She was a journalist with the Progressive Magazine who won an award for a piece on stun devices. Reviewers have suggested that this lead her to write this book. She said the original article on stun devices had not been her idea. Editors wanted her to write the piece. She concluded by saying that "doing it made me see issues in different ways. I wanted to know why we'd changed."

-Submitted by Michael Gabriel

The Little Theatre: Roosevelt University's first theatre

Carlisle Bloxom was listed in the first  Roosevelt College catalog (August 1945) as Director of “The Little Theatre”.

The July 1947 catalog, Under Student Activities, gives a description of it:

The “Little Theatre”. Both students and faculty members participate in the public presentation of modern plays. The “Little Theatre” is directed by Carlisle Bloxom, professor of Speech and Drama. Students take part in the development of stage settings, stage management, etc. and thus acquire experience in dramatic art.

 

So R.U. has been doing plays since its earliest days.

The Little Theatre continued until 1948, when it changed its name to Roosevelt College Theatre.  Still directed by Carlisle Bloxom, it continued until 1951.

Archives Update

The Roosevelt University Archives is now located in room AUD 1043 in the Murray-Green Library.  You can reach Archivist Laura Mills at extension 2280, at lmills@roosevelt.edu, or at mailstop AUD1035 to make an appointment to use the collection.  Or search the online catalog at http://roosevelt.cuadra.com/starweb1/b.archives/servlet.starweb1?path=b.archives/STARArchives.web

The Librarian and the Law

Two weeks ago on Thursday, I was called up for jury duty at the Dailey Center. I’m no stranger to being approached by a judicial system reluctant to actually use me for anything once I turned up. The first time I was called for jury service, I was instructed to call a number and they would tell me if I was to report. They didn’t want me. The second time, I was called over to the courthouse in Maywood. I didn’t like the place. It was so filthy; there was even dirt inside the gumball machine.  I sat in the waiting room being stared at because I had thought it appropriate to wear a suit. No one else did. I waited there all day and then was sent home because they didn’t need me. The third time, I ended up at the Dailey Center, a much nicer place. But they didn’t want me, either. This was my fourth attempt. I was called back to the Dailey Center. This time, people asked me questions. This is what happened:

It was nearly lunchtime and my group of about thirty was taken by elevator to the courtroom where the trial would be held. There were lawyers from both sides sitting at two tables facing the jury box.  There were eleven seats in the jury box, and I knew from television that the attorneys had the right to remove a certain number of jurors. The rest of the potential jurors were there to replace the jurors that the attorneys wanted to remove. The deputy read eleven names of people to sit first in the jury box. The third name called was mine.

 It was to be a civil trial, we were told, probably not lasting more than two days.  Two cars had collided. The driver of one, a man, claimed whiplash. The lawyer for the other driver, a woman, claimed the male driver had punched her after the crash.  They were both suing for damages.  Interestingly, the male driver had two sets of lawyers, one to sue the other driver and the other to protect him from her suit.

The judge asked the first questions. He looked at the information sheet I had filled out and asked “Does Roosevelt University have a legal program?” I said “It has a legal assistant’s program.” He asked “Does that give you a special knowledge of the law?” I said “no,” thinking that explaining the use of Lexis-Nexis does not constitute a special knowledge.

The woman’s attorney snorted.

Then his turn came to ask the jury questions, and he chose not to ask me anything.  I thought “He’s going to challenge me.”

And he did. The judge and attorneys retired to another room for a few minutes, and upon their return, they excused half the jury, including me.

So that’s what happened. The judge and the lawyers believed a librarian is too wise in the ways of the law to be allowed to sit on a jury.

-Michael Gabriel

 

Happy Valentine's Day!

 

Love was in the air in the early days of Roosevelt University.  This photo from March 1947 shows student Phyllis Bottomley, who married her English professor, Alfred Partridge and music professor Martha Veysey, who married her piano student, Gilbert Silvius.  Cherchez l'amore! 

 Photo by Mary Parkinson.

- Laura Mills

 

Shel Silverstein's First Cartoons

 

I think Shel Silverstein was one of the two most famous people who attended Roosevelt University, the other being Harold Washington, of course. Silverstein is best known for writing children's books, including  A Light in the Attic, Where the Sidewalk Ends and The Giving Tree. He also wrote the song "A Boy Named Sue", which was made famous by Johnny Cash.

He only attended Roosevelt University  few years in the 1950s and did not graduate. He bounced around several collages in those years.

While at Roosevelt, Shel worked on the staff of the student newspaper The Torch, and published cartoons there. As far as I know, these were the first cartoons he ever published.

After Silverstein left Roosevelt University, the Torch continued to publish his leftover cartoons, and even republished some of his cartoons with new captions added:

The original, published Dec. 8, 1952 and a copy, published March 2, 1965.

*Notice that the quality of the cartoons is uneven because they were reprinted from microfilm.

-Michael Gabriel

Thirty years of Professors: The R.U. Faculty Database

I am working on the long-term project of creating a database of every faculty member who ever taught at Roosevelt University, using information obtained from the college catalogs.

The Roosevelt University catalogs are usually issued every two years and contain a  section at the end which lists every professor currently teaching in the school. How many catalogs are issued changes from year to year. Some years have only a single catalog. Some years are divided into Arts & Sciences, Business, Music, and Graduate School.

Taking this information, I created an Excel file which lists the Professor's Name, Department, Subject, Degrees held, Faculty rank, other data (university offices held, outside employment, etc.), and the  dates the professor taught at Roosevelt. I am updating the list as I go through each new catalog, so the reader can see the progress the faculty member made in the university.

The first catalog was issued in 1945 and I have completed the database through 1975.

-by Michael Gabriel