#3 of my series-- "The Rook Green."
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Friday, March 16, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
The Beavers... just how early were they?
Most OSU historians in the past have claimed that athletic teams started their association with beavers in the early 1920s. Citing personal accounts, others claim that it may have come at least a decade earlier, though until recently, this opinion was in the minority due to a lack of written sources.
They were both wrong.
Yesterday, while looking for early mentions of OAC's baseball team in The Barometer, I came across not one, but two articles mentioning the Beavers... in 1908! The first article mentioned the football team and called them the Beavers, and in the context of the article, it was clear that the author assumed the reader understood Beavers to refer to the Orangemen. On the next page, an article talked about Beaver spirit-- essentially tying the beavers with propaganda encouraging school spirit. Last week a staff member found a yearbook drawing with "Our Mascot" underneath a picture of a beaver in 1912, but the 1908 find, once properly shared, may very well lay to rest the debate.
That the term "Aggies" was used well into the 20s is also no problem-- the transition was gradual-- we just had two team names for a time, not unlike Auburn's tigers and war eagle, and the terms were shared with Beavers no matter which decade historians attribute to the addition of the team name.
They were both wrong.
Yesterday, while looking for early mentions of OAC's baseball team in The Barometer, I came across not one, but two articles mentioning the Beavers... in 1908! The first article mentioned the football team and called them the Beavers, and in the context of the article, it was clear that the author assumed the reader understood Beavers to refer to the Orangemen. On the next page, an article talked about Beaver spirit-- essentially tying the beavers with propaganda encouraging school spirit. Last week a staff member found a yearbook drawing with "Our Mascot" underneath a picture of a beaver in 1912, but the 1908 find, once properly shared, may very well lay to rest the debate.
That the term "Aggies" was used well into the 20s is also no problem-- the transition was gradual-- we just had two team names for a time, not unlike Auburn's tigers and war eagle, and the terms were shared with Beavers no matter which decade historians attribute to the addition of the team name.
Monday, March 12, 2012
#1 - No Smoking at OSU!
I wrote a series for the OSU Special Collections and Archives blog, and each portion will be appearing over the next few days. It wasn't originally going to be individual posts, but rather paragraphs in one long post, but my boss thankfully realized this would be a better format. I will link each post here as it is posted.
OSU Tradition #1 - NO SMOKING!
OSU Tradition #1 - NO SMOKING!
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