Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Story of the library banners

Some of you may have wondered what the banners that hang in the entrance to the library are, what the story is behind them. It is quite an interesting tale actually, going back many years. Before Hartwell Hall was built, there was another building that stood in the same location, which housed the Normal school, as we were called then. (A Normal school was a teacher training institution.) In that building, along the main corridor, were a number of stained glass windows that had been given to the school by different graduating classes and student groups, mostly between 1910 and 1930.

In the late 1930s the old building complex was torn down and replaced by Hartwell Hall. The stained glass windows were not used in the new building, but were crated up and stored. Many years later around 1970 a grad student doing research for a history professor ran across the crates, and the history professor, Wayne Dedman, got them moved to the library, where they are on display now in the Kiefer Room. The banners that hang in the main entry way were made from photos of the windows a few years ago.

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