Occidental College Special Collections & College Archives

The Bond exhibit is only up until the end of the semester. Hurry in before we have to take it down! Public hours in the Library are 9-5, M-F (just sign in at the front desk) but please keep in mind that it's also finals time on campus. Hope to see you! If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected]

As the summer heat swelters, there is no shortage of people who try to take advantage of the sun... clearly in 1962 things were no different!

Roger Boesche, a true inspiration to everyone around him - we will miss you.

Pictured here with President Gilman and Dean Axeen in 1987

Come check out our most recent exhibition, "Manuscript Illuminations of the West," curated by Class of 2017 graduate Katherine Torrey!

Located in front of the Ahmanson Reading Room on the Main Floor of the Academic Commons.

First produced as early as Antiquity, Illuminated Manuscripts are hand-written texts decorated with small paintings (miniatures), and elaborate borders and initials. The artwork in these manuscripts tells us much about the artistic, cultural, and social atmosphere of their respective eras.

Fifty years ago this week on April 12 Martin Luther King spoke to a capacity crowd in Thorne Hall on the "future of integration". An audio recording of that event is preserved in the College Archives and now his talk is re-imagined in a video presentation. Join us this Wednesday, April 12 at 6pm in Thorne Hall to experience King's words and their relevance today.

Executive Order 9066: Impact at Oxy, Spring 1942, exhibit is now open and on-going as part of Occidental College's series, The 75th Anniversary of the Japanese American Incarceration: Never Again. In the spring of 1942, Occidental College administration, faculty and students faced the uncertainty and impact of Executive Order 9066. Five Japanese American students would be forced to leave cutting short their studies. Impact at Oxy introduces these members of the Occidental community and asks “What would you do?”

Jean Paule: 1921-2017 | Occidental College | The Liberal Arts College in Los Angeles Occidental’s Institutional Memory

Please join the Special Collections & College Archives at the 23rd Annual Robinson Jeffers Association Annual Conference this Friday, 2/24 - Sunday, 26. Students, Faculty, Administrators, Staff and Alumni may attend free, to attend register email [email protected] or sign up at the door. Full program is posted at robinsonjeffersassociation.org

Our first program "Blackness and Nature" an artist conversation with Jeffers keynote speaker poet Camille T. Dungy and artists Douglas Kearney and Zinzi Clemmons is open to the Oxy students, faculty, admin and alumni and friends. 3:30pm at Morrison Lounge, Johnson Student Center.

On Presidents' Day Oxy Special Collections salutes Barack Obama, class of 1983, with a library exhibit of selected books, memorabilia and cultural artifacts collected during his term in office.

We are saddened by the news that our dear friend, Jean Paule, died over the weekend. Jean, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of UC Berkeley, came to Oxy in 1950 to take over as secretary to President Arthur G. C***s. She would remain in that position until President C***s’ retirement in 1965. His successor, Richard C. Gilman, asked her to stay at Oxy in the newly-created position of secretary to the College, a position she would hold for the next 20 years until her retirement. Then, after 10 years of international travelling, Jean returned to Oxy in 1996 to serve as Oxy's first College Archivist. Jean, who had an MA in History, did that job voluntarily, reporting to work every day at 7a.m., immersing herself and guiding others through Oxy history.

Jean moved to Murrieta in 2011, a 1.5-hour drive from Oxy to be close to her nephews. That year she hired a car to bring her to Oxy for a day visit. She arrived in a limo! She was a bit embarrassed; we thought it was perfect! During the next 4 years a group of us from campus made the trip to spend an afternoon with her whenever we could. A gracious host, she would arrange to have lunch served in the private dining room at her retirement community. The first thing she would ask after we all sat down was always, “So, what’s going on at Oxy?” During those short hours we filled her in with Oxy news (that which she couldn't get on the Internet or email). Our voices and laughter lifted not only the roof but all our spirits.

Jean embodied the dynamic spirit of Oxy in so many ways: through her work, in her written publications, and especially in her vast knowledge of the College's history, which she lived and participated in for more than half a century. She delighted and impressed us constantly with her sharp wit, sense of humor, thoughtfulness, deep intellectual curiosity, incredible memory, and a desire to be fair and to understand changes (especially at Oxy). We will miss her immensely.

Here is Jean in 1955, onstage with other Oxy staff members, performing in the Hi Jinks show. She is in the light-colored outfit, fifth from the left.

"When I first went to Occidental College...there was a literary magazine...called the "Aurora," and I remember thinking it odd that Occidental- the west, the setting sun- should be represented by a magazine called Aurora, the dawn. At least it gave us a wide range, the whole daylight sky.
I was continually writing verses in those days. Nobody, not even I myself, thought they were good verses; but Aurora's editor accepted many of them and it gave me pleasure to see my rhymes in print. They did rhyme, if that is any value, and were usually metrical, but why was I so eager to publish what hardly anyone would read and no one would remember? I suppose the desire for publication is a normal part of the instinct for writing...the writer sits at home, and the mere fact of being printed provides his verses with a kind of audience...So, having his vanity partially satisfied, he can go ahead and try better work." - Robinson Jeffers

Today we celebrate the 130th birthday of poet Robinson Jeffers, Class of 1905. The Pittsburgh native entered Occidental College in 1903 at the age of 16 for his Junior year and graduated the following year. He was an editor with the student publication, joined the Stevenson literary society (a very popular social activity at the time) and he wrote numerous poems for the campus school paper.

The years that Jeffers spent at Oxy were an important stage in his development as a poet. He published many early poems in the school publication, then called The Aurora, which later changed it's name to The Occidental the subsequent year.

Jeffers participated in theater at Oxy, and was an avid outdoorsman and hiker as well. These two pursuits became cornerstones of his future. He became the country's foremost poet of the natural world; and his interest in theater culminated later in life when he wrote the popular adaptation of Euripides' Medea, which made two critically acclaimed appearances on Broadway.

If you would like to learn more about Robinson Jeffers, why not attend the Robinson Jeffers Association Conference, Feb 24-26, taking place right here at Oxy! For more information: http://www.robinsonjeffersassociation.org/2017-rja-conference/

The last class to visit Special Collections this semester, Prof. Lerner's ENGL 287 Early British Literary Traditions:
curiosity + engagement = fun!