{"id":61,"date":"2020-05-18T19:32:28","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T19:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/?page_id=61"},"modified":"2023-09-20T20:24:22","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T20:24:22","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/","title":{"rendered":"Home"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- Inserted by Dropdownizer plugin. Forces video embeds contained in dropdowns to have a size --><style>.dropdownizer__dropdown iframe { width: 100% !important; height: 100% !important; }<\/style>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Vassar College Historian is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vassar.edu\/faculty\/patkus\">Ronald Patkus<\/a>, Adjunct Associate Professor of History on the Frederick Weyerhaeuser Chair and Head of Special Collections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1865\" src=\"https:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/03\/SPC-0060-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"A large building in white with a red roof. Trees line the road to the building, with two horse and buggies.\" class=\"wp-image-119\" srcset=\"https:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/03\/SPC-0060-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/03\/SPC-0060-300x219.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/03\/SPC-0060-1024x746.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/03\/SPC-0060-768x560.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/03\/SPC-0060-1536x1119.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/03\/SPC-0060-2048x1492.jpeg 2048w, https:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/03\/SPC-0060-206x150.jpeg 206w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><figcaption>Historical Lossing Barritt etching with watercolor of Main Building, 1867<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The Recording of Vassar\u2019s History<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In remarks to the trustees on June 25, 1867, at the end of the college\u2019s second year, Matthew Vassar presented each trustee with a copy of&nbsp;<em>Vassar College and Its Founder,<\/em>&nbsp;by historian Benson Lossing, a founding trustee, the response to their earlier recommendation that \u201ca full history of our College and its Founder ought to be written.\u201d \u201cThe importance of this history,\u201d he said, \u201ccan only be appreciated by the magnitude, character and duration of your institution.&nbsp; Without it, posterity might seek in vain for its early history after our bodies lie crumbling in the grave.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over the next nearly 150 years, Vassar\u2019s history has been preserved, recorded, studied and discussed by countless authors\u2014many of them, like Lossing, themselves part of Vassar\u2019s story and four of them presidents of the college: in 1873, John Howard Raymond (president, 1865\u201379); in 1914 and 1915, James Monroe Taylor (1886\u20131914); in 1950, Henry Noble MacCracken (1915\u20131946); and, in 1972, Alan Simpson (1964\u20131977). Other contributors are Vassar graduates, such as Cornelia Raymond (Class of 1883) in 1940, Elizabeth Hazelton Haight (1894) in 1914 and 1916, Constance Mayfield Rourke (1907) in 1916, Marion Bacon (1922) in 1940, Dorothy Plum (1922) and Constance Dimock Ellis (1938) in 1961, Elizabeth Adams Daniels (1941) in 1987, 1994, 1996, 2000, 2001 and 2004 and Maryann Bruno (1982) in 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Haight, Rourke and Daniels were also members of the faculty, following in the tradition of faculty and staff historians of the college begun in 1873 by Professor of Natural History James Orton, the founding director, in 1867, of Vassar\u2019s Natural History Museum. This group also includes College Librarian Frances Wood in 1909, Professor of Chemistry Edward Linner in 1984, Professor of History Clyde Griffen in 2000, Professor of Astronomy Henry Albers in 2001, Professor of Art History Nicholas Adams in 2001 and Associate Director of Libraries for Special Collections Ronald Patkus in 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The most prolific of these historians is the first official college historian, Elizabeth Adams Daniels \u201941. A long-time member of the English department, a dean several times over and a key creator of the coeducational Vassar that emerged from the unsuccessful proposed merger with Yale in the late 1960s, Daniels began recording oral histories of former faculty and staff and of alums in the early 1980s. Retiring from the faculty in 1985\u2014\u201cfor a weekend,\u201d as she put it\u2014she proposed the new office to President Virginia Smith on the following Monday, and her proposal was accepted. As Vassar historian, Betty Daniels gathered and conserved significant records which had gone unarchived\u2014and sometimes undiscovered\u2014published several books, answered countless queries from on-campus and outside researchers, spoke on Vassar history at campus, alumnae\/i and extramural events and oversaw the work on a wide range of projects of dozens of student interns. Several of these young people, trained in archival work by Daniels, subsequently pursued professional work in the field. The online VCencyclopedia was begun in 2003, and in the college\u2019s sesquicentennial year, 2011, the online Documentary Chronicle of Vassar College revised and expanded&nbsp;<em>The Magnificent Enterprise<\/em>, a chronicle published in the centennial year, 1961.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2006, at the time of Betty Daniels\u2019s acceptance of the \u201cSpirit of Vassar Award\u201d from the Associate Alumnae\/i of Vassar College (AAVC), President Frances Fergusson said, \u201cShe literally found our history. We wouldn\u2019t have undertaken this work, or even seen the need for it, if it weren\u2019t for Betty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Elizabeth Daniels retired from the historian\u2019s office in June, 2013, but the work that Matthew Vassar foresaw, that Frances Fergusson defined and that Betty assumed will continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>For more information about Vassar's history visit the following sites:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-8f761849 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\"><div class=\"lazyblock-linked-list-wKHbU wp-block-lazyblock-linked-list\"><div class=\"module\">\n        <h2 class=\"module__title\">Vassar Historian Projects<\/h2>\n        <div class=\"content\">\n            <ul>\n        <li><a href=\"http:\/\/vcencyclopedia.vassar.edu\/\">Vassar Encyclopedia<\/a>\n            \n    <\/li>\n        <li><a href=\"http:\/\/chronology.vassar.edu\/\">A Documentary Chronicle of Vassar College<\/a>\n            \n    <\/li>\n    <\/ul>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div><\/div>\n\n<div class=\"lazyblock-hours-ZRgz58 wp-block-lazyblock-hours\"><div class=\"module module--hours\">\n        <h2 class=\"module__title\">Hours<\/h2>\n        <div class=\"content\">\n    \n    <div class=\"module__subsection\">\n        <h3 class=\"module__sub-title small-caps\">Weekdays<\/h3>\n        \n        <div class=\"module__text hours--time\">8:30 a.m.\u20135 p.m.<\/div>\n    <\/div>    \n    \n    \n        <\/div>\n    <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<h2 class=\"has-text-color wp-block-heading\" style=\"color:#54162a\">Vassar College Archives<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The College Historian is different from Archives and Special Collections, located in the library.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"lazyblock-linked-list-Z2kb82C wp-block-lazyblock-linked-list\"><div class=\"module\">\n        <h2 class=\"module__title\"><\/h2>\n        <div class=\"content\">\n            <ul>\n        <li><a href=\"http:\/\/specialcollections.vassar.edu\/\">The Catherine Pelton Durrell '25 Archives and Special Collections Library<\/a>\n            <div class=\"item__desc\">Archives and Special Collections is responsible for the preservation and maintenance of the records, documents, memorabilia, and artifacts pertaining to the history of the college.<\/div>\n    <\/li>\n    <\/ul>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Vassar College Historian is Ronald Patkus, Adjunct Associate Professor of History on the Frederick Weyerhaeuser Chair and Head of Special Collections. Historical Lossing Barritt etching with watercolor of Main Building, 1867 The Recording of Vassar\u2019s History In remarks to the trustees on June 25, 1867, at the end of the college\u2019s second year, Matthew [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":107,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-61","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":36,"href":"https:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/61\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128,"href":"https:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/61\/revisions\/128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/offices.vassar.edu\/historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}