Last week we asked two questions about the origins of LSU’s 100 year old basketball program. If you gave the following answers, you were correct:
Q: When was LSU’s first basketball game played?
A: January 30, 1909.
Q: Which Louisiana team did they play?
A: Dixon Academy in Covington, LA.
If you had to choose an image for the first page of a book called An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex, what would it be? A picture of a woman might seem like the obvious choice, but when this book was first published in 1696, somebody wasn’t just trying to be funny when they chose a picture of a man and his barber. Wearing a long curly wig, frilly cuffs, high-heeled shoes and even a beauty spot, the “Compleat Beau” admires himself in a mirror while his barber stands at attention, powder puff in hand.
The point the anonymous author (identified only as “a lady”) was trying to make was that men could be just as silly as women; furthermore, if women were silly it was only because they had been “industriously kept in ignorance”—i.e., denied an education—for so long. Mary Astell, an early feminist whose A Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of their True and Greatest Interest LSU’s Special Collections division has also recently acquired, made a similar argument in 1694. In order to shield women from “the follies of the town” as well as the tyranny of men, Astell called for the establishment of a “religious retirement” or secular convent where “those who are convinced of the emptiness of earthly enjoyments… may find more substantial and satisfying entertainments.”
Some women, however, such as Jane Barker, tried to compete with men on their own turf. In 1688, Barker co-authored Poetical Recreations, a volume of poetry, with “several gentlemen of the universities.” In addition to being just as capable as men as far as book learning was concerned, women, Barker believed, had more common sense, too. Without women:
Houses, alas, there no such thing wou’d be,
[Men would] live beneath the umbrage of a Tree:
Or else usurp some free-born Native’s Cave;
And so inhabit, whilst alive, a Grave.
Another recent addition to LSU’s rare book collection is Miscellany Poems, on Several Occasions, by Ann Finch, the Countess of Winchilsea. Published in 1713, it is, along with Barker’s Poetical Recreations, one of the earliest volumes of English poetry to have been published by a woman.
Last but not least among this month’s featured acquisitions is Eliza Haywood’s Memoirs of a Certain Island Adjacent to the Kingdom of Utopia (1725), a strange tale of lust, greed, scandal and corruption that offers a thinly-veiled commentary on the period in which it was written. Along with Daniel Defoe, Haywood was one of the most prolific authors of her time, publishing everything from plays and novels to poetry and translations, one of which—La Belle Assemblée, or, The Adventures of Six Days, by Madame de Gomez (1725)—is also now available to readers in Special Collections.
LSU’s brand-new basketball team “had not more than two weeks’ practice” before playing its first game. The opposing team had been, according to a post-game article in The Reveille, “for two years champions of the State” and had “engaged in interscholastic games for several years. The L.S.U. spirit, however, conquered, and the Tigers once more landed on top.” The final score was LSU 35, opponents 20. The Tigers’ leading scorer was forward J.R. Keeny with 8 field goals. This first game was played on the road and the Tigers were “royally entertained” by the principal of the opposing school. Following this game LSU played Mississippi A&M (now Mississippi State University) and faced a rematch against the Tigers’ first opponents.
Here are this week’s trivia questions:
Q: When was LSU’s first basketball game played?
Q: Which Louisiana team did they play?
Sources:
Last week we asked you two trivia questions about the origins of LSU. Here they are again, with the answers.
Q: When was the first day of class?
A: January 2, 1860.
Q: Where was the Seminary located?
A: Pineville, Louisiana.
Come back next week for more trivia from LSU’s history.
It’s the first week of classes, and so this week’s LSU trivia hearkens back to the very first day of classes at the school that would become Louisiana State University.
Barry Cowan of University Archives writes:
After much debate over location, construction, and curriculum, the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy, which later became Louisiana State University, finally opened. The following quote is from a circular of general information written by Superintendent William Tecumseh Sherman:“The conditions of admission are: that each applicant shall be between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one years of age, of good moral character and free from any infectious or contagious disease; he must read and write the English language well, and to perform, with facility and accuracy, the operations of Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division, Vulgar and Decimal Fractions and Simple and Compound Proportion.”
It was an all-male school and all cadets, as the students were called, had to submit to military discipline based on the code created by Virginia Military Institute. They were graded on their recitations and among the required courses were geometry and algebra, and French and Latin grammar. Military discipline and the course of instruction were, according to the Official Register of the Officers and Cadets of the State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy of the State of Louisiana, “…designed to promote method, diligence, and punctuality – all necessary qualities for the practical and successful man.”
The only image that survives of Louisiana State Seminary is this drawing by Samuel H. Lockett, post-Civil War commandant of cadets and professor of engineering.
So this week we offer you two questions.
1) When was the first day of class at the Seminary?
2) Where was the Seminary located?
Post your answers in the comments, and come back next week to see if you were right!
Also stop by Hill Memorial Library to take a look at the materials referenced in this post.
Commenter George Osborne correctly answered last week’s LSU Trivia question. The three teams into which Coach Paul Deitzel split the Tigers were the White team for best all around athletes, the Go team for offensive specialists and the Chinese Bandits for defensive specialists!
Congratulations go out to this year’s Tiger football team for their National Championship!
Research and background information for LSU Trivia is provided by Barry Cowan, University Archives. Keep an eye out for more questions next week.
In the final stretch of the football season, with the Tigers heading into the National Championship game, it seems a good time to remember LSU’s first National Championship in 1958.
Coach Paul Deitzel led the team to a 10-0 regular season, culminating with a seven to zero win over the Clemson Tigers in a Sugar Bowl worthy of a battle of the big cats.
Going into the 1958 season Coach Deitzel had to figure out how to structure a team with few experienced players. He did so by dividing the team into three groups, explaining himself this way:
“We need reserve strength and we do not have two teams of equal strength both on offense and defense. I have placed the best athletes on [one team] and they play both ways. Consequently, they spend equal time working on both offense and defense. The rest of our top prospects have been divided into teams which feature the particular phase of the game at which they are most proficient. Therefore the best offensive players are members of [another team]. They spend the greater parts of our workouts on offensive specialty. [The third team], our best defenders of this group, spend more time of each workout on defense.”
By focusing on the strengths of the players and being able to switch out teams Deitzel was able to keep his players fresh and use the Tigers’ speed to their advantage. Obviously the strategy paid off!
Come in to Hill Memorial Library and take a look at some of the LSU football resources in our collection like Peter Finney’s The Fighting Tigers 1893-1993: One Hundred Years of LSU Football and No. 1 in the Nation! L.S.U. Tigers 1958’s National Champions, published in Baton Rouge by TIGER FANS.
LSU Trivia:
In the first of our regular LSU trivia question posts, we put this question before you: What are the names of the three teams into which Deitzel separated the 1958 Tigers? Post your answers in the comments, then come back next week to see if you were right!
The photos and quote used in this post were taken from the aforementioned No. 1 in the Nation.
Maida Owens (Director, Louisiana Folklife Program), Jennifer Abraham (Director, T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History), Joel Gardner (Guest Speaker), and Elaine Smyth (Head, LSU Libraries’ Special Collections), visit during the reception following Gardner’s talk.
Joel Gardner, oral historian, spoke at Hill Memorial Library on November 30. Discussing the two strands of oral history — the folklore documentary strand, which regards oral histories as “performances”; and the academic approach, which seeks to document historical facts through personal experiences of those who are interviewed – Gardner pointed out that Louisiana had an important role in the early development of both. John and Alan Lomax pioneered the use of oral history to document the lives and performances of Louisiana musicians such as Leadbelly and Jelly Roll Morton. LSU professor T. Harry Williams used oral history in his Pulitzer-Prize-winning biography of Huey Long, thus legitimizing the use of the technique for academic historians. Gardner noted that the Williams Center has been extremely successful, compiling a remarkable 3,000 hours of oral histories in just 15 years.
After the talk guests toured the exhibition “Have You Heard? The Past in First Person from the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History.”
In conjunction with the opening of the LSU Libraries’ Special Collections exhibition, “Have You Heard? The Past in First Person from the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History,”oral historian Joel Gardner will speak on Friday, Nov. 30, at 6 p.m. in Hill Memorial Library’s lecture hall. A reception will follow the talk. The exhibition and talk are free and open to the public.
Gardner has directed several oral history projects and programs in Louisiana, served as copy editor of Louisiana Folklife A Guide to the State, and was actively involved in the founding of the Williams Center. He is the author of Oral History for Louisiana (1981), Looking Back: A Guide to Genealogical Research in Louisiana (1983), and Built in Louisiana: A Social History of Louisiana Carpenters (1985). He has interviewed dozens of people in all walks of life on topics ranging from television production to sports to publishing. In 1987, he founded Gardner Associates to conduct oral history research for corporations and institutions in the Delaware Valley.
An outspoken advocate of oral history, Gardner will speak on its importance as a tool to preserve and document culture and history, especially in Louisiana, with its strong tradition of story telling and folklore. He will discuss the work of pioneering oral historians, such as John and Alan Lomax (interviewer of legendary folk musicians, including Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Muddy Waters, and Jelly Roll Morton), as well as T. Harry Williams, who used oral history in his Pulitzer-Prize winning biography of Huey Long.
The exhibition “Have You Heard” showcases a diverse selection of oral history interviews collected by the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History, covering topics such as LSU history, World War II, the Houma Indians, Hurricanes Betsy and Katrina, the Flood of 1927, folklife in the Atchafalaya and Louisiana politics.
LSU Libraries’ Special Collections will open a new exhibition, titled “Have You Heard? The Past in First Person from the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History,” which will be on display from Nov. 12 through March 8 at Hill Memorial Library on LSU’s campus.
In addition, oral historian Joel Gardner will lecture about the exhibition on Friday, Nov. 30, at 6 p.m. at Hill Memorial Library’s lecture hall. A reception will follow the talk. The exhibition and talk are free and open to the public.
“Have You Heard” showcases a diverse selection of oral history interviews covering topics such as LSU history, World War II, the Houma Indians, Hurricanes Betsy and Katrina, the Flood of 1927, folklife in the Atchafalaya and Louisiana politics.
Visitors will learn about student Grover Rees’ two-day journey on four trains and a ferry to get from Breaux Bridge to LSU in 1908; Huey P. Long’s attempt to convince LSU football star Abe Mickal to run for the Louisiana Senate; World War II nurse Ida Turcan’s experience in North Africa and in Europe during the Battle of the Bulge, where she experienced living with a daily allotment of one helmet full of water to take care of hygienic and personal laundry needs; and veteran Millard Brewer’s participation in the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp.
Coupled with related images, manuscript collections, and published materials from Special Collections, the words and voices of the interviewees bring history to life. Listening stations will showcase audio interviews about the Civil Rights movement in Baton Rouge, Vietnamese refugees relocating in Louisiana, the history of women’s education at LSU and more. Visitors can listen to various showcased excerpts through portable listening devices, which will be loaned to visitors by request.
The library is open 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. on Saturdays. When classes are in session, the library is also open Tuesday evenings until 8 p.m. More information is available at www.lib.lsu.edu/special or by calling 225-578-6544.
For the related lecture, Gardner will speak on oral history in Louisiana, the founding of the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History, and the importance of documenting Louisiana culture and history. Gardner has directed several oral history projects and programs in Louisiana, served as copy editor of “Louisiana Folklife A Guide to the State,” and was actively involved in the founding of the Williams Center. Gardner is the author of Oral History for Louisiana (1981), Looking Back: A Guide to Genealogical Research in Louisiana (1983), and Built in Louisiana: A Social History of Louisiana Carpenters (1985). He has interviewed dozens of people in all walks of life on topics ranging from television production to sports to publishing. In 1987, he founded Gardner Associates to conduct oral history research for corporations and institutions in the Delaware Valley.
The T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History, or THWCOH, collects and preserves, through the use of recorded interviews, unique and valuable information about Louisiana history and culture.
Image: from Mississippi River Flood of 1927 Album, Photograph by Jasper Ewing
Contact
Leah W. Jewett
LSU Libraries
225-578-6558
lwood@lsu.edu
Hill Memorial Library / Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, LA 70803 Public Services Desk: (225) 578-6544 Reference Desk: (225) 578-6568 Fax (225) 578-9425 Copyright © 1996 - 2007 LSU Libraries |