Nittany Valley Press

Over its 161 years, Penn State has twice sanctioned books chronicling the University’s history, once in the 1940s and again with an updated version in the 1980s.

While history professor and Penn State historian Wayland Dunaway’s 1946 “History of The Pennsylvania State College” was the first official account of Old State’s history to be published, it was not the first to be written. More than a decade prior to the creation of Dunaway’s text, Erwin W. Runkle, Penn State’s librarian from 1904 to 1924 and Dunaway’s predecessor as the school’s first official historian (you may recognize the name from Runkle Hall), compiled a complete record of the institution from founding to the present day.

Penn State commissioned Runkle to assemble an authoritative account of its first century. Upon its completion, his book, “The Pennsylvania State College 1853-1932: Interpretation and Record,” became the first comprehensive history ever written about the school. Unfortunately for Runkle, the Board of Trustees rejected his effort, and it was never approved for publication. Penn State eventually turned to Dunaway to produce a replacement. In 1985, Michael Bezilla’s “Penn State: An Illustrated History” built upon and updated the efforts from Dunaway’s initial foray.

Penn State retained the copy of Runkle’s full manuscript despite its rejection. In order to protect the original document, a few complete duplicates were created over the years by photocopying the type-written onion paper sheets. One of these was bound and kept on file in the Special Collections Library. For 80 years after its completion, Dr. Runkle’s take on the Penn State story remained unpublished and largely unrecognized.

The exact circumstances underlying the board’s dissatisfaction with Runkle’s work product are somewhat unclear, although one can surmise that the author’s frequent injection of his own, occasionally blunt, observations may have been a contributing factor. For example, on the tumultuous one-year presidency of Joseph Shortlidge:

“Candor compels the reflection, however, that viewed in the large, no more blame attaches to President Shortlidge than to the Board itself… Add to this, the unwise transplanting of a Secondary School atmosphere and scheme of regulations, a rather stern, uncompromising and apparently haughty demeanor in personal relations with the student body, a curious attitude of suspicion toward the major part of the Faculty, you have the factors that led to loss of influence, to lack of co-operation, and finally to open rebellion.”

“Open rebellion.” It stands to reason, I suppose, that University leadership—in any era—would be uncomfortable with such an unvarnished view of affairs expressed through official channels. But it was exactly this personal touch that compelled our attention.

In 2013, we received permission from the University Libraries to create and release an heirloom version of Runkle’s book in print and digital formats, marking the first-ever publication of the original history of Penn State. The project presented challenges.

The photocopies were too blurry for optical character recognition (OCR) software, which necessitated a painstaking process of transcribing hundreds of pages by hand. Total fidelity to the source material—from the formatting of tables and lists right down to decisions about correcting individual typos and errors—was not only of paramount importance to us, but a condition of our publication agreement with the Libraries. Many people assisted with this process, including most of our founding board members, but our editor, Andy Nagypal, earned special thanks and recognition for his exhaustive attention to detail.

As with all Nittany Valley Press books, we sought to produce a final product whose aesthetic reflected the quality of its content. Jonathan Hartland’s cover design beautifully captures the essence of its subject. As a finishing touch, we turned to former Trustee George Henning, proud owner of a renowned collection of Penn State artifacts and memorabilia, to write an original foreword placing the work in context for a contemporary audience.

Certainly, Runkle’s version of the Penn State story is not for everyone. The text is undeniably dense. As an Ivy League-trained historian, his penchant for quoting primary source documents and delving deep into picayune detail frequently bog down the pace, and his early 20^th century style can seem remote and inaccessible to modern readers. However dry and impenetrable his academician’s prose at various points, Runkle also imbued his work with a genuine spirit of affection for this place. He goes beyond merely documenting fact to share first-hand recollections and opinions. Today, Runkle’s writing is the closest we can come to hearing a voice speak to us from our past, commenting on facets of life in the Nittany Valley both foreign and familiar. He concludes the book’s introduction by noting:

“There is a Penn State Spirit… Always in the general stream of college life, Penn State has nevertheless had a ‘way of her own’.”

Long before the University required an entire office dedicated to managing an unmistakable “brand” based on tradition and loyalty, folks like Erwin Runkle still felt moved by the special spirit of Penn State. While his lessons about our school’s growth and development are important, perhaps his most vital contribution is this simple reminder of the constant and immutable nature of the Nittany Valley magnetism.

Last month, I wrote about the impulse that motivates efforts to resurface history. Our work to finally publish Runkle’s book after 80 years on the shelf exemplifies it in action.

I initially encountered “The Pennsylvania State College 1853-1932: Interpretation and Record” amidst the emotionally raw days of Fall 2012. I found rare comfort in Runkle’s meticulously constructed account of Penn State’s turbulent first 50 years, which included a true existential crisis over Pennsylvania’s allocation of Land Grant Act funding. Knowing that Penn State had survived and thrived, despite teetering more than once on the brink of total dissolution, gave me confidence that the University could survive what no longer felt, at least not indisputably, like the worst period in its history. Speaking to me from the past, Runkle’s gifts were context and perspective.

For a select group of Penn Staters with certain tastes and interests (namely, a high tolerance for heavy reading), Runkle’s book will provide a similarly edifying experience. Many others will buy it simply to display on their bookshelves, and that’s fine too—I don’t blame them; the cover art is gorgeous. The key point is that now an opportunity exists to engage with this obscure relic of the community’s past. Projects like this are born from a passion to create these new opportunities, a constant pursuit of untapped sources of potential for making the Nittany Valley a better, richer place.

The following, abridged and lightly edited, is taken from “Reminiscences of Dr. F.J. Pond,” a pamphlet-style Nittany Valley Press book of Penn State memories from Dr. Francis Pond, an alumnus and Atherton-era professor. Dr. Pond recorded these reminiscences shortly before his death, and tells us about Old State from a very different time—a place both foreign and familiar.

Dr. Francis J. Pond was born in Holliston, Massachusetts, on April 8, 1871, the son of Abel and Lucy A. Jones Pond. Dr. Pond entered The Pennsylvania State College in September 1888 and was graduated in the chemistry course with the class of 1892. While in college he was an associate editor of the Free Lance from April 1890 to March 1891; assistant editor of the class annual, the La Vie, for 1892; Vice President of the Washington Literary Society for 1890, and its Treasurer for 1891. He was always interested in sports, especially football, and eagerly followed every game.

In 1896, he returned to The Pennsylvania State College as an instructor in the Chemistry Department, where he worked under his brother, Dr. Gilbert G. (“Swampy”) Pond. For many years he was head of the Chemistry Department, and in 1907, he was made Dean of Freshmen.

Dr. Pond died suddenly from a heart attack February 18, 1943, at his home in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. When the following notes were dictated, his accuracy about details and dates of over fifty years ago was observed over and over again. He also had a nice sense of humor; and during his two weeks’ vacation in the fall of 1942, when he spent part of every day reminiscing, he was enjoyed by everyone with whom he came in contact.

President George W. Atherton

Dr. Atherton, who was a wonderful man, was also a good politician. He knew how to work the middle against both ends. He went to Harrisburg and secured the first appropriation of any size for the college. This was in 1887 and amounted to $100,000. He also invited inspection tours by the members of the legislature so that they might see for themselves how badly some improvements were needed. This was always a great occasion for the students because a holiday was declared and the boys showed the visitors around and entertained them. It was on one such visit that “Fog-horn” Fow found the heating plant then located in the basement of the Main Building and decided that to have the students living and going to classes above this plant was like living on an active volcano, and he started proceedings which resulted in the power plant.

At one time when there was talk of President Atherton’s leaving Penn State for another position, the students became perturbed at the rumor. In order to allay their fears, Dr. Atherton spoke to them and explained that he did not intend to leave. He said that he had always felt that institutions were more important than men and his desire for a long time had been to make an institution here at State College, and he did not intend leaving without fulfilling that desire.

Football

Some of the early teams had fancy scores in football. At one time Lehigh beat Penn State 106 to 0. Another memorable time Penn State thought they had a very good team. They took a trip down East in the fall of 1899. One of the teams they played was Yale, and they all felt sure of winning the game. However, they were disappointed; and when the telegram came to State announcing the results of the game, this is what it said: “Yale 40, State 0. The team played well.” The telegram was sent by Kid Biller, Manager, and the words “The team played well” became a slogan around Penn State.

School Colors

The early colors of Penn State were Pink and Black. In those days they had a yell which went something like this:

Yah, yah, yah. Yah, yah, yeh.
Wish-whack. Pink, black —
P.S.C.

Around 1888, when Penn State played Dickinson on the front campus, as there was yet no athletic field, they gave this yell, and the substitutes of the Dickinson team made a parody of it which went like this:

Yah, yah, hay. Yah, yah, yeh.
Bees wax. Bees wax —
A.B.C.

This so disgusted the boys that soon after they not only changed the college yell but also the colors from Pink and Black to Blue and White, and so they have remained ever since.

Military

Classes at this time met from Monday through Friday. Saturday was used for make-up day, hikes, military punishment, etc. Every day there was military inspection both of dress and also of rooms. If the room was untidy or dirty or shoes needed polishing, the boys got a notice on the military bulletin board. Each such report carried one hour’s punishment.

On the front campus were four cannon — two brass ones which had been used in the Mexican war and two steel ones which were used for artillery drill. One of the favorite punishments inflicted upon the boys was to make them polish the brass cannon which were merely ornamental. The boys some times shot off the cannon to celebrate certain events. Dr. Pond and Mickey McDowell, who were among the few Democrats on campus, shot off the cannon to celebrate the election of Pattison as Democratic governor of Pennsylvania.

Pranks

The college had a human skeleton which the students called Old John; there was also a skeleton of a mule. The boys decided it would be quite a joke to mount Old John on the mule and usher him on the stage during a chapel service. They brought them through a side door near the front of the platform. Miss McElwain sat next to this door, and one morning at a given signal the door opened while the minister was praying, and by manipulation from above the skeleton with its rider moved on to the stage just in front of Miss McElwain. The spectacle was enough to unnerve anyone, but she never “batted an eye”.

The boys in Dr. Frear’s animal chemistry course feared that they might not pass his examination, so they decided to steal his exam questions. But how to do it was the question. The Doctor lived on the third floor of the Main Building. The boys finally decided that since one of them had a room on the fifth floor immediately above Dr. Frear’s, they could lower a boy from the fifth floor into the window on third. They lowered him and then pulled him back up to the fifth floor again. But after going to all this trouble and risking the boy’s life, they failed to find the paper on which the exam questions were written.

Onward State published a feature this morning wherein various staff members profiled their favorite local watering holes. Kevin Horne contributed a truly poetic paean to Zeno’s Pub, that famous purveyor of craft beer “located directly above the center of the Earth.”

Kevin earns extra points for shouting out the Nittany Valley Press book, The Birth of the Craft Brew Revolution. We chose Zeno’s for the cover of the book precisely because of its special, long-standing spot in the hearts of so many Penn Staters.

Celebrating the full spectrum of our community’s culture unavoidably touches on the local bar scene, which Kevin admirably demonstrates in this tribute. I have included the full text below, and for more on the favored tap rooms of 2014, you can read the entire article here:

“When vessels of hand-crafted quality beer are touched together and the eyes of the men and women who hold them meet, something magical happens—a long and frustrating day brightens, worries soften, stresses chill, and friends (or soon to be friends) connect, and The Life becomes La Vie.”

Those words, written by Ken Hull in the forward of Ben Novak’s authoritative book “The Birth of the Craft Brew Revolution,” made a considerable impact on my development as a beer drinker. It was not so long ago that my alcohol palate consisted almost entirely of whatever warm, one-dimensional, mass-produced yellow fizz I could get my hands on in the basement of a fraternity house or from a friend. That’s college I suppose; keg stands, beer bongs, and questionable inebriated decisions seem to be as much a part of the university ethos as anything. And that’s okay—I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy such indulgences with unspoken degrees of frequency.

But we’re living in a world with an essentially limitless selection of high-quality spirits, and the act of having a good beer and a conversation is one of the most powerful experiences two people can share with each other. Taste a well-crafted, delicately brewed Porter, Stout, or Belgian, close your eyes, and you can travel across the world in an instant, experience new culture, and engage in meaningful fellowship.

Zeno’s was one the first bars to fully embrace the so-called craft beer revolution—certainly the first in Centre County—and it’s still the only place in town craft beer drinkers need to go. With a knowledgeable bar staff eager to provide the most experienced beer drinkers with their fix or introduce newly minted 21-year-olds to their first high-quality beer, there’s no better place to have a beer in State College.

Zeno’s, and bars like it, allow those who wish to experience beautiful manmade art from all over the world to do so without leaving their own communities. To appreciate the craft is to exist in a state of timelessness. Lovers meet, world-altering ideas are spread, and lifelong friendships blossom from across the bar table, eyes locked, pint in hand.

What could be more virtuous? La Vie, indeed.

This weekend, I picked up a copy of “The Opening Kickoff: The Tumultuous Birth of a Football Nation” by BTN studio host Dave Revsine. With tonight’s Hall of Fame game set to usher in another season of pro football and just under 30 days until the Lions kick off the James Franklin era in Ireland, the air is again thick with rumor of America’s Game. August in Happy Valley is a time fraught with nervous anticipation, one of my favorite times of year, and I look forward to spending a few of those days caught between Summer and Fall reading through Revsine’s book.

This isn’t a book review. I’ve barely started reading it, and besides, if I’m on here plugging books, it should be the excellent, value-priced collection available through Nittany Valley Press. But Revsine’s thesis reminded me of aspirations we have for Nittany Valley Press, and with college football season, a special and important time for Penn State and State College, so close, it offered me a chance to explain a bit more about what we are building. I’ll quote from the introduction:

“[Now] is a period, we’ve been told, unprecedented in the history of that sport. But what if I told you that it did have precedent? In fact, what if I told you that the current problems in college football might actually be viewed as an improvement–that, in some regards, the college game was once far worse than it is today?

“Those who wonder why we can’t ‘just go back to the way it used to be,’ might be surprised to find that, in fact, we have.”

So Revsine’s book is, in part, a history of the early years of intercollegiate football (a fascinating topic if you love the game and enjoy learning about the past) and, like most good sports books, also a love note from the author for an institution that has profoundly impacted lives. Moreover, it is, in practice, a direct argument for the value of collective memory, aiming to equip modern fans with the enhanced perspective that comes with understanding what has come before. In this regard, he echoes a key lesson I hope Nittany Valley Press can help instill in our community over the course of time.

Knowing your story not only enriches your experience as a participant in an unfolding narrative, it also forges a more durable identity and can drastically improve decision-making. Focusing on that last point, it is perhaps unavoidable for a college town, a place that turns over nearly a quarter of its population annually, to forget much of its past. Even here, in a place where we claim to honor, even venerate, tradition, the mists of time quickly obscure, and sometimes totally consume, the dreams, triumphs, and failures of our predecessors. We must continuously unearth this information and refresh it for new sensibilities, driven by a sense of service and affection for the place—if we do this, we can, as Revsine attempts in “The Opening Kickoff,” equip new generations with the tools to better understand and navigate their present.

A few concrete examples of what I’m describing come from a project I am wrapping up with the Chamber of Business and Industry of Centre County (CBICC). For the last year, I have been helping catalog the Chamber’s historical archives—an extensive collection of news clippings, photographs, and documents dating back to the organization’s earliest days as the State College Chamber of Commerce in the 1920s. I should note that we have had a great experience working the College of the Liberal Arts to obtain smart, capable undergraduate interns and the University Libraries for guidance on archiving procedures.

The collection is pretty remarkable, and I hope that once we are through taking stock of it, we can arrange some sort of public exhibition of the coolest stuff. Some of my favorite finds so far:

• About 10 years ago, I learned about a proposal to close Allen Street between College and Beaver to install a pedestrian mall. I remembered thinking it was a very cool idea that might gets it chance within the next decade or so. We’re still waiting, but I had no idea of just how long that wait has been. Thanks to my encounter with the CBICC archives, I know the concept actually reached a pretty serious planning stage in 1965 (models were built) and had been discussed as early as the mid-1920s.
• Articles dating back to the 1960s foreshadow the inefficiencies and financial costs of maintaining multiple municipal governments within the boundaries of “State College.” Today, the six municipalities that make up the community (SC Borough and College, Ferguson, Half Moon, Harris, and Patton Townships) each enjoy their unique character and relative autonomy, but consistently struggle to reconcile regional issues like infrastructure, transportation and the costs of police/fire services. I wonder how many of us appreciate how long this arrangement has been a matter of debate.
• I especially enjoyed a CDT editorial from 1985 lamenting the Phi Psi 500 as a raucous, manufactured “drinking holiday” and arguing for its extinction. The similarity to modern jeremiads against State Patty’s Day, right down to the exact language, are striking and amusing, and we now know they were ultimately successful (younger readers will need to click the link to even understand what I’m referencing). It sheds valuable light on the “drinking holiday” as hardly a new or novel occurrence at Penn State. I wonder if those Reagan-era critics of the 500 could have seen its eventual replacement whether they might have just left well enough alone.

Discovering this sort of information is fun, of course, but it also offers valuable perspective that can help us have more honest conversations and make smarter choices.The real challenge comes in bringing these stories to life in a way that captures the imagination, allowing that beneficial knowledge to sink in.

A Disclaimer: I can’t reference Revsine’s book without also mentioning that, yes, as can only be expected for a modern work of journalism examining the state of college football, its foreword contains a couple of rather unflattering allusions to Penn State. For some, that alone will be enough to dismiss it out of hand. I am not among them. To his credit, Revsine at least bothers to include the seemingly-optional “allegedly” when referencing the Freeh Report’s most controversial conclusions. As a community, we will live (and wrestle) with the Penn State leadership’s post-scandal decisions and their consequences for many years. Having accepted this, I choose against recusing myself from any otherwise worthwhile conversation that includes a harsh reminder that Pandora’s Box can never be closed back up again.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about Nittany Valley Press’s The Reminiscences of Dr. F.J. Pond (you may recognize the last name; Pond Lab is named for Francis’ brother, George, who was nicknamed “Swampy”). With the Blue/White Game now less than a full week away, I thought it appropriate to return our attention to Dr. Pond’s recollections, specifically as they relate to one of his favorite distractions: Penn State football.

Pond loved “sports, especially football, and eagerly followed every game.” As such, it’s no surprise that he devotes a section of his Penn State memories to the football program, although the intercollegiate competition of Dr. Pond’s time would be virtually unrecognizable to the many thousands who will fill the Beav on Saturday. His opening thoughts on the topic are some of my favorite in the entire book…

“Some of the early teams had fancy scores in football. At one time Lehigh beat Penn State 106 to 0. Another memorable time Penn State thought they had a very good team. They took a trip down East in the fall of 1899. One of the teams they played was Yale, and they all felt sure of winning the game. However, they were disappointed; and when the telegram came to State announcing the results of the game, this is what it said: ‘Yale 40, State 0. The team played well.’ The telegram was sent by Kid Biller, Manager, and the words ‘The team played well’ became a slogan around Penn State.”

Basically perfect. Of course, things weren’t all “fancy scores” and sarcastic telegrams back in State’s earliest days on the gridiron…

“In the early years about 1892-1899 football was so rough even ‘kneeing’ was allowed, and the boys on the team were fed cocaine pills to give them stamina. This was a bad habit and resulted in at least one known death.”

Talk about “football culture” … good thing the NCAA wasn’t around back then.

The Pond book is chockful of revealing, and often amusing, anecdotes like these. At only 40 pages, it is a quick, but satisfying trip down Happy Valley’s memory lane that can be enjoyed even if the internet has destroyed your attention span. It’s priced to own and available in paperback, Kindle, Nook and iBooks. Run, don’t walk.

As for our Nittany Lions, I’m sure we’ll all exit the stadium knowing almost nothing more about the team than when we arrived. That’s the way the Spring Game works. All of the hype and meticulous analysis that leads up to the game then amounting to basically nothing is a Penn State tradition in its own right (for how many years running have we been promised that the scrimmage will shed light on the team’s quarterback situation?). This week is just the appetizer. Coach O’Brien and company serve up the main course this Fall. Let’s hope the team plays well!