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Dear Old Wake: Mementoes, home movies tell university students of school's early times
Photo Courtesy of Wake Forest University
The exhibition includes this early Demon Deacons costume.
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Published: September 18, 2008
As if college freshmen didn't have it hard enough. If you attended Wake Forest College in the years after the turn of the 20th century, you had to wear a beanie made of black-and-gold felt.
Today's Wake Forest University students and fans can get a feeling for the old days at an exhibit of school memorabilia and relics. The Old Alma Mater: A Wake Forest History Exhibit will be in the Hanes Art Gallery at the Scales Fine Art Center on Wake Forest's campus through Oct. 12.
The exhibit includes items from Wake Forest's own archives and the Wake Forest College Birthplace Society. It also includes a section dedicated to the history of the school's first 122 years, when it was in the town of Wake Forest, in northern Wake County.
Also on display are items that rarely leave Wake Forest's original home, including the first Demon Deacons costume (from 1943); the first printed yearbook, the Howler, (from 1903); and ledgers for the literary societies, debating clubs that were precursors to today's fraternities and sororities.
That freshman beanie, now worn and faded, is also in the exhibit. It belonged to James Graham Lane (class of 1914), who presumably had to endure wearing it during at least his first few weeks of school.
It could have been worse. In some photos, Ed Morris, the Birthplace Society's director, said, he has seen the freshmen beanies festooned with propellers. "I don't know if they wore them all year, but certainly in the first few weeks of school … so that they could be recognized on campus."
Robert Cox and Lauren Hubbard, seniors and former co-chairs of WFU's Traditions Council, organized the exhibit.
The council is a student group that promotes school spirit, revives old traditions and promotes new ones (though it probably won't be bringing back beanies any time soon).
Cox and Hubbard thought of the exhibit last year, when one of their members was given an old brochure from Graylyn's days as a psychiatric hospital in the 1940s and '50s.
Their planning included a trip to the Birthplace museum, where they chose Wake Forest relics that they thought would resonate with students today. Morris let them have anything that wasn't too fragile for the trip to Winston-Salem.
"I didn't know that Shorty's was anything but a coffee shop. But it was a hot-dog spot on the old campus," Hubbard said. "These are the links we try to make for students."
Shorty's, a grill known for its hot dogs, is still in business today on South White Street in downtown Wake Forest. Winston-Salem's Shorty's is a coffee shop and pub in the bottom of WFU's student union.
Today, Wake Forest students often don't realize that in the 1950s what was then Wake Forest College built a new campus 100 miles to the west. The college, founded in 1834, moved to Winston-Salem in 1956.
"They come to Wake from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and everywhere else, and they have no idea of Wake Forest being anywhere but Winston-Salem," Morris said.
"I think this exhibit just touches the surface."
When people call information for a Wake Forest University number in Wake Forest, they often reach Morris instead. That's why he keeps a university directory within easy reach. "During the Orange Bowl, we got calls from NBC Sports," he said.
The crown jewels of The Old Alma Mater are black-and-white and color 16-mm home movies shot by a former chemistry professor, C.S. Black.
Black taught at Wake Forest from 1925 to 1965 (he took a break to serve in the Air Force during World War II, according to a WFU spokeswoman). He died in 1972.
Black lives on through the flickering images of cheerleaders in long skirts and saddle shoes; snowball fights; football games; and track-and-field meets on the old campus.
There's also footage of the new campus under construction in the 1950s.
"It's such candid footage. We're not on the same campus but we're going through the same things," Hubbard said.
"We can still see ourselves in these people," Cox added.
The home movies were given to the archives, then later put on DVD. They run on a continuous loop on a television in one of corner of the history exhibit.
Jenny Puckett, a Spanish lecturer and the council's adviser, collected audio from WFU alumni and professors to run with the silent home movies.
They include Marina Nowell, one of first female students when Wake Forest began to regularly admit women in 1943, and Reggie Mathis, a former student-body president, who graduated in 2006.
The traditions council is trying to organize another trip to the town of Wake Forest and WFU's original campus, now owned by the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
"One thing Robert and I realized is that not many students here get to visit the old campus," Hubbard said.
"We feel like it's something that every student should see."
■ Laura Giovanelli can be reached at 727-7302 or at lgiovanelli@wsjournal.com. The Hanes Art Gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
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