Last year while processing a collection, I came upon this remarkable entry in a notebook devoted to minutes of the “Faculty Meetings” — the predecessor to our modern-day University Senate. For those of you not well-versed in 120-year-old cursive, let me transcribe it for you. Principal’s Office September 16, 1893 A special meeting of the
“Are you a Norm or are you a Pest?” Believe it or not, this isn’t really that unusual a question for students at the Maryland State Normal School, first incarnation of what is now Towson University. By 1876 — a decade after its creation — MSNS already had in place “literary societies”. There is no
Tucked away in our photographs collection are four tiny snapshots of young women and a couple children swimming. While the photos are charming and bucolic — a beautiful pool in the middle of a country setting — it is the description on the back of the photos that offers up the most interesting part of
This blog post was written by Armando Suarez, former Archives Associate at Towson University. The records of the Lida Lee Tall School (circa 1919-1982) are now available for research in the University Archives at the Albert S. Cook Library. The finding aid is searchable online, while the physical materials can be consulted at the Archives and
Arbor Day. It’s not the first thing that jumps to mind when someone says “state holidays”. But at the turn of the previous century, it was a significant day for Maryland schoolchildren, and therefore significant for Towson University’s predecessor, the Maryland State Normal School. While not a holiday, Arbor Day was a day set aside
Plans for the new Maryland State Normal School began long before the property for the campus was acquired. In the same 1910-1911 Annual Report in which Sarah Richmond stated her case for the need for a new building, she outlined what she expected of the architect the school would eventually hire, and included examples of
“Sometimes in the course of events, circumstances so combine as to set at naught the wisest of preconceived plans,” writes Sarah Richmond, Principal of the Maryland State Normal School in the Annual Report of 1910-1911, and making the case for funding a new building for her students. “In the last twenty-five years school architecture has
Towson University, formerly known as the Maryland State Normal School, the State Teachers College at Towson, Towson State College, and Towson State University, has had thirteen principals and presidents, three interim presidents, and one principal ex officio with founder Libertus Van Bokkelen. The office of Principal/President has had to contend with the same difficulties throughout
This post was written by Nadia Nasr, former head of Special Collections and University Archives. Last Wednesday Towson University Dining hosted an Old English Holiday Party. Seeing the publicity for this event reminded us about the Old English Christmas dinner that used to take place on campus, when Towson University was the Maryland State Normal
In a previous post, I talked about how Nadia and I pored over school catalogs to glean information for a presentation we crafted. In fact, we use the school catalogs for a lot of information about the school. I was a student here in the 1990s, and back then I had little understanding of how