Historian Brad Schwartz recently visited the RBML as part of his research on legendary broadcaster Edward Murrow. Currently a graduate student at Princeton, Brad delved into the RBML’s rich journalism collections and oral histories of journalists. Below he describes how his visit to the RBML fits into his ongoing project, Newsman: Edward R. Murrow and […]
Columbia’s Yew Trees
Senior Class gifts have evolved significantly over the years. In the early days of Columbia on Morningside Heights, the Senior Class ended their Class Day with the presentation of the class gift: the planting of a yew tree and a speech given by a Yew Tree Orator chosen by the class. Why would students give […]
An A-to-Z of Oral History at Columbia: “E” is for Ethics
An A-to-Z of Oral History at Columbia is a monthly posting featuring the people, events, and organizations in the Oral History Archive at Columbia’s collections, as well as behind-the-scenes info about oral history methodology. The next two entries in the OHAC A-to-Z focus on what happens behind-the-scenes in oral history methodology and archival […]
Women at Columbia College in 1786?
A notice in the New-York Journal of November 23, 1786, notes that a number of young women participated in public examinations at Columbia College, vying for prizes for the best reader, best writer, best speller and best proficient in French. Women taking exams at Columbia in 1786? Yes, just months after its first Commencement since […]
Alice Louise Pond
Alice Louise Pond was not the first nor even the second woman to receive a Columbia diploma. Those honors belong to Winifred Edgerton, the first woman to receive a degree from Columbia, a PhD in Mathematics in 1886, and to Mary Parsons Hankey, who completed the Collegiate Course for Women and became the first woman […]