Special Collections - Anteater Antics

Archives for July 2012

Aldrich Park dedicated on June 6, 1984

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When the campus opened on October 4, 1965, the partially completed park in the middle of campus was called Campus Park. It remained Campus Park until 1984 when it was renamed Aldrich Park, in honor of Daniel Aldrich, who retired in 1984 after twenty-two years of service as UCI Chancellor. The renaming of the park was only one of numerous events that took place in the Spring of 1984 in honor of the retirement of our first Chancellor. The dedication of the 21-acre Aldrich Park occurred on June 6, 1984. Below is a photograph of Daniel Aldrich with former Orange County Supervisor Thomas F. Riley (left) at the dedication ceremony.

AS-061. University Communication Photographs. Special Collections and Archives, the U.C. Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California. Box 144.

UCI was considered as a site for Nixon Presidential Library

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On this date, July 27th, in 1974, the House Judiciary Committee recommended that Richard M. Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, be impeached and removed from office. The impeachment proceedings resulted from a series of political scandals involving the Nixon administration that came to be collectively known as Watergate.  On August 8, 1974, Nixon announced his resignation, becoming the first president in U.S. history to voluntarily leave office. In 1983, along with several other sites, UCI was considered as the location of the Nixon Presidential Library.  The UCI Academic Senate Special Committee on the Nixon Library  was appointed by the Chair of the Academic Senate  in 1983 to research and develop recommendations relating to the possibility of the Nixon Presidential Library being located on the UCI campus. The Committee recommended several conditions that the Nixon Archives Foundation felt were overbearing. As a result, UCI was not chosen as the site for the Nixon Presidential Library. Yorba Linda, CA, the birthplace of Richard Nixon, was eventually chosen as the site of the Nixon Library.

Notice of Special Meeting of Academic Senate on the Nixon Library Report

AS-005. Academic Senate Records. Special Collections and Archives, the U.C. Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.

Shakespeare inside and outside Langson Library

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Many of us anxiously await the inaugural New Swan Shakespeare Festival, to be staged adjacent to Langson Library on Gateway Plaza, from August 9 – 26. In the meantime, we would like to point out that Shakespeare’s “First Folio,” one of the rarest items in the UCI Libraries, is housed in Special Collections and Archives on the fifth floor of Langson. The first collected edition of the plays of William Shakespeare, commonly known as “The First Folio,” has long ranked among the most treasured publications in the English language. A fine copy of the first edition was donated to the Libraries in 1986 by Dr. Patrick Hanratty (below), a graduate of the UCI doctoral program in Information and Computer Science. Printed in London in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death, the First Folio contains texts of thirty-six of the plays. Half of the plays here had never been printed before and half of the remaining plays appear here in authoritative versions. Only about 240 copies of the First Folio survive today, most held in libraries and other cultural institutions.  Although the 1623 edition of the First Folio is available for viewing by serious researchers in the Special Collections and Archives Reading Room on the fifth floor of Langson Library, our collection also includes quality facsimiles of this edition, which may suffice for most research purposes.

Dr. Patrick Hanratty and the Shakespeare First Folio [AS-061, Box 144]

The New Swan Theater, under construction, outside Langson Library. [Photograph by S. MacLeod]

AS-061. University Communication Photographs. Special Collections and Archives, the U.C. Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California. Box 144 [Hanratty photograph].

“New” Cross Cultural Center dedication on April 18, 1989

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The original Cross-Cultural Center (CCC) was founded on October 16, 1974. It was the first multicultural center at a University of California campus. The purpose of the CCC was “to create Third World interaction, student outreach, and provide necessary information to the minority community on campus.” The first CCC was located in a temporary facility across Ring Mall from the School of Humanities. The “new” Cross-Cultural Center opened on April 18, 1989, in a 3,400 square foot space, almost twice as large as the first space.  The original mural, dedicated in 1976, was moved and is displayed in the current lounge. In 1993, a mural conceived by the well-known muralist Judy Baca was installed in the ‘Cross’ conference room.  Below Lori White cuts the ribbon on opening day in 1989.

AS-061. University Communication Photographs. Special Collections and Archives, the U.C. Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California. Box 144.

July 18th is Hunter Thompson’s birthday

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“Gonzo journalist” Hunter S. Thompson would have been 83 years old today. He was born on July 18, 1929 in Louisville, Kentucky. The UCI Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives collections contain first editions of Thompson’s first three books: Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (1967); Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971, signed); and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 (1973). Summer hours in Special Collections and Archives are Monday-Friday, 1-5pm.

[Photograph by S. MacLeod]