nichole's auxiliary storage

Idiotikon

...is my favorite German word of the day. Ganz lustig.

Equilibria

It's "Studies of complex ion equilibria," not "Studies of complexion equilibria."

There are no ugly colors

Snapshots, however...
This is from a home ec thesis. They're my favorite kind - can you tell?

Juvenile, I know...

Working on titles like "A comparison of media for the maintenance of bovine semen" is nothing special. I wasn't even going to make a prurient comment about "The stimulation of one digital computer by another." But then I saw that a cataloger (or card typist) had miskeyed one title as "Medical facilitits of the U.S. army [...]" and that's too much in one afternoon to keep to myself, even against my better judgement.

In other news, I'll get to key in Abraham Maslow's thesis pretty soon. This job has its perks.

The best way to boil vegetables

In 1921, Mary Myrtle McCalmont began her 10 page thesis, "The loss of food constituents in the preparation of vegetables," thus:

Too long has good food been wasted in the American kitchen. Part of this has been because of wasteful preparation, part because of careless storage, part because of general incompetency of the housewife.

Her research investigates whether vegetables retain more nutrients when they are placed in boiling water to be cooked, or are placed in cold water and brought to a boil. She found that the water  should be brought to boil before putting in the vegetables, though many stoves boil water so quickly that the loss of vitamins and minerals is negligible. She also recommends that the cooking water be used in other dishes as often as practicable.

I once made bread with potato water that I'd refrigerated overnight. The water had turned bright green, and ended up pigmenting the bread, but it turned out OK.

Not very nice

On the title page of "Breeding behavior for bushel weight and agronomic characters in early generations of oat crosses," someone has appended, in blue ink, the phrase "is a jerk" to the author's name. Dr. Pawlisch seems like a nice enough guy - jeez. But who knows.

Acknowledgements in theses 2

In The Zionist pioneer youth movement in America as a social movement by Joseph Greenblum: "To Erika, for everything words do not express."

Meet the dispassionate Drs. Moody, twins born in 1918 who went through school together, right up through PhDs in physical chemistry.
LeRoy to Leonard, in The molecular kinetic behavior of certain seed globulins:

Mr. L.E. Moody, a fellow graduate student, worked jointly with the author on the preparation of the seed globulins, and has given assistance and advice during the course of this project.

Leonard to LeRoy, in A contribution to the physical chemistry of the seed globulins in solution:

Mr. LeRoy Moody assited in the preparation of the proteins. Without his assistance much of this work never would have been completed.

In Sequential tests for the detection of linkage by Newton Ennis Morton: "My wife, Nancy T. Morton, helped to compile the tables and showed remarkable forbearance at other times."

It seems to my admittedly unscientific eyes that the PhD theses mention spouses' forbearance, assistance, patience, etc. much more frequently than the Masters theses do.

Camp Gallistella

So I came across Albert F. Gallistel's thesis, which led me to the "Building & ground's superintendent's office records, 1907-1961" in MadCat, which mentioned the Camp Gallistella Tent Colony, an enchanting bit of UW history:

The camp, also known as the Tent Colony, was located along the lakeshore west of Frautschi (Second) Point and east of the small parking lot known as Angler’s Cove. It all began in the summer of 1912, when a group of agriculture students asked for permission to camp along the shore of Lake Mendota while they attended summer school. They approached the Director of Summer Sessions, Scott Goodnight, with their proposal. Goodnight (who later became a controversial Dean of Men) saw promise in their plan, remarking that camping along the lake would provide “cheap and salubrious accommodations,” to students who could not otherwise afford to attend summer school.

From Tent Colony Chronicles, Part I, by Jane Camerini.

No 740 for you, Mr. Mortimer

Forrest Spencer Mortimer's 1943 PhD thesis in physical chemistry includes a letter from Juta Riley at the UW Graduate School to librarian Gilbert Doane.

Dear Mr. Doane:
In connection with the Ph.D. thesis for Mr. Forrest Spencer Mortimer, Part I - The Infra Red Spectra of Fifteen Organic Bromides and Their Relative Chemical Reactivities has been approved in the regular way. Part II, however, is being withheld because of its confidential and secret nature as the result of a National Defense project. At a later date Part II will be filed in the Library to complete his thesis for binding.

Well, it wasn't, and it didn't, because Part II is nowhere to be found.

My dear Mr. Greene

At my retrocon cataloging job, sometimes there's not enough information on the theses themselves. We have to go to the UW Archives to look up dates of birth and departments and whatnot.

There, box upon box of admission records, probably bequeathed to the archives and stored without much in the way of finding aids (that I could see - not to disparage the staff, who are always very helpful), contain all kinds of little treaures.

Like a letter from the registrar's office to a student, dated 1934, that began:

"My dear Mr. Greene,"

and explained the University's policy on assistantships, stipends and the like, and concluded,

"Your fees for this semester, therefore, will total fifteen dollars and fifty cents.

Very truly yours,
Capitola Bliese."

That's, oh, some fraction of today's tuition, depending on how you do the math.

Ruth Gruber

So I just got to retro-catalog Ruth Gruber's 1931 MA thesis on Goethe. Her Central Park West address in the alumni records piqued my interest, and I was richly rewarded. What a woman: she was an arctic journalist, "eyewitness to history," and memoir writer, who evidently piled up degrees like most other people accumulate winter coats.

Florence Meta Gage

Her thesis, "Classification of the constituents of volatile oils‚" is full of page after page of beautiful spidery handwriting.
Also, Florence Meta Gage is an awesome name.

Aerosol generation research

The permissions page in Frederic Eugene Gore's thesis, "Aerosol generation by dispersal of spray dried powders," reveals that the US Army Biological Warfare Laboratories, Fort Detrick, Maryland, requested it on mircofilm on May 26, 1960.

Training with cards

Glenn Lion Gardiner's 1920 thesis called "The relation of the employment manger to job analysis and the personel" outlines an index card system of his own devising for training employees. In it, a card file is be created in which related jobs are grouped in "blocks." Within each block is a divider for each job. Behind each divider is a card for each job duty.

When supervisors need to train new hires, they simply reach for the right pack of cards and tick them off as each facet of the job is covered.

It may be a relic of the scientific school of management thought, but I think it's cool.

Acknowledgements in theses

One of my part-time librarian-in-waiting jobs is retrocataloging UW theses that were written before the electronic catalog came to be. Frankly, it is just a data entry gig, but it keeps me in the loop. Plus, it has been fun to see what people wrote about more than 40 years ago.

In particular I've come across some dedications and acknowledgements that shine out between the endless dry thanks to advisors. Here are a few examples.

John Conrad Feltner, who finished his degree in his 40s, was "grateful to his son Conrad for typing this thesis."

In "The preparedness movement in Wisconsin 1914-1917" by John P. Finnegan:
"To Toddy, who made the whole thing more interesting."

In "Role-set and reported susceptibility to prestige-persuasion" by Catherine Anna Froman:
"My source of inspiration has been the spirit and intellect of my husband, Creel."

In a thesis on Metastrongylus molin:
Special appreciation is due the Oscar Mayer Company, Madison, Wisconsin, for a generous supply of specimen material.

In "The Marshall plan and American prosperity" by Clarence J. Geiger:
"For Mom and Dad. Even mediocrity is acceptable if you wait long enough."

And my favorite thus far, the Erlebachers.
Albert, MS Psychology, 1960, who went on to a PhD and professorship:
"Thanks are also due to the writer's wife, Adrienne, without whose constant help and periodic nagging this thesis would not have been completed."

Adrienne, MA Education, 1960:
"Last and least thanks go to my husband, Albert, who cooked once while the two year project was underway."