My team is creating an interactive story map of the James Madison University quad and twelve of the surrounding buildings, focusing on the history of the physical structures, landscape, and material culture. We have divided those 12 buildings between the four team members, and I will be researching Jackson Hall, Wilson Hall, and the Music Building in order to provide information for those clickable entries on the map. I hope to include concise written descriptions of those buildings and any additional media I might find to create a more compelling experience for the audience.
The artifact that I’ve chosen to analyze here is an oversized, black and white photograph from Special collections that shows the entire student body sometime around 1929, with the students arranged along the northwest edge of the quad that lines up with Main Street, between where Wampler Hall and the Music building now stand. This image delivers a lot more information than was probably intended when the panoramic group portrait was originally taken. A modern viewer will notice obvious differences between the landscape of the quad as they know it and the one shown in the photograph. They will also recognize how much the student body has changed in both size and diversity. Not only does this photograph demonstrate the school’s growth since 1929, it also shows how much the school had already grown since its founding twenty years earlier.
Image from JMU.edu
The differences in the landscape are immediately striking, most noticeably the absence of Wilson Hall, which is presently the focal point of the quad. Maury Hall seems to still be covered in the imported ivy from Warwick Castle in England that was planted by the senior class in 1913 and there are fewer paths, benches, lampposts, and trees than can be seen in the quad today. In the distance, beyond the buildings, the mountains are barely visible, meaning that there was no other urban development to block the extended view. President Duke’s efforts at campus beautification can be seen in the walkways that had already been installed before 1929 and the terracing that left Kissing Rock exposed and visible in the background.
Today (2019), almost 20,000 students are enrolled at JMU. The fact that the student body—in its entirety—fit into one photograph shows how much the school has grown in the decades since the portrait was taken. Being able to see just how few students there were* in 1929 illustrates how different the requirements must have been in terms of the school’s facilities. As JMU has continued its exponential growth, additions and adjustments have been necessary to keep up with those demands.
Since JMU wasn’t coeducational or desegregated until 1966, the image shows hundreds of white, female faces. It’s one thing to read about the lack of diversity at the early incarnations of the institution that would eventually become James Madison University, but a picture like this really drives the point home. It’s hard to imagine what it must have felt like for the first black students to arrive on campus, greeted by a similar (though much larger, by 1966) sea of whiteness.
* Relatively speaking—the 450 students in the picture represent significant growth from the 150 students enrolled in the institution’s very first term in 1909.
Source:
Control #Oversize102, JMU Historic Photos Online, Special Collections, Carrier Library, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Va.
https://dahjsg1f05sei.cloudfront.net/special/SCPix/oversize/Over102.jpg
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