My group’s project is going to focused on the progression of the Quad’s landscape from the school’s first days in 1908 up and through to the modern day. We plan on using photos from Special Collections of both the historic quad and its buildings to show this change. We decided to look at twelve buildings: Carrier, Keezell, Wilson, Maury, Alumnae, Sheldon, Spotswood, the Music Building, Jackson, Harrison, Ashby, and Wampler. Each group member will focus on three of these buildings with one of them being from the JMU’s first decade, the second being from the 1930s/40s, and the last one being a more recent building. I will be looking at Maury, Sheldon, and Wampler Halls.
The photo captures a sense of “awe” and “celebration” as the corner stone of Maury Hall (then the Science Building at the Normal and Industrial School for Women at Harrisonburg) is being laid in April 1908. We see people crowding inside, outside, and around the building to be apart of what feels like a momentous occasion. While the building is meant to further the education of its then female students, people of all backgrounds and sexes appear to have shown up for this spectacle. As JMU has since expanded to the size that it today construction projects around campus seem to be apart of normal life but in 1908 it is a much different story. Maury was among the first of the buildings built here at JMU and has since served many purposes over the course of its long and versatile lifespan and as such has developed a history of its own. While the average JMU student today would just see Maury Hall as just another building I am sure that in 1908 this was seen as both a major and exciting event as well as a glimpse to come of what would later become the Madison College and later James Madison University.
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