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Questions
for Dr. Perry Y. Jackson
1. Why did you leave
your position as head of the chemistry department at Park College, near
Kansas City, Missouri to come to the new Norfolk Division of the College
of William and Mary in 1930?
2. Could you give
me your recollections about those first years in the old Larchmont School
building at Boiling Avenue and Hampton Boulevard? How did the students
impress you? What kind of facilities did
impress you? What kind of facilities did you have to teach science?
Did the faculty seem well prepared?
3. In October 1931
The High Hat described you as "certainly one of the best liked
professors at the Norfolk Division." Can you explain how you attained
such a high standing among the students? Did you sponsor any clubs or
organizations on the campus?
4. During the 1930's
three men served as chief administrative officer at the Norfolk Division:
Mr. H. Edgar Timmerman, Dr. Edward L. Gwathmey and Dr. William T. Hodges.
Do you have any interesting recollections about these men and could
you evaluate their stewardship?
5. In the spring of
1932 you organized a field trip to Williamsburg so that the chemistry
students could listen to lectures at the College of William and Mary
and also view
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a skit produced by
Dr. Pyre. I was wondering how, in the depths of the Great Depression
you were able to finance such a trip, which involved using a boat belonging
to the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey and chartering buses from Jamestown
to Williamsburg?
6. Did you take summer
courses to keep abreast of developments in your field? Was it possible
for you to engage in re search in chemistry at the Norfolk Division
in the 1930's?
7. You seem to have
been one of the first professors here to employ audio-visual techniques
in teaching. In 1934-35 you conducted programs featuring films on x-rays
and atoms, gasoline, petroleum and liquid air, the making of steel,
and on sulphur and asbestos. How did the students respond to such programs
and did you believe they were beneficial?
8. During the 1930's
did you enjoy professional contact with chemists in industry in the
Hampton Roads area?
9. You participated
quite frequently in the college's public lecture series in 1935-36.
In 1936 you spoke on "Quacks, Quackery, and Scientific Fact"
in respect to false advertising. This talk demonstrates that consumer
protection is by no means a new issue. You delivered lectures on this
topic on at least two other occasions. How did you become interested
in this topic in the 1930's? How well attended was the lecture and how
was your presentation received?
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10. In 1939 you became
sponsor of the college debate team. The team enjoyed considerable success
as it returned Un-defeated from a six-day tournament in North Carolina.
In March 1939 you took the team to Ashland, Virginia for the State Intercollegiate
Forensic tournament. We do not have The High Hats, which report the
results of that tournament. Could you tell me how it turned out? Why
was the team so successful? Do you have any interesting recollections
or anecdotes in connection with this team?
11. Could you tell
me about the series of radio programs on scientific subjects, which
you did for WTAR in 1937-1938?
12. In 1939 you were
called to active duty by the U.S. Navy and sent to the Naval Academy
at Annapolis. Why did you choose not to return to the Norfolk Division
after the war? What are your feelings about your years at the Norfolk
Division? Was it a beneficial experience?
Dr.
Perry Y. Jackson's Answers
In the early summer
of 1930 Professor Schlesinger, of the Chemistry Department of the University
of Chicago, told me that he had been asked to recommend a man for the
Department of Chemistry at William and Mary; he wanted to know if I
was interested. A friend of mine, William Guy, who had completed his
work for the doctorate in chemistry two years ahead of me, had gone
to William and Mary, and all reports from the college had been good.
I had just completed three years at Park College, a small school with
high standards of scholarship located on the bluffs of the Missouri
River just outside Kansas City. Most of my ties were with the East,
end since I was planning to visit relatives in Virginia and North Caroline
I wrote to Dr. A.C. Chandler, President of William and Mary, to tell
him of my interest in the position there.
Dr. Chandler invited
me to Williamsburg and there told me of his plan for a new campus of
William end Mary to be located in Norfolk, at that time the largest
English-speaking community in the world without an institution of higher
learning. He emphasized that it was not a junior college, which was
to be estab-lished. During the first year only freshman courses were
to be offered, but they were to be in all respects equivalent to the
courses at the Williamsburg campus; sophomore courses would be added
during the second year, and thereafter no limit was placed on the growth
of the college. His enthusiasm was contagious and when he offered me
an appointment as professor at the new campus I was pleased to accept.
Back in Kansas City
I loaded my belongings, mostly books, into the trunk of my Studebaker
and started out for Cincinnati, where the American Chemical Society
was holding its annual convention. Here a telegram was waiting--I was
needed at once in Norfolk. And so it was. The old Larchmont Public School
building which housed the College that first year was undergoing a complete
refurnishing. The chemistry laboratory already had its work tables,
sinks, and lockers in position, and the demonstration table intended
for the lecture room was being connected to gas and water lines in the
laboratory. All the equipment had been designed by experts and was of
excellent quality; but it had been constructed in the State Prison and
installation was proceeding under the supervision of uniformed guards
armed with shotguns.
Registration for the first year's freshman class was already underway.
One young lady remarked, "I came here to kindergarten and now I
am back here for college; all my other schooling was sandwiched in between."
There were, I believe,
169 students enrolled in the first freshman class at the college fondly
known as the Norfolk Division. Because of the collaboration of the Virginia
Polytechnic Institute with the College of William and Mary the new
college started with
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the smallest student
body and the longest college name in all
Virginia: The Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary in
Virginia and The Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Most of the students
were products of the great high schools of the area and were welcomed
by a faculty mostly young and full of enthusiasm. A check of the college
catalog for that year showed that the fraction of faculty members with
the doctorate degree was higher than at any other college in the state.
Except for the university at Charlottesville (of course this calculation
included professors from Williamsburg who divided their time between
the two campuses).
There was at first
no limit to the number of hours that a resident faculty member was expected
to teach each week, end my schedule counted twenty-one hours a week
in classroom and laboratory. Some others were equally tied to the classroom.
Students too were expected to work, one boy, whose persistence was not
matched by his spelling ability, complained, "I spent three hours
today in class, and three hours in the lavatory."
Not all members of
the faculty and staff were completely happy with conditions. An instructor
in history left abruptly in the middle of the first year. The first
Director, Mr. Timmerman, came from New York State, and found business
interests calling him away in the second year. The second Director,
Dr. Edward L. Gwathmey, added dignity to the position of Director, but
left to become President of Converse College in South Carolina. He was
succeeded by Dr. William T. Hodges; the popular Dean of the College
in Williamsburg, who directed the Norfolk Division during the years
of its greatest struggles and rapid growth.
The collapse of Atlantic
University at Virginia Beach in 1932 brought an influx of transfer students
to the Norfolk Division. At the same time we purchased the laboratory
equipment and supplies on hand and left behind in the university buildings
(two huge wooden hotels), and a considerable portion of the university
library. To transfer the material we took a large truck to the university,
and were admitted into the buildings and the laboratories. We found
equipment and chemicals stored on wooden shelves in a wooden storage
space in the basement. First of all we saw white smoke pouring from
a large ceramic jar--an open jar containing great sticks of yellow phosphorus.
The water had evaporated from the phosphorus and it was ready any moment
to burst into flame. That day we saved Virginia Beach from a possible
holocaust.
The College continued
to increase in size and importance with each year, end following the
inauguration of the Works Progress Administration by the Federal Government
it was able to expand its physical plant as well. The construction of
the
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great stadium at Foreman
Field suggested the growth which the future held in store for the college;
at the time, however, the stadium so overshadowed the rest of the institution
that cynical humorists referred to "the stadium with college attached."
The economic recession had developed into the great depression of the
1930's, and lack of anticipated income had temporarily locked the college
into a two-year status. Student fees provided most of the financial
support of the college. The parent institutions at Williamsburg and
Blacksburg were able to give only moral support. At Williamsburg the
student newspaper was called. The Flat Hat; at the Norfolk campus The
High Hat imitated it only in name. The football team at Williamsburg
was aptly named the Indians, since the original school had been planned
partly as a school for natives; as soon as the Norfolk Division had
a football team the sportswriters gleefully referred to them as Papooses.
Suitable opponents for athletic competition were scarce in the area.
The Naval Training Station, the Newport News Shipbuilders, and the large
high schools were played at first; other small colleges and the freshman
of junior varsity teams of larger colleges were added later.
In spite of the great
depression the Norfolk-Portsmouth- Newport News area was full of activities
important to students end teachers of chemistry. There were testing
laboratories, water purification plants, fertilizer factories, breweries,
foundries, end the great Navy Yard with its laboratories. The Hampton
Roads Chemists Club end the Engineers Club held regular monthly meetings
in Norfolk, and the Virginia Academy of Science assembled at campuses
throughout the state. All of these activities were available and were
used by the personnel of the college. The Bureau of Mines and many large
industrial companies provided, at no cost except transportation, motion
pictures on chemical end other technical processes. We did not at first
have projection equipment at the college, but the public schools at
Sewell's Point and at Larchmont were generous in allowing us the use
of their auditoriums and equipment after regular school hours. The students
responded gladly, and paid a small sum each to pay the cost of mailing
the films. All of this added to the interest and value of the courses,
and students who transferred after two years to advanced standing at
Williamsburg, Blacksburg, or the University of Virginia distinguished
themselves and enhanced the reputation of the college in Norfolk.
During the summers
it was possible for members of the faculty, at their own expense, to
take courses elsewhere in their various specialties. The summer of 1931
I spent at Harvard University, and in 1932 I was for several weeks at
the University of Berlin. At that time a round trip to Europe on the
great White Star liner Olympic took about five days each way and cost
about $165. College instructors who still had positions made up a large
portion of the passenger list. In Berlin a room in a pension near the
university, with meals, cost the equivalent of seven dollars a week.
In Germany the depression had struck earlier and harder, unemployment
was general, and. people were just beginning to take seriously Hitler
with his promise of peace and prosperity under the Nazi banner. (That
part of Berlin, along the River Spree, is in the Eastern Sector; all
its buildings, including the gem-like Monbijou Palace, were destroyed
by war-time bombing and the entire section is now a park). All these
experiences were stimulating and. added to the interest and importance
of life at a college.
One of the original
faculty members at the Norfolk Division was Miss Ethel Childress. In
1934 we were married, and established our home on Bolling Avenue, near
the college. My wife was no longer teaching, but she continued to be
active in the work of the college, sponsored one of the clubs, and made
any student welcome in our home at any time.
In these days of
television documentaries on every subject on earth and in the universe
it is not easy to recall the complete lack of such material only forty
years ago. The people of Norfolk felt the lack, and responded with their
time and. money to appeals or projects, which seemed to offer enlightenment.
There was no lack of persons eager to take advantage of this thirst
for knowledge. At the college I began a collection of the pseudoscientific
literature of the time: astrology, Hindu mysticism, fortune telling,
mind reading (the practitioners called themselves "mentalists"),
spiritualism, faith healing, quack remedies of every kind. One Norfolk
enterprise had a huge sign offering treatments in accordance with the
"four elements", earth, air, fire, and water; they gave mud
baths, bubble baths, hot baths, and irrigation. Seers could go into
a trance to diagnose end prescribe; an electronic device had colored
lights which flashed on when electrodes were pressed against any diseased
part of the body; bonesetters cured disease by pressing on joints of
the vertebral column. A lecturer on sex in 1932 is said to have taken
$60,000 out of Norfolk with a ten-day lecture series. Sensational evangelists
vied with serious scholars, such as Will Durant, in the public lecture
halls. The college did not lag behind in offerings of public interest;
it inaugurated series of lectures, given by members of the faculty,
on sociology, economics, literature, and the biological and physical
sciences. For some of these latter Dr. Rut f in Jones, of the Department
of Biology, and I collaborated. Dr. Jones was an excellent and entertaining
lecturer, and the sessions, held in the auditorium of the college, were
uniformly crowded. The popular talks on science included a number broadcast
by Radio Station WTAR, and added immeasurably to the reputation of the
college in the community.
Intercollegiate debates
were popular in the thirties, and. in 1937 I invited all students interested
in public speaking to form a club. It was my hope that we could develop
a debate team, which could challenge other schools, including senior
colleges. The results exceeded our expectations, and in 1938 our debate
team invaded North Carolina and met six senior colleges without a defeat.
The national topic for debate that year concerned the National Labor
Relations Board. A
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letter from a concerned
reader, published in the Norfolk newspaper, protested that all debates
should be prohibited; only the true side of a question should be supported,
and no-one should be permitted to argue for the false. Nevertheless
we prepared to argue either side of the NLRB dispute, and offered all
opponents their choice of affirmative or negative. Our arguments on
both sides proved unanswerable, and we went through the season without
defeat, meeting colleges throughout North Carolina and Virginia. At
the State Intercollegiate Forensic Tournament held at Randolph-Macon
College we were likewise undefeated, and the captain of our team was
selected as the outstanding debater of the entire state. We missed the
team championship by a single point--the coaches served as judges for
the team championship and I was one point too generous to our nearest
rival.
In 1938 the chemistry
fraternity at the college planned a student handbook, to be full of
useful information for an incoming student. This book, before it appeared,
had become a miniature yearbook of the college, with pictures of the
faculty end staff, the classes, the clubs, and the athletic teams. The
name The Cauldron, was selected by the chemistry students because they
had poured everything into it. I believe it rates as Number One as the
yearbook of the University.
In 1936 the officer
in charge of the Department of Communications at the Naval Base visited
the college with an invitation to a small group of interested faculty
members to undertake a course of study in codes and ciphers. Three of
us responded. The complexities of concealed communications called for
intelligence, intuition, herd work, end luck, all in large amounts.
Professor Prosser, of the Department of Economics, end Harrington, of
Engineering, had plenty of the first three requirements. The courses
in chemistry still engaged a good deal of my time, but the challenge
of cipher work proved irresistible. In the spring of 1938 I had completed
sufficient work to be commissioned Lieutenant in the United. States
Naval Reserve, classified as a cipher specialist. In 1939, when the
war which had started in China, Ethiopia, and Spain spread over most
of Europe I was asked to come to the Naval Academy for a period of six
months, as an instructor in the Department of Electrical Engineering.
With a leave of absence
granted by the college for six months I bought uniforms and a sword
( a requirement at that time; my wife assured me it would be useful
for sharpening the pencils used in cipher work), we rented our house
on a six-month lease, and I reported for duty with the navy.
Very soon I learned
that the six-month limit on my tour of duty meant nothing in the period
of national emergency. Orders were in preparation, which would send
me to
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Pearl Harbor to work
with the group engaged in Asiatic languages end Japanese codes and ciphers.
When the expected orders did not arrive I went to the Navy Department
to inquire, and learned that the Superintendent of the Naval Academy
had asked for my services to replace a line officer ordered to duty
aboard ship. The next years were spent partly at sea, partly in Washington,
but mostly at Annapolis, where not much chemistry was taught to midshipmen,
but a great deal of electrical engineering and aviation mechanics.
Meanwhile the college
in Norfolk had grown, along with the city. I was looking forward to
returning home when I was offered the opportunity to go to a large northern
college to teach physical chemistry. This was my favorite subject, end
the one which Bill Guy had taught at Williams burg for many years. There
was at that time no immediate prospect of senior level courses at the
Norfolk campus; with real regret after eight years absence I wrote to
the college offering my resignation.
In many respects
I grew up with the Norfolk Division. It gave me a feeling of pride when
it achieved its independence as Old Dominion College, and still more
when it expanded to become Old Dominion University. The original building
standing at the intersection of Hampton Boulevard and Bolling Avenue
is to me still the center of the institution; year ago I wandered about
the corridors and classrooms of that old building and I found it full
of the most wonderful ghosts of former days.
Perry Y. Jackson
February 1975 |
