Category: Notre Dame History

1928 Olympic Tour

Ever the entrepreneur and marketing guru, Athletic Director Knute Rockne organized a six-week European tour with a stop over to watch the Track and Field events at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam.  He recruited friends, colleagues, and former Notre Dame athletes across the country to act as representatives to sell the tour within their social and professional circles and to the general public.  Many of these representatives held positions as coaches and athletic directors at colleges, high schools, and local athletic clubs.

According the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “The Rockne pilgrimage is expected to be the largest tour ever conducted by an individual to the continent, and it is the first time that an individual has arranged for the use of a boat of such great tonnage as the Carmania for a trip to the old world” [“Rockne to Conduct Olympic Tour,” January 30, 1928].

 Form letter regarding the details of Knute Rockne’s Olympic Tour, 1928

The nearly 200 participants were made up of Rockne’s friends and colleagues, including the likes of Pop Warner, Harry Stuhldreher, and Tom Lieb, college students, single men and women, and families.  The party departed New York City on July 20, 1928, and returned on September 2nd.  During the six-week summer trip, they visited England, Holland, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and France.  Due to the success of the 1928 trip, it is likely that Rockne would have organized future Olympic excursions had he not met his untimely end on March 31, 1931.

 

Sources:
PATH 3-5-Ol Folder
UADR 22-23
“Rockne to Conduct Olympic Tour,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 30, 1928
“Many Will Journey with Rockne abroad for Olympic Events,” St. Petersburg Times, March 27, 1928

WAVES at Notre Dame

“Ahoy matey’s, and what’s buzzin’ Joe College? Somethin’ new has been added on the fair campus of Notre Dame”  [Scholastic issue 07/16/1943, page 11]

Enrollment at Notre Dame declined during the Great Depression for economic reasons.  The need for men in the military during World War II again threatened enrollment levels.  In an effort to keep Notre Dame, an all-male institution, a viable, University President Rev. Hugh O’Donnell, CSC, allowed the Navy to establish a V-7 training program on campus in 1942.  The V-12 program arrived in 1943.  While many are familiar with this part of Notre Dame history, few remember that the WAVES were also stationed on campus in the 1940s.

Women’s Reserve V-10 (WAVES) on the steps of the Rockne Memorial, 1943/0407

The WAVES arrived on campus in July 1943, but they lived in the Oliver Hotel in downtown South Bend.  “They work in the local Navy offices, drive Navy cars and in other ways take over the places of Navy. … The group is made up of both commissioned and non-commissioned personnel” [Scholastic, July 6, 1943, page 8].  Some of the women did learn to fly, to which Scholastic joked, “If and when the time comes for their initial solo, the gals have promised to notify the University, as time must be had to double the insurance on the Dome, you know!” [Scholastic, March 31, 1944, page 8].

Three WAVES working the pay check distribution line at Notre Dame, 1944

 Since the WAVES were not officially affiliated with the University, the Notre Dame Archives does not have many records of their time on campus.  However, the University Archives is extremely fortunate to have the scrapbook kept by Ethel E. Larkin Roselle, a WAVE stationed at Notre Dame and later Harvard University.  The photos from this blog post come from her scrapbook.

 

Sources:
The University of Notre Dame: A Portrait of Its History and Campus, by Thomas Schlereth, pages 169-173
Scholastic
GRSL:  Ethel E. Larkin Roselle scrapbook

Senior Bar

The first Senior Bar building has an unlikely history.  The house was built in 1916 as a private residence and was known as the McNamara House.  In 1951 the house was converted into a home for men in formation to the Brothers of the Congregation of Holy Cross and renamed André House after now Saint Brother André Bessette, CSC.

André House facing Eddy Street, March 1951.
This space is now occupied by the current Legends Restaurant

André House served as a home for the brothers for about a decade.  It was then used as a Faculty Club in the 1960s.  At this same time, the Senior Class would designate a local, off-campus watering-hole as “Senior Bar.”  The location changed yearly and students worked with local establishments to have a private club for Notre Dame seniors and their dates over the age of 21 who purchased membership.

The opportunity for students to move Senior Bar to campus came when the University Club opened in 1968 along Notre Dame Avenue (razed in 2008) and André House was once again vacant.  In January 1969, the Alumni Association took over the old house and opened Alumni Club.  Of-age seniors could gain membership and “senior class managers handled the day-to-day operations of the club” [Scholastic, 12/05/1975, page 18].  Alumni Club could accommodate several hundred people and offered bars, pool tables, and dancing areas.

Students outside of Alumni-Senior Club, c1970s

Students dominated Alumni Club and the Alumni Association backed out of the venture in 1974.  After much negotiation, the club moved under the auspices of the Office of Student Affairs and changed the name to Alumni-Senior Club.  Ever since 1969, the popularity and financial stability of Alumni-Senior Club ebbed and waned.  The 1916 building became cost prohibitive to physically maintain.  In 1982, a new Senior Bar was built on the same location as the old house.  The new building, designed with input from students, offered three times as much space as the old building.  It included three bars, two dance floors, and a game room with pool tables and video games.

 

Senior Bar (Alumni-Senior Club) exterior, March 1999

In 2003, Senior Bar was transformed into Legends Restaurant and the lifetime memberships held by alumni were no longer valid.  One side of Legends houses a restaurant open to the public.  The club side is generally used for private parties or student-only events.

 

Sources:
Scholastic
PNDP 10-An
PNDP 30-Al-02
GPHR 45/1366
GSCO 3/93

Corpus Christi

The Feast of Corpus Christi was once one of the most elaborately celebrated religious holidays at Notre Dame.  When the academic year ran through June, clergy, students, faculty, and community members celebrated the holy day with Mass, Vespers, and procession of the Eucharist through campus.  Students decorated the procession path with flowers, banners, flags, and arches.  They sang hymns and the band played as they processed around St. Joseph’s Lake in the 19th century or around the buildings of Main Quad in the 20th century.

Corpus Christi Benediction in front of Walsh Hall –
Revs. T. Maher and Peter Franciscus, CSC, 1910

In the 19th century, the celebrations were so grand that they drew large crowds from the local community.  In 1876, three thousand people participated in the Corpus Christi celebrations, drawing people from as far as sixteen miles away (Scholastic, 06/17/1876).  Scholastic often reported details of the Corpus Christi festivities and below is the account from 1872:

Scholastic article detailing the Corpus Christi
celebrations at Notre Dame, 1872

Elaborate celebrations of Corpus Christi waned over the years.  However, Campus Ministry reinstated an annual Eucharistic Procession through campus several years ago.  These new processions accommodate the current academic calendar, as opposed to being held on the actual Feast of Corpus Christi.  Photos of Eucharistic Processions from the past few years can be found at photos.nd.edu.

Corpus Christi procession leaving the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, c1964

Sources:
Scholastic
GMWA 1/06
GPHR 45/4934

Memorial Day

Memorial Day began as Decoration Day to honor the dead soldiers from the Civil War.  However, it did not become a federal holiday until 1967.  When the academic year used to run through June at Notre Dame, students and faculty members participated in local parades and held ceremonies for the fallen military members of the Notre Dame community at the cemeteries.

Notre Dame Military Companies marching in a Decoration Day (Memorial Day) parade in South Bend, 1913/0530

 The ceremonies at Notre Dame included the recitation of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, addresses by students and patriotic songs, and a requiem mass.  In 1925, Notre Dame created a memorial to her students who died in World War I at the east door of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, which bears the epitaph “God, Country, Notre Dame.”  Through World War II, Memorial Day Masses and ceremonies were held outside of this door.

Memorial Day Ceremony held outside of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart’s World War I Memorial Door, view from above, 1941/0530

The change in the academic year to end in May and the observance of Memorial Day as a national holiday leaves campus rather quiet.

 

Sources:
Scholastic
PNDP 70-Me-01
GMIL 2/04
GDIS 29/02

 

William J. Burke Golf Course

In the Fall of 1929, the William J. Burke Memorial Golf Course in the southwest corner of campus opened for use of Notre Dame students, faculty, clergy, and friends of the University.  The course was donated by Notre Dame Trustee William J. Burke, President of the Vulcan Last Corporation of Portsmouth, Ohio.  Vulcan was involved in a wide variety of industries and its divisions included the Vulcan Golf Company and the Vulcan Aircraft Company.  Burke never played the course – he died suddenly of a heart attack in July 1928.

Aerial view of campus with the Burke Golf Course in the foreground, c1933. Construction of the golf course required the permanent closure of public access to Dorr Road, which ran east to west through South Quad.

Interest in the game began to grow around the turn of the 20th century.  In 1901, a course was created on the north side of St. Mary’s Lake [Scholastic, 05/04/1901, page 522].  In the 1910s, students were known to play on the quad in front of Badin and Bond Halls.  Otherwise, students had to venture off-campus to courses in South Bend.  As with other sports such as baseball, the students organized golf clubs.  The number of interested students continued to grow, which propelled the team to varsity minor sport status in 1923.

Male students playing golf on the Burke Memorial Golf Course with South Dining Hall in the background, c1930s

The 18-hole course was first shortened to accommodate the building of the Rockne Memorial in 1939.  More land was taken in the 1950s for the construction of Pangborn and Fisher Halls.  In 1995, the back nine was sacrificed for the construction of the West Quad dorms – O’Neill, Keough, McGlinn, and Welsh Family Halls.  These new halls became necessary for the displaced male students of Grace and Flanner Halls when they were converted from residential halls to office space.  The women of Siegfried and Knott Halls were moved to McGlinn and Welsh Family to balance the gender mix on West Quad.

Burke Memorial Golf Course – View of the first hole sign post with construction equipment in the background, 1995

 

Sources:
Scholastic
PNDP 30-Go-04
UPCO 9/101-106
GNDL 6/21
GBBY 45G/0559
GSCO 1/63

Notre Dame and Latin America

Part of Notre Dame’s expansion in the second half of the 19th century came from active recruitment of students from Mexico, Cuba, and other parts south of the border.  Considering the high percentage of Catholics among the people in Latin America, it made sense for Notre Dame officials to recruit Latin American students.  According to Arthur J. Hope, “Early in Father [John W.] Cavanaugh’s administration [1905-1919], over 10% of the enrollment was from Latin America.  Notre Dame was one of the pioneers of the ‘Good Neighbor’ policy.”

Detail from a Notre Dame advertisement in Spanish for prospective students from Mexico, 1883

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Notre Dame published advertisements, catalogs, and bulletins in Spanish for prospective students.  Scholastic, the student-run weekly publication, also published issues in Spanish.  By 1885, Notre Dame’s student population was so geographically diverse, it made economic sense to purchase a hotel train car.  Rev. John A. Zahm was chaperone for these trips out West and south to Mexico City.

An author for Scholastic described the influx of these new types of students in 1883:

“A very promising scholastic year has just begun.  The attendance of students is large—fully up to the expectations of the most sanguine friends of the University.  Among them is an unusually large proportion of new students. Many of these are from Mexico and remote parts of the United States.  This is a gratifying evidence of how widely known Notre Dame has become. It is likewise an indication of the confidence reposed in it as an  Institution of high rank and solid merit by persons who live even beyond the limits of the great Mississippi Valley.  This fact is duly appreciated by all friends of the University. But to those more particularly identified with its past and present interests—to those who have watched and labored as it grew up from a humble beginning to the high rank it now holds—there is a source of special gratification in the undoubted assurance of its  prosperous present and more than promising future” [Scholastic, 09/18/1883, page 24].

Latin American Club, 1907-1908 academic year

 While many Notre Dame administrators and professors traveled long distances to escort students to South Bend, Notre Dame also sought recruiting help from alumni and other benefactors.  Sam Keeler was stationed in Havana, Cuba, with the United States Army in 1900 when he received a letter from Sister Aloysius, the director of the Minim program.  He responded that he knew of a perspective student and he would surely pass along a catalog if she would send him one.  Keeler replied that he was “[glad] to do anything that will benefit the school of my younger days.  … I am sure he [the prospective student] will like Notre Dame as I did years ago when I was a boy at St. Edward’s Hall” [UPEL 77/04].

Cuban businessman Carlos Hinze, originally from Prussia, sent his family to Muncie, Indiana, in the late 1890s to escape the dangers of the Spanish-American War while Hinze stayed behind in Havana.  Hinze sent his son Carlos to Notre Dame and daughter to Saint Mary’s Academy.  With his connections in Havana, Hinze became a go-between with the Cuban families and Notre Dame, from recruiting new students to checking in on their progress at Notre Dame.  As a business man, Hinze also asked Notre Dame officials for help in bringing Studebaker to Cuba [UPEL: Hinze].

Letter from William Barrett to University President Andrew Morrissey, 1899/0224.   Barrett visited Carlos Hinze in Havana, Cuba, and he recommended Notre Dame to everyone he met.

Sources:
Scholastic
UPEL
PNDP 05/Hi-01
PNDP 05-Me-01
Notre Dame: 100 Years by Arthur J. Hope

Baseball Clubs

For most of the second half of the 19th century, baseball was the king of sports at Notre Dame.  Games were played in the spring and fall and at special events such as Founder’s Day, Commencement, and field days.  The students organized baseball clubs, complete with directors (usually faculty or staff members) and students filling the traditional officer positions of president, treasurer, and secretary.  An 1894 topographical survey of campus shows five baseball fields and one football field at Notre Dame.  Certainly pick-up games also occurred on good-weather days elsewhere on campus.

Star of the East Baseball Club Team, including John Nester, Crawford, T. Mall (?), McNulty [Anthony or Joseph], and James Rahilly, c1885

Some clubs only lasted a season or two, while others remained organized for many years.  The more successful teams included Juanita, Enterprise, Star of the East, Star of the West, Excelsior, Mutual, Young America, University Reds, and University Blues.  The most famous player to come out of the Notre Dame Baseball Clubs was Adrian Constantine “Cap” Anson, who was a student from 1866-1868 and a member of the Juanita team.

Full page from a scrapbook with a photo of the Minim Baseball Team, 1889, and the University Blues Baseball Club

In the 1890s, Notre Dame assembled a varsity team to compete against teams from other colleges and universities.  The growth of the student population at the end of the 19th century necessitated more dormitories, which transformed the look of intramural athletics at Notre Dame.  Students formed an allegiance to their dorm and their place of residence was a part of their identity.  They formed teams with fellow dorm-mates and took the name of the hall as their team name.  In the early part of the 1900s, competition was fierce between the teams from Sorin, Corby, Carroll, Brownson, and Walsh Halls, as the names of Juanita and and Excelsior faded into the history books.

Star of the West Baseball Club, Champions of Notre Dame, 1872. Individual portraits of Leo McOsker, Samuel Dum, William Dum, Charles Berdel, Brother Camillus, Charles Dodge, Dennis Hogan, Peter Reilly, Charles Hutchings, Benjamin Roberts, Mark Foote, and Frank Arentz [or Arantz]

Sources:
Scholastic
Notre Dame: One Hundred Years by Arthur J. Hope, CSC
GNEG 9A/24:  Topographical Survey Map of Notre Dame Campus, 1894
GFCL 61/06
GSBA 2/18
GMLS 4/01

Memorial Library Topping Out

On April 3, 1962, the last steel girder for the Memorial Library (now Hesburgh Library) was put into place.  As part of the “topping out” ceremony, University President Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC, inscribed the final beam, which was hoisted to the top with an American flag.

Memorial Library “Topping Out” Ceremony, 1962/0403. Rev. Theodore Hesburgh signing the final beam with the Latin phrase for “May the Blessed Mother bless us with her wonderful child.”  At left is Pat Corrie, construction superintendent.

By the 1950s, it was obvious that Notre Dame was outgrowing its library space in Lemonnier Library (now Bond Hall), which opened in 1917.  The Administration contemplated several sites for a new library, including on Main Quad as a replacement of Main Building.  Fortunately, it was decided that the new library would occupy the quad north of Notre Dame Stadium.  This required the removal of the Navy Drill Hall and the Vetville buildings, which began in the summer of 1961.

Memorial Library “Topping Out” Ceremony, 1962/0403 An American flag waves at the top of the steel frame of the building

The Memorial Library, renamed Hesburgh Library in 1987, was open for use in the fall of 1963, although the installation of the “Word of Life” mural was not yet complete.  The library was officially dedicated in May 1964.

Sources:
Scholastic
GPHR 45/4464

175th Anniversary of the Congregation of Holy Cross

On March 1, 1837, in the town of Saint-Croix near Le Mans, France, Blessed Basil Antoine-Marie Moreau joined his band of auxiliary priests with the Brothers of St. Joseph, which was founded by Father Jacques-François Dujarie.  The Vatican officially recognized this group of priests, brothers, and sisters as the Congregation of Holy Cross in 1857.

Portrait of Rev. Basil Moreau, c1860s

In 1841, Moreau sent Rev. Edward Sorin, CSC, from Le Mans, France, to a newly formed diocese in Vincennes, Indiana.  Sorin’s ambition was stifled in Vincennes, so when Bishop Celestine de la Hailandiere conceded to let Sorin establish a college elsewhere in the diocese, he quickly jumped on the opportunity.  As luck would have it, Rev. Stephen T. Badin had sold the Diocese of Vincennes land just north of South Bend, Indiana, in 1835, with the intent of using it for an educational institution.  The land became available to Sorin and upon his arrival in November 1842, he renamed the area Notre Dame du Lac.  After serving as President of the University of Notre Dame for 23 years, Sorin became Superior General of the order in 1868 and served in this position until his death in 1893.  As such, Notre Dame’s history is inevitably an important part of the history of the Congregation of Holy Cross (CSC).

The Notre Dame Archives houses many records concerning the Congregation of Holy Cross and its members, particularly of those who have connections to the University of Notre Dame.  Other notable repositories of Holy Cross materials in the Notre Dame area are the Indiana Province Archives, the Midwest Province of the Brothers’ Archives, and the Sisters’ Archives.

 

Sources:
“Fundamental Act of Unity, March 1, 1837”
“Holy Cross Celebrates 175 Years” by Fr. Arthur J. Colgan, C.S.C. (published 03/01/2012)
“Moreau’s Faith & Vision:  A quick biography of Blessed Basil Moreau, CSC”
“The University of Notre Dame:  A Portrait of Its History and Campus,” by Thomas Schlereth