This Friday is RPI's 4th annual Spirit Day, in which member's of the Rensselaer community are encouraged to show their pride by wearing or displaying RPI gear. We consider spirit everyday here in the Archives where it pervades the memorabilia collections that we house. We have certain items because they say Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute but we don't know who owned them, wore them, or touched them. We simply know that at some point in history certain items had particular significance to someone!

When we provide titles or descriptions to images in our database, they're usually very basic and point out identifiable characteristics of the photo so we can easily retrieve it for patrons or internal use. For example, the description for this image might be "Man using torch in lab."

Image Mystery Image #30 generated an incredible amount of interest!  I'm so pleased it was such a great hit.

Fishing through some unidentified photographs yesterday, I came across a folder labeled "Students" and within it I found this great photograph of a cheering crowd. As I stood above the image smiling (because this photo told me it was the next mystery image), I asked silently, who, what, when, and where? Look at their faces, there's so much intensity, excitement, maybe even dismay, perhaps suspension. This crowd is packed into a space with wood and leather seats, and one gentleman is holding what looks like a program with the Rensselaer seal on it. Hmmmm!

I often browse through old issues of The Polytechnic looking for answers to burning questions. Today's question brought me to the 1925 issues. Sometimes I happen to read headlines, articles or ads that make me smile. Allow me to share my latest find. :)

This is the first installment in a series of profiles on the first civil engineering graduates at RPI.  The very first civil engineering degree was awarded by the Rensselaer Institute in 1835.  Among the first degree recipients, was a guy named Amos Westcott.  Westcott never practiced civil engineering; he taught chemistry for a few years and then entered medical school.  He obtained an M.D.

For the first time in the 145-year history of the Grand Marshal, there is the possibility that an incumbent will serve a second term.  Remarkable?  Perhaps, but it may be useful to put this historic moment into perspective with some past election criteria.  From 1866 to 1970, the Rensselaer Union constitution stated that: "The Grand Marshal and President of the Union shall be members of the Junior class at the time of their elections, having been a student at Rensselaer fo

The Rensseltute Board of Trustees announced today another tuition decrease, following their biennial pattern of such action.  Commenting on the decrease, President T.D. Failsome said, "The Tute is well aware that because of the continuous decline in the cost of running a college today, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find worthy uses of the money received from the students."

I was browsing through some newspapers from this date in history (St. Patrick's Day) and came across an interesting sports article. Since the NCAA men's basketball championship tournament begins this week and our neighbor to the west -- Syracuse University -- is a top seeded team, this headline caught my eye, BASKETBALL TEAM IS BEATEN BY SYRACUSE IN FAST GAME.  It was the last game of RPI's regular season, played on March 11, 1922, at home.

My post regarding big name concerts has been one of the most popular posts on this blog. There are some great comments about concert memories and tips that have led me to more information.  I have referred to "my list" of RPI concerts and it's about time I shared that list!  I put it in a pdf file so the blog is not barraged with extraneous concert searches.  If you remember any of these concerts or have information about concerts not on the list, please leave a comment!