May

A Century Ago: Travel to France with Messrs. Booth and Swanson

May 30, 2023, marks one hundred years since Henry S. Booth and J. Robert F. Swanson returned home from ten months of travel in Europe. Midway through their architecture studies at the University of Michigan, the friends and classmates set off on August 1, 1922 for a “Grand Tour” through Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Tunisia, Italy, France, and England to study and sketch European architecture.

In today’s post, I want to share moments from their journey through France, which is so beautifully documented by Henry’s letters and photographs, and by both of their sketches.

Eglise St. Pierre de Coutances, April 29, 1923, J. Robert F. Swanson. Courtesy of Cranbrook Art Museum.

Arriving in France in March 1923, Harry and Bob journeyed through Nice to Cannes, then through Lyon to the city of Bourges. Henry describes the scenery en route:

“…mountains on the right and the “Cote d’Azure” on the other, flowers overhanging balustraded walls, old olives and tall but easily climbed palms, rocks and breaking waves, and then always the bluest of skies and sea to match, and dazzling sunlight–quite warm and ‘drowsy’.“

At Bourges, they headed for the Cathedral, which they visited several times: at night by the light of gas lamps; in the afternoon sunlight; at dusk with a handful of worshippers on their knees; and then later that evening filled with the faithful.

Cathédrale St. Etiénne de Bourges, March 1923. Henry Scripps Booth, photographer. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.

“It was an inspiring sight—the nave packed, and both the inner and outer aisles (for there are two) on the north side filled also, and not a few on the other side of the church. The light was dim all during the sermon, and when that was over, a quantity of candles were lighted almost instantaneously about the “Host,” and all the electric candles down the nave came on, so that suddenly this great cathedral was changed from a imaginative forrest in the night, to a great cathedral church ablaze with the lights associated with a feast.

“But I thought more of other things than of the architecture that night. The preacher talked too fast for me to understand his French, but I knew what he should have been saying even if he wasn’t…, I looked at the great number of long black vails [sic] everywhere, noticed the lack of men of middle age, and saw many young fellows who are now “heads” of their father’s family standing by their veiled mother’s side.”

They stopped in Tours before taking in the Chateaux of the Loire: from Loche to Langais, Ussé, Villandry and Azey.

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Oct

Collection Highlight: Walter Hickey Papers

Cranbrook Archives is pleased to announce a new collection available for research. An intriguing collection, it comprises the personal and professional papers, photographs, realia, and architectural drawings of Walter Preston Hickey, a student of Eliel Saarinen. Yet, while traces of key life events and relationships—birth, parentage, education, marriage, friends, and employers—can be found in the collection, Hickey’s life after Cranbrook remains largely a mystery.

Walter Hickey working in the Architecture Studio, 1935. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

A native of Detroit, Hickey attended the University of Michigan School of Architecture (1926-1930), during which time he worked with architects Albert Kahn (1928) and Thomas Tanner, as well as being one of the first staff members of the Cranbrook Architectural Office.

*A Transportation Building for a World’s Fair,* circa 1926-1930. A University of Michigan Class Project by Walter Hickey. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

He applied to study architectural design with instruction in city planning at Cranbrook Academy of Art, starting in September of 1932. He became especially interested in highway traffic control, which formed the topic of his 1935 thesis on the Waterfront Development for the City of Detroit. Hickey submitted designs to various Academy competitions and won a $10 prize from Loja Saarinen for design No. 13 in the Cranbrook Academy of Art Rug Competition in 1934.

Drawing by Walter Hickey, undated. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

After leaving Cranbrook, Hickey worked for various architecture firms, including Smith, Hinchman, and Grylls, and Clair W. Ditchy. After a short time with the Federal Housing Administration, he returned to work with Eliel and Eero Saarinen on the Kleinhans Music Hall project. He also completed private architectural designs for residences, including work on Ralph Rapson’s Hoey vacation home, Longshadows, in Metamora, MI. Around this time, he went to work at the General Motors Technical Center and continued to live in Birmingham, Michigan. And here is where his story ends in the collection.

Jane Viola Shepherd. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

Although this is a very small collection, the diversity of content is rewarding for its ability to convey snapshots of his life in individual and unique items. It includes Christmas cards, such as one from “the Lorches” (Emil Lorch was the President of the University of Michigan Architecture School), a few letters from friends, and something of a typed love letter (on Cranbrook Academy of Art letterhead!) from Zoltan Sepeshy’s Secretary Jane Viola Shepherd to whom he was married on April 22, 1937.

Correspondence to Walter Hickey, 1934-1937. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

A small series of photographs hold moments of his life and some of the people with whom he shared it, including his father, eminent roentgenologist (radiography) Dr. Preston Hickey; his wife, Jane; his teacher, Eliel; and his fellow Academy students. A series of snowy scenes of Cranbrook campus beautifully capture the quietness of falling snow with hints of sunlight upon the architecture and sculptures that were then in their infancy and are now historic.

Cranbrook Academy of Art campus, circa 1932-1935. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

The Walter Hickey Papers give insight into a short period in Hickey’s life and the Cranbrook of his time. It also gives us a lovely look into a life that was surely shaped by his experience at Cranbrook, but one that remains yet to be fully discovered.

–Laura MacNewman, Associate Archivist, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research

Jul

A Tale of Two Harriets

One was from Detroit; one was from Pittsburgh. One attended Kingswood School; the other attended the Academy of Art. One was a writer and women’s rights activist; the other was a sculptor, photographer, and social worker. Both were named Harriet Cooper. Both were on Cranbrook’s campus in 1940.

This was the unusual story I uncovered working recently with the Archives’ digital collections. While tagging images with the names of Cranbrook’s staff photographers, who were responsible for the majority of photographs taken at Cranbrook between the years 1931-1970, I came across the name Harriet Cooper. As one of only two female photographers, I attempted to find out more, and in the process discovered a second Harriet Cooper who was also at Cranbrook around the same time.

What were the odds? And more importantly, which was my Harriet? I had to find out, not only for the sake of photographic description, but to satisfy intellectual curiosity about the lives of two seemingly individual Cranbrook women, who shared the same name and once lived in close proximity (temporal and geographic) to each other.

Senior picture of Harriet Cooper in the 1940 yearbook Woodwinds. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research

Harriet Cooper Alpern was born in 1923. A Detroit native, she grew up on Chicago Boulevard in the Boston-Edison District. Attending Kingswood School (her twin brother attended Cranbrook School), she was active in theater and served as a reporter for The Clarion, graduating in 1940. According to the yearbook, Woodwinds, she was the senior voted for having the perfect speaking voice and known for splitting sides with her “unconscious humor.” After Kingswood, Harriet attended the University of Michigan, where her future husband E. Bryce Alpern also attended.

Poem appearing in the 1940 yearbook Woodwinds. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

Aptly quoted in the Kingswood yearbook sighing, “Women’s work is never done,” Harriet spent a lifetime of active involvement in feminist social, economic, and political issues. Among her many accomplishments, she co-founded the Detroit chapter of the National Organization of Women (NOW) in 1969. A freelance writer throughout her life, Harriet used those skills to establish her own media company promoting the women’s movement.

She was not, however, a photographer.

Harriet “Betty” Cooper, 1938. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

Harriet Elizabeth (Betty) Cooper Lundquist was born in Valencia, Pennsylvania in 1916. She grew up in Pittsburgh, daughter of social workers and directors of Kingsley House, a settlement house. Betty attended both Antioch College and Yale University School of Fine Arts before coming to Cranbrook Academy of Art to study sculpture under Carl Milles from 1940 to 1942. While here, she also took classes in metalcraft, modeling, and design.

Untitled entry by CAA student Betty Cooper for the War Department Sculpture Competition, May 1, 1941. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

And, she also took a job with Cranbrook Foundation as a photographer!

Although unknown whether she’d had any previous experience, Betty kept the Photography Department afloat on her own for several weeks during February and March 1942, and then stayed on for another seven months as assistant photographer. After graduation, Betty continued to work as a photographer for the Farm Security Administration in Washington, D.C., where she met and married Oliver Lundquist.

Unattributed, this photograph of the interior of Milles House featuring Carl Milles’ sculpture collection was likely taken by Betty Cooper in February 1942. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

While raising three children during the 1950s and 1960s, Betty was active in civil rights causes, including being a founding member of Women Strike for Peace in 1961. In the early 1970s, she went back to school and earned a graduate degree in social work, practicing her parents’ profession for the next thirty years until retirement.

It just goes to show that even while performing routine (but necessary!) archival tasks, fascinating stories reveal themselves, which provide new depth and understanding of Cranbrook’s people.

– Deborah Rice, Head Archivist, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research

Nov

Discovering the University of Michigan in the collections of Cranbrook Archives

In October, the University of Michigan Osher Lifelong Learning group visited Cranbrook for a lecture, luncheon, and tours of our historic houses, the Art Museum, and Cranbrook Archives. In gathering materials related to the university, I found that my growing archival display began to tell a wonderful story of the early relationship between the Booth family and the University of Michigan, predominantly between 1918 and 1924. The story begins with the friendship of George Booth and Emil Lorch.

Born in Detroit in 1870, Lorch had studied at MIT and Paris, before graduating Master of Arts at Harvard in 1903. In 1906, he arrived at the University of Michigan to establish the School of Architecture, which remained a unit of the School of Engineering until 1931. The correspondence between Booth and Lorch covers a manifold of topics over many years.

Letter from Emil Lorch to George Gough Booth, November 18, 1930. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

On January 11, 1918, George Booth gave an address to the students of the departments of Journalism and Architecture at the university, entitled The Spirit of Journalism and Architecture which focused on the development of the Detroit News business and the new News building, which had been recently completed.

Program for an address, The Spirit of Journalism and Architecture, delivered by George Booth at the University of Michigan, January 11, 1918. Copyright Cranbrook Archives.

Later that year, in October, George’s son, Henry Scripps Booth began his studies in architecture at the university. It was there that he met J. Robert F. Swanson, with whom he traveled Europe for ten months beginning in June 1922, and later established the architectural practice Swanson and Booth between 1924 and 1926. Henry took with him letters of endorsement to help facilitate access to architectural treasures on their journey, including one from Professor Lorch:

Letter of introduction for Henry Booth from Emil Lorch, July 17, 1922. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

Eliel Saarinen arrived at the University of Michigan as a Visiting Professor at the invitation of Emil Lorch the next year, staying from September 1923 through 1925. To extend a warm welcome, Henry wrote, costumed, and performed in a pageant in honor of Saarinen. Many of Henry’s classmates performed in the pageant, including Ralph Calder and J. Robert F. Swanson, who also designed the program. The event took place on December 8, 1923, in the Michigan Union ballroom. Many of the members of the Michigan Society of Architects and the Michigan branch of the American Institute of Architects were present. During the dinner, George G. Booth made the principal address of welcome to Eliel.

Program for A Pageant of Arts and Crafts, a Reception for Eliel Saarinen, program design by J. Robert F. Swanson, December 1923. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

Interior of the program. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

Henry and Robert graduated from the University of Michigan in 1924. Graduating with them was Ralph Calder, who was also one of the first two students to win the George G. Booth Traveling Fellowship, with which he traveled to England, France, and Italy. The fellowship continues to this day. Calder was among the original staff of the Cranbrook Architectural Office, working on Cranbrook School and Thornlea House. He later went on to design many buildings for colleges and universities in Michigan, including Michigan State University, Western Michigan University, Wayne State University, Hope College, and Hillsdale College.

Letter concerning the Booth Traveling Fellowship from the first recipient Ralph Calder to George G. Booth, June 12, 1924. Notice the Michigan logo on the letterhead. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

In another Cranbrook connection, Ralph Rapson submitted a Fellowship entry in 1938, and, while he didn’t win, his submission impressed Eliel Saarinen so much that Rapson was given a scholarship to the Art Academy.

Ralph Rapson’s submission to the George G. Booth Traveling Fellowship, AD.26.01.03. Ralph Rapson Architectural Drawing Collection, Cranbrook Archives. Gift of Rip Rapson.

There is much more in our collections about the University of Michigan; this post has selected items covering only the early years. In preparing for the Osher tour, I realized that, while the contents of processed archival collections remain the same, what we find in them depends on the question being asked. The collections of George G. Booth, Henry S. Booth, the Cranbrook Foundation, Swanson Associates, Inc. are among the most highly used and yet there is always something new to learn, something wonderful to discover.

— Laura MacNewman, Associate Archivist

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Dec

Cranbrook Sons Head Off to School

Each year, the Center for Collections and Research has the pleasure of decorating George Booth’s office at Cranbrook House for the holidays. This year, I went with a theme of Cranbrook sons heading off to college.

Overview of the Center for Collections and Research display at Cranbrook House for Holiday Splendor 2018.

I was inspired by a recent visit to Cranbrook by Warren Booth’s daughter Dorothy (fondly known as Blammy) and her family entourage. The fourth of five children of Warren and Alice Newcomb Booth, as a young girl Blammy lived at Cranbrook House’s Tower Cottage.

Blammy’s grandson (and George and Ellen Booth’s great-great-grandson, and my college friend) Riley was along for the tour. He told me about having Warren’s Yale blazer and Warren’s amazing Raccoon coat. I thought it would be great to return the blazer to Cranbrook for display.

Warren Scripps Booth’s 1916-S Yale Blazer. Courtesy of Riley Scripps Ford.

Looking in Cranbrook Archives for what might compliment Warren’s Yale blazer, I found this amazing 1907 illustration by James Scripps Booth for the yearbook of Detroit University School. The oldest child of George and Ellen Booth, James was an artist, engineer, writer, philosopher and inventor. Although he shows a college student with his pipe and pennants, surrounded by books, James himself did not attend college.

James Scripps Booth’s illustration for Detroit University School, 1907. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

The first Booth to go to college was the middle child, Warren Scripps Booth. He moved to Cranbrook with his parents in 1908 and studied at the University School in Detroit. Around 1909, he headed east to the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey. After his 1912 graduation, he studied with the Sargent Travel School for a year.

Warren Scripps Booth’s entry in the Yale Class of 1916-S Yearbook. Courtesy of Riley Scripps Ford.

Enrolling at Yale in 1913, Warren studied civil engineering at the Sheffield Scientific School (the “S” on his blazer—at the time, undergraduates were divided between the four-year Yale College and the three-year Sheffield Scientific School). After graduating in 1916, Warren served as a U.S. Army Captain of Field Artillery in World War One, and saw action at Meuse-Argonne, Metz, France. After the war, he served as president of The Evening News Association and Booth Newspapers, as well as on many Cranbrook boards. Warren, his wife Alice, and their five children lived next door to Cranbrook at a house fondly called “NoBrook.”

The Booth’s youngest son Henry began his education at the Liggett School, but after the family moved to Cranbrook he was educated at home. He matriculated at the Asheville School in North Carolina for high school and returned north in 1918 to study architecture at the University of Michigan. While an undergraduate, Henry traveled extensively through Europe with his friend and classmate J. Robert F. Swanson, and in his final year in Ann Arbor, studied with Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen.

Henry Scripps Booth’s Michigan scrapbook, 1924, in foreground. J. Robert F. Swanson scrapbook, 1924, rear. Cranbrook Archives.

A page from Henry’s Michigan scrapbook, 1924. Cranbrook Archives.

For the holiday display, I included Henry’s college scrapbook showing some of his many talents and activities. Bob Swanson had the same scrapbook (much less filled!) and I included it in the display to show the lovely maize “M” on the cover.

Finally, I jumped forward in time to another Cranbrook family who sent their son off to college. Son of distinguished Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen, Eero immigrated to the U.S. with his family in 1923. The Saarinens moved to Cranbrook in 1925 to help realize the Booths’ vision of an educational and arts community.

A talented artist from a young age, after graduating from Baldwin High School Eero studied sculpture in Paris’ Académie de la Grande Chaumière for one year before enrolling at Yale’s School of the Fine Arts in 1931. I included a reproduction of one of Eero’s drawing from Yale, resting on George Booth’s drafting table.

“A Residence for a College Dean,” Eero Saarinen, 1931. In this student project, Eero’s use of an open floor plan, symmetrical furniture layouts, textiles, torchieres, and telescoping design elements all mirror his father’s designs for Saarinen House here at Cranbrook. Notice the “H.C.” written in red crayon: this stands for Hors Concours, or not competing. In the strict Beaux-Arts methodology of Yale’s architecture program, this project did not pass muster to be considered for a prize! Original drawing courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.

At Yale, he took a wide variety of coursework: design, freehand drawing, engineering mechanics, history, economics, and scenic design. Even in his first year, his student work earned national recognition in architecture magazines. Eero also took a course on “Archaeology Research” with Raymond Hood (the architect who took first prize over Eliel Saarinen in the Chicago Tribune Tower competition of 1922).

Detail of “A Residence for a College Dean,” Eero Saarinen, 1931.

Saarinen heartily embraced college life, including serving on the Decorating Committee of the student Beaux-Arts Ball. Though he excelled in the student architectural competitions, Eero almost always came just short of winning the First Medal, earning him the nickname Second-Medal Saarinen. His thesis project in the spring of 1934 received the international silver medal of the Société des Architectes Diplômés par le Gouvernement.

Along with many of his classmates, after Yale Eero entered the Office of Strategic Services (a precursor to the CIA), where he designed graphics for defusing bombs as well as underground bunkers, including the White House’s “situation” or war room.

Charles Eames shares cigarettes with Eero Saarinen and Warren Booth at the opening of the 1939 Cranbrook Academy of Art Faculty Exhibition. Perhaps Eero and Warren were chatting about their happy bygone days in New Haven? Photograph courtesy of Cranbrook Archives. “Souvenir of Yale” plate, c. 1910, courtesy of the author.

Eero returned to Bloomfield Hills in 1936 to work with his father and brother-in-law, J. Robert F. Swanson. After Eliel’s death in 1950, Eero set up his own office. Among his many significant projects were a handful of university buildings: dormitories for Brandeis University in Boston, the law quadrangle at the University of Chicago, the North Campus and the school of music for the University of Michigan, the entire campus of Concordia College in Fort Wayne, Indiana, dormitories at Vassar, and two Residential Colleges and the hockey rink for his alma mater Yale. At the time of his premature death in 1961, Eero was also serving as Yale’s campus planner.

I’m grateful for the many stories Blammy and her family shared with me on our tour of Cranbrook earlier this Fall, and to Riley for lending us another piece of Cranbrook history to share with guests to Cranbrook House this holiday season.

– Kevin Adkisson, 2016-2019 Collections Fellow, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research (…and Yale Class of 2012)

Oct

Upcoming Day Away: Albert Kahn and the University of Michigan

Henry Scripps Booth, photographer. Pleasures of Life, Vol. IV. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

In this 1919 photo taken by Henry Scripps Booth of his two friends and architecture classmates Fred Morse and Martin Lexen, they’re all hanging out (and almost off of!) the roof of the University of Michigan’s brand new General Library by architect Albert Kahn. I found this snapshot in volume four of Booth’s Pleasures of Life series, which has lots of great images of the Booths at Cranbrook and of his friends at the university (where Henry studied from 1918- 1924). The building they’re sitting on here, known as the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library since 1971, figures prominently in the Center for Collections and Research’s next Day Away trip on October 28!

Dedication of the new (Hatcher) library building, 1920. Henry Scripps Booth’s Scrapbook Album, Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

While we won’t be quite so daring as to dangle our feet off the roof, you are invited to join the Center as we explore Albert Kahn’s architecture at University of Michigan. Best known for his industrial architecture in and around Detroit (and of course Cranbrook House), this tour will introduce you to his academic buildings. The day includes morning lectures followed by in-depth tours of five Kahn structures (including rarely accessible spaces like the carillon in Burton Memorial Tower), all interspersed with narrated walks and drives.

I should mention, though, that the Day Away won’t just be about touring. We’ll stop for a delicious lunch at Taste Kitchen, an acclaimed new restaurant by owner and chef Danny Van. It came highly recommended by friends of the Center, and we’re very happy Van has designed a three course meal, with optional drink pairings, just for us.

Henry Scripps Booth, photographer. Pleasures of Life, Vol. IV. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

In this photo, we see Booth’s friend Fred’s “long, lankey and lean” body around a street sign—with assistance from the bottom-half of another Cranbrook luminary and friend of Henry, J. Robert F. Swanson.* The photo shows the two goofing around on a road outside of Ann Arbor. For this post’s purposes, I’ll imagine they’re on the very route we’ll be taking from Cranbrook to Ann Arbor on October 28! There shouldn’t be any dangerous curves on our trip, though it’s guaranteed to be informative, delicious, and fun. Call and get your tickets today!

*Did you know Booth and Swanson met studying architecture at U of M, where they also encountered a certain visiting professor, Eliel Saarinen?

-Kevin Adkisson, Collections Fellow, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research

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Jul

Out From the Shadows #2: Colonel Edwin S. George

Many years ago, when I worked at the Oakland County Pioneer and Historical Society, I came across a man named Edwin S. George in reference to his home, “Cedarholm,” which he built in 1923 in Bloomfield Hills, and is now a part of Kirk in the Hills Presbyterian Church.

What many people do not realize is the colonel’s long-standing connection to Cranbrook. Recently, while searching for photographs for a researcher, I stumbled upon the negative of a stocky, kind-looking man standing by a grove of trees. Fortunately, early Cranbrook photographers kept great records and I was able to look up the subject on the index of negatives in the archives, and it is indeed a photo of Colonel George.

Colonel Edwin S. George, Apr 1930. W. Bryant Tyrell, photographer.

Much can be read about the Colonel’s acumen as an influential Detroit businessman and philanthropist, and there is no doubt that he and George Booth knew one another in Detroit. However, once they both moved to Bloomfield Hills, the relationship grew. The colonel organized the Bloomfield Hills Country Club of which Booth was a founding member, and both men were members of the Bloomfield Open Hunt Club. In 1912, Colonel George became one of the stockholders in the Bloomfield Hills Seminary (the pre-cursor to Brookside School) established by George Booth, and in 1926, the two men worked together to bring a post-office to the then Village of Bloomfield Hills.

Cranbrook School students with Colonel George (seated), The Edwin George Reserve, Sep 1930. W. Bryant Tyrell, photographer.

But certainly the most important contribution Colonel George made to Cranbrook was through the Institute of Science. In 1930, the colonel became a member of the Institute’s first Board of Trustees, a position he held until just before his death in 1950. That same year, he donated 1,250 acres of land near Pinckney, Michigan to the University of Michigan to be used not as a public park, but as an educational resource for University of Michigan students, scout troops, and Cranbrook School students. Known as “The Edwin George Reserve,” it featured hiking trails, streams and a small lake, stables, outbuildings, a gate lodge, and even an airstrip. Colonel George also stocked the reserve with wildlife including deer brought from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and antelope from Alberta, Canada. The colonel wanted the boys to have “an appreciation of the truer values of life as expressed by the truth in Nature,” and provided a place for them to do so.

So, while we have no direct proof that Booth and the colonel discussed the virtues of nature as education, it sure seems to me that they had a lot more in common than we previously thought!

– Leslie S. Edwards, Head Archivist

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Sep

Friday in the Reading Room

As part of outreach and education here in the Archives, today we hosted graduate students who are taking a course called, “Modern Michigan” at the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. The course covers the work of various architects between 1900-1960 and throughout the semester the class visits landmark sites in the area, including the GM Tech Center, the Packard Plant, Herman Miller, and Cranbrook (among others). We pulled a variety of architectural drawings and sketches from our collection for the students to view and ask questions. As a relatively new member of the Archives staff, I find these visits very rewarding. The students and instructors bring new perspectives and additional information that adds a new dimension to my knowledge of our collections.