Interview of Dennis Akin for the Elizabeth V. and George F. Gardner Digital Library Memory Bank. Akin discusses his early life growing up in Iowa as well as his Naval Service in the Korean War, and his career as a professor of Art at Dickinson College. Akin also discusses his views on art and some of the artistic works he has created over the years.
On January 1, 1876, the Alexander’s of Bloserville gave a dinner to celebrate the beginning of America’s Centennial year. One of their guests was so impressed that he sent a letter describing it to the editor of the Carlisle Weekly Herald who published it.
Frederick Watts, a well-known lawyer, judge of the Cumberland County Courts, and Unites States Commissioner of Agriculture, had this to say about his mentor and friend Andrew Carothers:
Carlisle was abuzz when the little old lady hit town. But Carlisle was not that much of a back water place in 1828 to get so excited about the arrival of one frail, fifty-nine year old woman. Who was this woman who caused some of the town's leading citizens to either embrace her with enthusiasm or run and hide?
Several notable paintings and portraits decorate the walls of the President's House of Dickinson College. Two favorites are the portraits hanging in the living room, of John McClintock and his first wife, Caroline Augusta. The portraits were given to the College by the Longacre family of Philadelphia, descendants of Caroline Augusta. Caroline's portrait was painted by Theodore Pine in 1850, when Caroline was thirty-six.
Whitfield Jenks Bell, Jr., (3 December, 1914-2 January, 2009) was born in Newburgh, New York, and grew up in suburban Philadelphia.1 After graduating from Lower Merion High School, he enrolled in Dickinson College, graduating in the class of 1935.
John H. Light, An Infantryman Remembers World Wtzr II. Shippensburg PA: Beidel Printing House, Inc., 1997. vii, 157 pp. Paperback, $10.95.
Even though John Butcher learned to read but couldn’t write and Charlotte Butcher never learned to read or write, all of their children had at least some schooling. Mary Butcher graduated from the colored high school in 1884. She became a seamstress and lived at home with her parents along with two of her sisters-Agnes, a cook; and Hattie, a seamstress.
In 1793 President George Washington laid the cornerstone of the United States Capitol. This event initiated the construction of a building which the statesmen and political leaders of the day hoped would be a grand monument to the democratic ideals of the young nation. To the extent that this first national government building in the Capital City achieved its lofty objective was due to the creativity and vision of Benjamin Latrobe. He served as architect of the United States Capitol from 1803 to 1813 and again from 1815 to 1817.
The life of Charles Francis Himes, professor of physics at Dickinson College from 1865 to 1896, was one of many and varied pursuits. He was a scientist, an educator, and a historian; and with each of these roles his interest and achievements in photography were integrated. In the late twentieth century photography is taken granted. Anyone nowadays can buy a camera and take a picture, regardless of knowledge or skill; development and printing are done commercially; and photographs are used in every discipline.